Here are some thoughts from someone who is thinking like me:

Fred Thompson would appear to still have an opening, however small, in this race. McCain is on the rise in this race but he has not sewn it up by any means.

Romney has the money, the delegates and now the poll numbers in Florida to make a race of this. If Fred Thompson leaves the race now, in its still very fluid form, not only does he embolden McCain’s challengers, he robs himself of the opportunity to be power broker or possibly a consensus candidate at a Republican National Convention.

With the exceptions of Huckabee and McCain, I want to see everyone stay in the race as long as possible, if Thompson can't get enough momentum to win it before the convention. In the hypothetical, I think that Huckabee's voters go to Thompson, and McCain's go to Giuliani, but Thompson will get his share as well. Particularly if he gets McCain's endorsement.

I absolutely think that Fred should stay in and said so with a donation today.

If there is no majority by the convention and it goes to a brokered convention then all bets are off. The delegates don't have to limit their choices to those who went through the primaries and caucuses. Anybody could end up as the candidate for president.

With the compressed primary calendar I don't think it makes sense for anyone to drop out at least until Feb 5. (I'm talking about real candidates - no tears will be shed over Duncan Hunter.) Stick around for two weeks and see what happens on Super Tuesday.

I think they should all stay in, until after Super Tuesday, then re-evaluate. Thompson should stay until the end, the idea of a brokered convention is not in the least far fetched.

I may send more $$$ to Fred fer Prez on payday. "Fer" is how they say it in TN after all.

Fred should stay in because we need something to hope for. The prospect of a general election pitting McCain against Clinbama is depressing.

Thompson's fourth in number of delegates so far, polling fourth in South Carolina, polling fifth in Florida and nationally, and (see e.g. the trend lines at pollster.com) the best you can say about his "momentum" is that even though his polling numbers are sinking, Giuliani's are sinking so fast that Thompson may be back in fourth nationally by Super Tuesday.

A brokered convention looks possible and so Thompson may want to stay in until the end, but when four other candidates are polling twice as high as your own candidate, the realistic question to ask about that convention isn't "whose delegates do we get", it's "who gets our delegates".

On the other hand, perhaps Thompson is the "compromise candidate" everyone can be happy with, but we just don't know this because none of the polls ever ask "Who is your second place choice?" That's kind of odd, as an aside. There are significant obstacles to switching our elections from "first-past-the-post" to a ranked preference system, but why not switch our polls?

Actually, I'm waiting for someone to start channeling Curtis Mayfield... cos' "Freddie's Dead."

Steve is correct, nobody should leave until after Super Tuesday. Regardless of what they say in the media and regardless of the number of primaries pushed ahead this year, nobody is dead until after Super Tuesday. The words of Dylan Thomas apply to Fred here "Do not go gently into that final good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light."

nobody is dead until after Super Tuesday

He's going to look like John Elway in the 1990 Super Bowl.

Thompson is doing better than Edwards so why not stay in?

Campaigns are intended to provide some insight into a potential president's future organization and leadership skills. If they cannot manage a good campaign, how can we expect them to manage something much larger, like the Exec Branch?

Thompson has run a pretty lousy campaign. He waited way too long to get into the race, he squandered all the positive buzz that he had before he got in, and nobody is voting for him. He also said that he would drop out if he did not do well in SC and now he's flip-flopping on that statement. There's no reason for him to continue. Of course, there's no reason for him to drop out either, but if that's the best you can say about him--that he is irrelevant and nothing matters--then how could you ever expect him to compete in the general election?

You don't have to switch your loyalties to another candidate, but you should drop this illusion, otherwise, you're no different than a Ron Paul supporter.

No where did Fred say that he would drop out if he did not do well in SC. Please point to where he said that.

The last two paragraphs of this link are pertinent to this discussion:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTIxYTMwMDJjZjQ2YTIxNTRhZGUxMmE0ZTQyMDA0Nzg=

http://www.palmettoscoop.com/2008/01/08/thompson-says-sc-is-must-win/

In the link above, Fred doesn't quite say he'll drop out or that SC was a must win state, but he almost does.

He did say "[SC] is where I make my stand."

He also said this (text copied from the above link):

The former Tennessee senator told GreenvilleOline.com,
“I’m staking an awful lot on South Carolina.”

Asked what he needed here in the Jan. 19 primary after a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and a potential third or fourth place finish in today’s New Hampshire primary,
Thompson said, “It might be first place.”

To a question about whether his campaign could survive anything less,
Thompson said, “It may well turn out to be that way.”

So in other words, he thought South Carolina would be very important, but he didn't promise anything about dropping out. Hence, this isn't an example of flipflopping.

Karl, yes, I can't find any evidence of a promise. Not that this issue is important, or even an "issue", but I was curious, so I looked for a quote and didn't find one.

He did say ""I'm proud to say I am drawing a line in the sand in South Carolina."

It is hard to know what he meant by that, but it is probably a safe guess that he wasn't bragging about his artistic abilities.