The Poll Numbers Are Changing in Iowa

In the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa the numbers are shifting on the GOP side:

Mitt Romney still leads in Iowa but Fred Thompson, a relative newcomer to the presidential race, has emerged as his nearest competitor in a new Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus participants.

Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani are in a close fight for third place in the Iowa Poll taken over three days last week. ...

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator who officially entered the race for the Republican nomination a month ago, grabs second place in the new poll at 18 percent. The poll was conducted while he was finishing his second campaign trip to Iowa last week.

Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who demonstrated surprising strength in the Iowa Republican Party’s straw poll in August, has moved up in the pack by claiming the support of 12 percent of likely caucus participants.

I've read so many stories in the past 10 days or so about how Fred Thompson's campaign is faltering and he's failing to make an impact on the campaign trail, and yet with every poll his numbers seem to improve. Could it be that his style is resonating with the electorate in ways the pundit class just can't figure out?

He's defied the standard way of doing things all along, and at some point campaign and candidate fatigue has got to begin setting in, and since Fred hasn't been in the voters face since January like many of the Republicans, this might prove beneficial to him in ways the pundits could never have predicted.