National Right to Life endorses Thompson, confirms the hopeless division of the Religious Right

Today, the National Right to Life, the biggest anti-abortion group in the country with over 3000 local chapters, endorsed Fred Thompson's candidacy. This is a big boost for Thompson, as it places him back in the news, as he had been pushed aside for a while. It is also bad news for Mitt Romney, whose strategy of courting the social conservative base has grown much weaker in recent weeks. And thus, this is also good news for Rudy as the Religious Right is giving up its ability to dethrone him.

Remember when social conservatives looked like they would throw everything they had to stop Rudy Giuliani's nomination? And they soon started lining up around Mitt Romney, in an attempt to coalesce around a candidate that can take down Rudy. That was only a month ago, but so much has changed since then. The Giuliani camp started pushing back and courted social conservatives to at least get them to stay neutral... and hit the jackpot last week with the endorsement of Pat Robertson.

Meanwhile, the Religious Right is no longer coalescing around Mitt Romney. Last week, Sam Brownback endorsed John McCain, and Dobson was rumored to be preparing to rally behind Huckabee. Though Dobson vehemently denied this, it is undeniable that Huckabee has picked up significant social conservative support in Iowa in recent weeks. And today, Thompson picked-up a major endorsement as well. Divided, social conservatives cannot hope to stop Rudy Giuliani -- and this is precisely Giuliani's hope anyway. In a four person race, he only needs a maximum of 30% to win; as long as the other candidate divide up the Right's support, he is safe in this respect.

A quick word, to conclude, on Fred Thompson, who has been suffering in the past few weeks. He came in sixth in two NH polls over the week-end, and he stumbled for second to fifth in yesterday's FL poll. Rasmussen's daily tracking numbers confirm this stunning collapse: He had been consistently second for months... Yesterday, Thompson stumbled down to 12%, his lowest total in a long time, putting him behind Romney and McCain. Something is going terribly wrong in the Thompson campaign, and he needs such endorsements more than anyone to get him some good news cycles and perhaps some momentum.