Here’s where I see this race today: it’s still Rudy v. Romney with Rudy starting to exert a key advantage Ramesh Ponnuru wrote about a while back: Rudy has most of the rightwing pundits on his side. When Romney talks about crime, George Will and Deroy Murdock can take him on. Romney, however, seems to have more grassroots passion.

But, I think we might just see a turn in the cycle ahead. Romney and Huckabee are battling it out in Iowa while Romney and Rudy are battling it out in New Hampshire and everywhere else. That provides opportunities to Fred in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire.

I think we’re already seeing that shape up. Fred has reached that interesting point where none of the other campaigns take him seriously, yet he’s starting to make inroads in Iowa against Huckabee, who can’t afford to spend too much time fighting off Fred when he’s trying to unseat Romney.

In New Hampshire, McCain, long ago written off, is seizing the Rudy v. Romney battle to make some inroads with independents, most of whom will still vote Democrat in 2008, and restore some ground lost with Republicans who just might get tired of the Rudy v. Romney fight, see e.g. Gephardt v. Dean in 2004 in Iowa.

There’s not much insight in this post, admittedly, but I think it’s worth pointing out again that this race is still wide open. If Fred and John play their cards right, they just might restore serious viability to their campaigns. And then, on the bright side, we just might have to spend several more months hearing Fred talk about federalism and John talk about “Warshington.”

Of course, at what point do Fred and John hurt each other?