Thompson out

From the NY Times:

At first blush, his decision would seem potentially to help Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, who has competed for many of the same conservative voters that Mr. Thompson sought to appeal to. Mr. Huckabee said Tuesday that he might have come in second in South Carolina precisely because Mr. Thompson had siphoned off much of his support, permitting Senator John McCain of Arizona to win.

“The votes that he took essentially were votes that I would have most likely had, according to the exit polls and every other analysis,” Mr. Huckabee said on MSNBC.

The development could prove unwelcome to Mr. McCain.

Here's analysis from one blogger:

[On TV last night] Kondracke was of the opinion that his votes would mostly go to Mitt Romney, with some going to Huckabee. Until I heard him say that, I assumed that Thompson's votes would go to John McCain, as I see them as essentially political brothers. But Kondracke is probably right, in that the national narrative/impression is that Thompson is an orthodox conservative, while McCain is not. I actually see both Thompson and McCain as unorthodox Republicans in the same general mold of Lindsay Graham. Nevertheless, I think most of the people that were supporting Thompson were supporting him because he fit the bill on the social/fiscal/national security troika in a way that none of the other candidates could convincingly pull off. With Thompson out of the way, Mitt Romney most nearly fulfills the requirements of the troika (albeit, with some fairly severe credibility problems on the social arm).

I think it definitely hurts McCain. Thompson's voters will not vote for McCain. Will it be a boon to Romney? In SC, the bulk of the Thompson vote was self-identified conservatives. That's true for both Romney and Huckabee. It's hard to tell.