Okay, now that we're getting into the thick of things I thought I'd take a look at the consensus views of those willing to put some money on the line with their predictions. Here's a graph of the latest results, not including today, from the Iowa Political Markets GOP nomination market.

Now, the graph's small. But Blue is Rudy, Green is Romney, and Red is some other candidate than the ones they're currently taking bids on. Today I think they started trading in Huckabee. But this was yesterday. So you could only buy Rudy, Romney, McCain and Thompson. And you can see the basic trend. Until about two weeks ago it was basically Rudy and Romney, with Rudy consistently ahead.

First Romney starts to fall; then Rudy. By yesterday "some other candidate" was trading five points ahead of Romney and five points behind Rudy.