I concur with a great deal of this analysis by Leon Wolf, formerly of the Brownback campaign:
So what has happened is that there are a lot of people who were supporting, say, Tancredo, Hunter, Brownback, Huckabee, whoever – who are waking up to the reality of a Rudy/Fred/Romney race. And while they may have really, really, really liked their guy, and really wanted him to talk about immigration/life/spending/whatever, the one thing a lot of these people have in common is that their greatest fear is a Rudy nomination. And while Fred/Romney not be their first choice – or even their fifth or sixth choice, Rudy’s not on their list of choices at all.
And that’s pretty much where we are today. The Rudy supporters are probably not going to like the next couple of months, as the attacks on Rudy begin in earnest, but they should be aware that they are coming. And the closer we get to the actual primaries, as more and more people leave the second-tier candidates to support the first-tier guys, the worse it is going to get in terms of the scrutiny of Rudy’s record.