Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Nine months before the first primary, and the two front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination don't even have majority support among Republican likely voters if you added their support together. And the third alleged member of what the media portrays as the "Big Three" in the crowded GOP field isn't even running in third place, according to the latest CNN poll. He's running in fourth place, behind someone who as of this writing isn't even running.

Meanwhile, the support for "Anybody but Giuliani, McCain or Romney" appears to be growing 

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll out today, when asked whom they would most likely support for the Republican nomination, 25 percent of people who identified themselves as Republicans or leaning Republican cited former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and 23 percent cited Arizona's U.S. Sen. John McCain. Only 10 percent said they backed former Massachussets Gov. Mitt Romney, which put him three points behind former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who hasn't officially entered the race. (Full Poll Results [PDF])

The CNN Opinion Research Corporation telephone poll was carried out Friday through Sunday and included 414 registered voters who described themselves as Republicans or as independents who lean Republican

Romney's 10 percent is only one point better than the nine percent for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, another possible but undeclared candidate. The rest of the field includes: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 3 percent; Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore each with 2 percent; former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and California Rep. Duncan Hunter each with 1 percent, while 8 percent had no opinion.

My take on the poll: it's a not great news for McCain but it is a very big disaster for Giuliani and Romney. Here's why...

Giuliani's support dropped two points from the same poll in mid-April, while McCain's support dropped by a point. Romney's held steady at 10 points. But Rudy losing two points isn't the story, this is: The Giuliani surge is over - two months ago in the same poll he was at 34 percent. Two months ago, though, Fred Thompson indicated he might run, and the air started whooshing out of Giuliani's balloon. Giuliani's main selling point - aside from his leadership, his post-9/11 image and his success running NYC - has always been that he's a candidate widely thought to be able to win in November, something that many Republican voters apparently don't quite believe about McCain, Romney or the rest of the announced field.

Fred Thompson also is viewed as a guy who can win in November - and his conservative views and voting record are more in tune with more Republican primary voters than are Giuliani's. Fred's interest in the race undermined Giuliani's key selling point.

Meanwhile, the media-expected Romney surge never started - he was at 9 points two months ago, he's at 10 points now. Only his fund-raising prowess keeps him in the top tier in the mind of the media.

As for McCain, his support for "the surge" in Iraq may have stopped his campaign's downward surge - he was at 30 percent in mid-November and 18 percent two months ago as Giuliani's numbers shot upward. He's at 23 percent now. He may overtake Giuliani soon - but more because Giuliani is falling.

Meanwhile, the support for "Anybody but Giuliani, McCain or Romney" appears to be growing. In mid-November, those three combined had 72 percent of the support in the CNN/Opinion Research poll. This month: 58 percent. Of that 14-point decline, 13 points went to Fred Thompson.

If you look at the numbers, you realize that Fred Thompson is well positioned to take over the GOP field if, as expected, he enters the race in June.

Let's do a little hypothetical math. Support for Fred Thompson, Gingrich, Gilmore, Huckabee Tancredo, Tommy "The Other" Thompson, Hunter, and Paul can pretty much be summarized as people who are not big fans of the media-anointed "Big Three" of Giuliani, McCain and Romney. And it's a big protest vote - 34 percent, which is 9 points ahead of Giuliani, 11 points ahead of McCain, and 24 points ahead of Romney.

Fred Thompson is well-positioned to pick a lot of ground, fast, as the rest of the "Not the Big Three" field begins to drop out of the race. Thompson is also the natural heir to Gingrich's support if Gingrich declines to run. (And many political observers believe that, if Fred runs, Newt won't.)

Now, Romney could win over some of those supporters - his campaign is predicated upon winning over social conservatives, of course. But what if Romney can't close the deal? Except good poll numbers in New Hampshire, where Romney has always been expected to do well, there is little evidence his fund-raising prowess is translating into support from voters. If Romney can't seal the deal soon,

Simply put - Thompson is more likely than any other candidate to gain most of the support from the also-rans as they, almost inevitably, drop out. Even Ron Paul's support as Fred Thompson, like Paul, believes in a federalist approach to government.