From this article and many others:

Last week in New Hampshire, McCain hit Mitt Romney on the question of who was a more reliable conservative. Today, he moved the debate to a question of experience, and he put his national security credentials up against the executive backgrounds his main rivals.

“I think it’s great to have been mayor of a big city. I think it’s great to have been governor of a state,” McCain said. “I think it’s important that I’ve been part of every national security issue since. … My qualifications I think make me far more qualified. I’m not saying anyone’s disqualified, I’m saying I’m more qualified.”

Also back in New Hampshire after a hiatus was the “Straight Talk Express.” On board, McCain expanded on his critique of Romney from Sunday night’s debate, in which he said the former governor was trying to fool voters. “He spent about a year fooling people about his record, I’m not gonna let him fool people about my record,” McCain explained. “That was a strong statement because a big part of my legitimacy is my consistent, conservative, reliable record. … He has changed his positions on virtually every issue.”

Is it just me, or does everyone else notice that Sen. Thompson is the only one in the top tier that Sen. McCain isn’t going after with a fervor? Is he going after those whom he sees as the true dangers to the GOP primary field, Mayor Giuliani and Governor Romney (with a personal emphasis on Romney), all the while keeping an eye on endorsing Fred Thompson should he (McCain) drop out of the race?

I know this isn’t that much of an eye-opener, since Thompson backed McCain in the 2000 primaries and the two Senators served together in the Senate. But it is pretty darn glaring at this point that McCain unloads on Giuliani and Romney and says not a peep about Thompson.

And yes, I know, later in the article just linked is also the story of Fred losing a New Hampshire operative to Mr. McCain - my thought on that is that the Thompson campaign is not looking to compete in NH, at least not by the lack of action we’ve seen there. His focus seems to be on Iowa, Florida, South Carolina (of course) and Georgia and the rest of the South. I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, to intentionally forego states, but President Bush won the nomination just fine in 2000 after losing New Hampshire so it’s obviously not a deal-breaker to miss out on that contest.

Ramesh Ponnuru sums up Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee [Ramesh Ponnuru]

He seems to combine some of Pat Buchanan’s bad ideas with some of George W. Bush’s. He’s the protectionist compassionate conservative. No thanks.

Right on. No further explanation needed.