Presidential Diary: Edwards impressive in Oklahoma, Fred off the air in Iowa

• Oklahoma likes Edwards

A new poll from Oklahoma, a state Bush won 66% to 34%, shows some surprising results:

• Hillary Clinton would massively lose against all GOPers even though she would run a bit better than previous Democratic nominees: 61% to 31% against McCain, 56% to 35% against Mike Huckabee, 51% to 30% against Romney. Giuliani runs the weakest, winning 50% to 38%.
• But John Edwards beats both Mitt Romney 50% to 37% and Rudy Giuliani 48% to 42% -- though he loses by 11% against McCain.
• In the primary races, Edwards polls a strong second behind Clinton -- 10% ahead of Obama, which could also point back to his strength in the state in 2004 when he almost won it against Wesley Clark.

That's right, Edwards beats Giuliani -- the supposedly very electable Republican -- in a state Bush carried with 32%. There is enough evidence of Rudy Giuliani's weakness in very red states that an electability case can be made against the former mayor as it looks like he would put many reliably red states in play. Inversely, John McCain would clearly run the strongest among GOPers and he is consistently putting red states away and putting blue states in play.

• Thompson goes dark in Iowa

Fred Thompson was once the savior of the GOP's conservative base. Now, he does not have enough money left to stay on air in Iowa -- the test of his candidacy -- with a week to go before the caucus vote. He clearly will try to go back up before January 3rd, but it is telling of just how much Thompson failed to meet expectations set for him as late as September.

Thompson needs to come in third in Iowa to be able to continue onto South Carolina and have a chance to compete in the Southern states; but John McCain's return to the state is making that goal much more difficult to meet, and the last thing Thompson wants right now is to be down on money. One hope for Fred: John McCain has decided to not air ads either, though that comes from different reasons. McCain's expectations in Iowa are extremely low and he does not need to have a strong showing. The whole point of an Iowa comeback is that he will be able to say that he was off-the-air and still managed to get a good result. But this at least means that Thompson is not at a massive disadvantage here.