Chris Cillizza argues, pretty persuasively, that right now, “The Republican field is all-but-ceding the Iowa caucuses to Mitt Romney.”

A little while back, Romney’s guy Kevin Madden attributed his man’s lead as

the result of a balanced outreach effort: Strong organization and voter contact efforts, frequent travel, dozens of town halls, earned media and paid messaging efforts have all had an impact. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re encouraged, especially since we built our current position in Iowa from scratch, having started in the single digits and moved into strong position at the top of the field of candidates.

In light of this, I wonder if it would be worthwhile for Fred Thompson to make an all-out, or at least heavy-duty push to win Iowa. If Romney loses Iowa, it’s more or less all over for him; to lose Iowa after winning the straw poll and leading in the Hawkeye state for so long, he would resemble this year’s New York Mets. Thompson’s already doing a decent second place in Iowa in the most recent poll by the Des Moines Register, so why not try to knock off one of the top two competitors right out of the box? Even coming within a few points of Romney in Iowa would solidify Thompson’s position; he would be able to obviously or subtly skip or downplay New Hampshire (which would be a dogfight between Romney, Giuliani, and maybe McCain) and then win South Carolina.

If nobody really takes a shot at knocking Romney from the throne in Iowa, Thompson’s then dependent on Giuliani or McCain beating Romney in New Hampshire – where he’s the former governor of the neighboring state. The race isn’t quite over if Romney wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, but he’ll sure have a big leg up on his competitors.