Will Fred go after Rudy?

John Podhoretz posits that Fred Thompson is following such a similar strategy to that of Rudy Giuliani by pursuing a national strategy that downplays Iowa and New Hampshire and targeting the super Tuesday states that will be voting after the early states. So, in order to win the national vote, Fred Thompson will have to bring Rudy down.

In a multi-candidate race, it can backfire to start attacking the frontrunner. The benefits can rebound towards one of the other candidates rather than the attacker. Both men would do better to try to win GOP voters by demonstrating that they have the chops to take on the Democratic candidate. I suspect that a lot of Republican primary voters will be voting for the guy they think can do the best job of defeating Hillary Clinton. Right now it's not clear that either of these men have the advantage there. But attacking each other will just soften up the eventual victor for the Clinton campaign.