Five days ago I hoped that Fred Thompson’s precipitous drop in the Rasmussen tracking poll was a trough, and it looks like it was. However Thompson’s recovery has not come at the expense of Rudy Giuliani’s surge.
Based on my crude eyeballing of the trends, lacking any of the in-depth data I’m sure Rasmussen subscribers get, I have to susepct that McCain and Romney briefly benefited from voters shifting from Thompson and Giuliani, but then Thompson rebounded after the debate, while Giuliani took off with some previously undecided voters.
It makes me wonder if the leading issues here are fears of Hillary Clinton combined with the belief that Rudy Giuliani is best equipped to defeat her in the general election, rather than Republicans actually picking a candidate they want, because except for the latest fundraising news, I don’t understand what could be driving this trend.
And of course, all this could be just rationalized nonsense derived from noise in a public opinion poll.