Can Rudy Still Make It?

Rasmussen's latest four-day track has Rudy in third place (but only 2 percent behind the leader). All five leading candidates in that poll come in between 12 percent and 17 percent, which says to me that anyone has a chance to win.

And that's all I would give Rudy at this stage. In the past, strategies that have relied on total delegate count have generally been undone by results in relatively low-delegate states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The Rudy memo argues that the old rules don't apply this year, and maybe that's true. There does seem to be something really weird about 303,000,000 Americans subcontracting much of the decision-making over who will be the next president to some 200,000 caucusgoers in Iowa and 400,000 primary voters in New Hampshire. Maybe Rudy will have the resources and the megaphone to make his argument over the heads of the early contest winners. Or maybe the early contests will produce enough muddle that the national race will end up where Rasmussen has it now—and the Rudy people certainly are correct in saying that they're likely to exceed their national percentage in several of the big states voting January 29 and February 5.