Numbers like this make you step back, take a deep breath, and realize just how unsettled this race is. From Mason-Dixon (pretty much the gold standard in state polling), here are some new South Carolina #s:

Fred Thompson 25%
Rudy Giuliani 21%
Mitt Romney 11%
John McCain 7%
Mike Huckabee 5%
Sam Brownback 1%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Tommy Thompson 1%
Jim Gilmore -
Tom Tancredo -
Ron Paul -
Undecided 28%

While SC polls have been topsy-turvy for weeks, McCain was always the acknowledged frontrunner in the Palmetto State. Now he's just fallen through the floor -- he's now in single digits. It looks like all his name-ID support just vanished to Fred. It's interesting that Giuliani hasn't been hurt at all.

Fred has to be considered the frontrunner in South Carolina, for the same basic reason Rudy is the frontrunner in Jersey and Rudy and Romney can be expected to do well in New Hampshire: identity politics. Being the lone Southerner competing in the "first in the South" primary can rocket you to the top of the heap like nothing else.

The only real question is if South Carolina will manage to stay relevant in 2008. Even if they do manage to muscle their way to the front of the line, do they create enough leverage to swing Florida? With no clear frontrunner, will any of the campaigns be able to activate the SC firewall, which frontrunners dating back to the Cretaceous period have used to prove their top-dog status? Without a fundamental existential question about the nature of the field at stake, will the media cover it in the same way they have in the past, or will SC become the next Delaware?