Some quick thoughts on Fred Thompson's exit from the race:

1.) As things stand right now, Fred's departure doesn't noticeably change much. We're focused on Florida, where it's a three-way race between McCain, Rudy and Romney.

2.) Where are Fred's supporters going to go? Right now, Fred is running fourth in Florida. His supporters could tip the balance if they went en masse to a particular candidate. But it's not clear that they'll do so. Again, if they split between the top three (Rudy, McCain and Romney) it might be a wash, and exit polls from South Carolina prove that Fred was a consensus conservative, in that he attracted a wide swath of divergent constituencies. Which also means that those folks might break three ways.

3.) But it's more likely that they'll break two ways: Between McCain and Romney (and perhaps Huckabee, although Huck seems to have a fairly hard ceiling), and, even barring a Fred endorsement, more strongly toward McCain. Rudy is probably the big loser, but, again, not as big as it might have looked a few weeks ago.