Getting stronger :)

Fred Thompson seems to be catching on to the surge of Huckabee, if not outshining it.

While you can't see this in individual polls really well (he has been dipping 3 or 4 percentage points in the last few weeks - though the same can be said for most of the candidates), you can tell by rank.
A few weeks back he was holding a steady 3rd or 4th place in the nationals. Now he is going up, and quickly. It doesn't matter which of the other candidates flip-flop for 1st or 2nd, he is always in the top 3.
In fact, many of the polls say he now holds a very solid second place, with Giuliani being in first but dropping from 38% of the votes down to 25-28%, in just one month.

Fred came in late, but immediately shot up in the polls. Huckabee came out of nowhere, but hasn't risen as fast, as some people still don't know where he stands on important issues. I am no longer one of those people. I had him as my number 2 candidate, up until I really checked into his beliefs and voting record (I'll post some things about Mike Huckabee soon).
He is now down in one of the lower spots on my personal rankings, above only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.

Whether he is a good candidate or not, conservative or liberal, honest or flip-flopping, I expect Huckabee's "reign of momentum" to level out fairly quickly, once his views get out enough.

Fred, on the other hand, has been staying in the 16-23% range of votes the entire campaign, based on some polls here.
Which means he is not likely to dip too far below those numbers, unless he really makes a slip-up of disastrous proportions.
Some have even been placing him within single digits of Giuliani for a while.

We'll have to see what happens in the next few weeks.
Personally I hope Fred wins, but here are my overall rankings of the GOP candidates:

1. Fred Thompson
2. Duncan Hunter (what can I say? He has the most conservative voting record in his years in Washington D.C. of any of the candidates, he wants to bring our manufacturing jobs home, he wants to finish the fence on the border between us and Mexico, and he seems very pro-Israel.)
3. John McCain (too liberal for my taste, but less liberal than Giuliani)
   
4. Rudy Giuliani (don't like his more liberal views, but agree with his stances on the war on terror and Israel, and he has a better shot at this than the remaining candidates below)
5. insert most of the remaining GOP candidates here
6. and here
7. and here
8. Mike Huckabee (I'll be posting why Mike is not a good candidate in another post)
   
9. Mitt Romney (hate his liberal views, and his flip-flopping)
10. Ron Paul (has least conservative voting record of candidates, isolationist, and others - will post more later)

Go Fred Go!!!