Incidentally, since Blake put up his post this morning, Giuliani has shed about a point in the Intrade political futures market (from 26.7 to 25.9) and Thompson has picked up another two points, putting him at 25.0, with Romney holding steady at 23.0.

To put the latest moves into a broader context, here's how each candidate has fared in the political futures market over the last month:

Rudy Giuliani:

Rudy's been on the slide since the first GOP debate at the Reagan Library on May 3, followed by the subsequent revelations about his contributions to Planned Parenthood. He recovered some ground after a strong debate performance in South Carolina on May 15 (capped off by his exchange with Ron Paul), but has been unable to sustain that momentum in the ensuing couple of weeks.

Fred Thompson:

Thompson had been bumping along in the mid-teens since the end of April until the middle of May. That was right around the time he launched his video response to Michael Moore which rang up hundreds of thousands of views over the following few days.

Mitt Romney:

Romney started picking up steam in the middle of the month, beginning with a Zogby poll on the 16th showing him surging to a small lead in Iowa, followed by his even more impressive 12-point lead in the Iowa Poll released on the 20th.

John McCain:

You can pretty clearly pinpoint the beginning of McCain's rather precipitous decline in the futures market to May 18, which was the day he stood with Ted Kennedy at a press conference to announce a grand bargain had been struck on immigration. It's been all downhill since.

Newt Gingrich:

Gingrich caused a mini-stir on May 14 when he told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America there was a "great possibility" he would run for president. Since then he's reverted to his standard range between 2.5-3.0.