Presidential roundup: Florida is as tight as ever, but could it decide the GOP nomination?

• Florida close in the general election, but Romney climbs in the primary
  

A new St Petersburg Times poll from Florida has some interesting numbers, especially in the Republican primary:

• Rudy Giuliani leads with 36%, against 19% against Mitt Romney, 12% for John McCain, 9% for Mike Hukabee and 8% for Fred Thompson.In the last poll, Thompson was second -- so this is quite a stumble.
• No surprise in the Democratic primary, as Clinton dominates 48% to 24% for Obama, with 8% for John Edwards.
• Then comes the general election, in which Rudy Giuliani is clearly the strongest candidate for now: He leads 49% to 45% against Hillary, 50% to 43% against Obama, and 51% to 42% against Edwards.
• John McCain is very strong also, as he edges out Hillary 48-47, Obama 47-45 and Edwards 46-45.
• Democrats won all match-ups against Fred Thompson (respectively 49-45, 48-42 and 49-42) and Romney (48-45, 47-42 and 48-41).

It is striking that Clinton trails by the least against Rudy and McCain but wins by the smallest margin also against Thompson and Romney. It proves that Hillary Clinton does not have that much of a margin, neither to go up or to go down... which is both a blessing and a curse.

But the most interesting part of the poll is the GOP primary: For Mitt Romney had not shown much movement outside of Iowa and New Hampshire until last month, when he started climbing in South Carolina after airing his first ads there. Now, he is going up significantly in Florida -- after airing ads there. It appears Romney is positioning himself amazingly in all January states. If he comes in here with wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, and a solid showing in South Carolina, he will probably have strong enough support in Florida to get a boost and challenge Rudy for first place. And there is no need to point out that Romney will wrap up the nomination if he closes out the month by winning Florida. Giuliani needs to construct a better firewall here. Forget South Carolina, it all comes down to Florida!

As for Thompson... it's really unclear what is going on with his campaign at this point given how far he has collapsed in New Hampshire and now in Florida. The abundance of state polls showing him weaker than Mike Huckabee should tell us something.

• Explaining Clinton's New Hampshire slide

The Politico's Ben Smith proposing an intersting explanation for Clinton's slide in NH today, noting that she might be hurt by ads that are being run in the state not by her Democratic rivals but... by John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Indeed, both Republicans are trying to appeal to the Republican base and prove their conservative bona fides by attacking the Democratic front-runner. And indeed, a quick look at Romney's website and we can find his new ad "Experience Matters" which strikes at Hillary:

Hillary Clinton wants to run the largest enterprise in the world. She hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be president as an internship just doesn't make any sense.

Clearly, attacks by Republicans will not hurt Hillary that much among the Democratic base. But Romney is not attacking here Clinton's liberalism (for that would help her); he is undermining her experience argument, a centerpiece of her primary campaign. And Democrats are also watching TV and seeing this, so this can very well be softening up Clinton's numbers in New Hampshire.