A new poll shows that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s popularity among Alaskans has plummeted in a year’s time. According to the poll conducted by Hays Research, about 54% of Alaskans have a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” view of the Republican governor.

Meanwhile, about 41.6% say they have a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” view of the former vice presidential nominee, according to the poll.

Compare that with numbers from May 2008 from the same group, when about 86% of those polled said they had a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” opinion of Palin. About 9% said they had either a “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” view of the governor.

But who knows what would have happened to the polling results this year if the Republican leader, Rush Limbaugh, was on the ballot.

McCain: 36% (15%)

Giuliani: 24% (48%)

Romney: 10% (7%)

It gets worse: Last month, Giuliani was up 33% on McCain in the Sienna poll. That’s right, there was a 45% swing in New York state against Rudy Giuliani in one month. New York Republicans don’t even like Giuliani any more:

For the first time in a Siena poll, Giuliani had a higher unfavorable rate _ 48 percent _ than favorable just six years after the Sept. 11 attacks. McCain was viewed favorably by 56 percent of New Yorkers.

Another NY poll out today from Marist gives McCain an even bigger lead: 34% to 19%.

Giuliani campaign manager Mike DuHaime had previously called Giuliani’s leads in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut “momentum proof.”

“Some of those leads are momentum-proof at this point,” he said. He stressed Giuliani’s margins in the New York tri-state area of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut versus what he called Romney’s “precarious” lead in New Hampshire where he is known, having been governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

Giuliani now trails in New York (by 12-15%), New Jersey (by 2-4%), Connecticut (by 23%), and Pennsylvania (by 16%), another February 5th neighbor to New York.

If Giuliani is going to lose badly in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, and likely lose in New Jersey as well, he has no base of support. His only hope is in Florida.

So, how does Florida look for Rudy? Not good – he trails in every poll that’s come out in the last ten days save one, which shows a statistical tie. The Insider Advantage poll from last Thursday showed Giuliani with a one point lead over McCain and Romney. The Rasmussen poll out today has him down five to Romney.

As I said above, Rudy Giuliani is done.

On the Sean Hannity radio program, pollster John Zogby said that Texas Congressman Ron Paul could end up surprising the field – and “embarass a lot of the frontrunners” by wildly exceeding expectations taking 15 to 18 percent in the New Hampshire primary.

An incredulous Hannity asked, “You don’t see any chance he wins this thing, do you?” Zogby said no.

So you have Huckabee as the insurgent second-place threat in Iowa. You have Ron Paul poised to surprise in New Hampshire. Rudy Giuliani will be laying low until February 5. While the expectations game can take unpredictable turns, the one constant in all this seems likely to be Mitt Romney, who has been slow and steady right from the beginning. You think he minds sharing the spotlight with the novelty acts, if by mid-January he’s the only one of the frontrunners to be running at the actual front?

Former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani maintains a double-digit lead over his main rivals, but most of his supporters [55%] back his candidacy only “somewhat,” and he has yet to gain momentum among key primary voting groups or to distinguish himself as the best candidate for the party. Adding to the murkiness of the picture is that Republicans continue to be less satisfied with their candidate options than Democrats are with theirs.

The poll also finds McCain surging, while Thompson treads water and Huckabee remains stuck between the first and second tiers:

Rudy Giuliani 33
John McCain 19
Fred Thompson 16
Mitt Romney 11
Mike Huckabee 9
Ron Paul 3
Duncan Hunter 2
Tom Tancredo 1

Also interesting is the confusion among GOP voters as to just who represents their party’s “core values.” 25% percent pick Giuliani, 24% McCain, 29% choose Thompson, and 17% say Romney. To some extent this may be because there’s a good deal of confusion these days over exactly what those values are, but it probably also has to do with the candidates’ failure to take much leadership in sorting such questions out. Everybody wants to be as conservative as possible for the primary, even to the point of berating the GOP for not having been conservative enough during its recent reign of error, but the elephant in the room is that conservatism itself is in crisis.

Ron Paul won the GOP presidential straw poll conducted by organizers at the Conservative Leadership Conference held at the Nugget Casino this weekend “by a large margin,” according to an organizer.

Paul won with 32 percent, McCain came in second with 17 percent, Hunter was third with 15 percent, and “Romney was in the lower numbers because people came out for his event but they just didn’t vote for him,” according to organizer and McCain operative Paul Jackson. [emphasis added]

Paul Jackson, the Republican Party’s John Madden.

Buried in the article was this delightful quote about the candidates’ pandering to the far reaches of conservative circles.

In fact, American Target Advertising Chairman Richard Viguerie, who said he was part of the strategic meetings in Salt Lake City, said Thursday night that even though he has agreed not to support Giuliani, Thompson or McCain, he’s still not close to declaring support for Romney or any other lower tier candidates because they are still actively and seriously courting conservatives. “Why would we stop the flow of flowers and candy?” he said.

Romney’s comments in Sparks, Nevada are doing just that — creating sparks. This weekend in Nevada, Romney claimed to be speaking for the “Republican wing of Republican Party,” and said he was a “real Republican.” Laughable, I know, but regardless, it prompted an outcry of responses from John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani also cited Romney’s support of the line-item veto, which he says is “unconstitutional,” and took a swipe at Senator McCain:

Here’s the truth… Straight talk?,” said Giuliani using one of McCain’s catch phrases. “You have to have a constitutional amendment to get a line item veto. If you were to try it again, like we did it last time, we would be wasting the taxpayer’s money.”

Mitt Romney 29%
Fred Thompson 18%
Mike Huckabee 12%
Rudy Giuliani 11%
John McCain 7%
Tom Tancredo 5%
Ron Paul 4%
Sam Brownback 2%
Alan Keyes 2%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Not sure/Uncommitted 9%Survey of 405 likely Republican caucus participants was conducted October 1-3. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percentage points.

For the first time that I have seen, Mike Huckabee surpassed one of the top-tier candidates in polling. Rudy Giuliani  is running fourth behind Romney, Fred Thompson and Huckabee.

Duncan Hunter is polling behind perennial electoral loser, Alan Keyes, who is tied with Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

(Hat tip: Aron Goldman, race42008.com)

Keyes, now only a few weeks into his campaign-destined-for-failure tired Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton, Colo.) in two of the early states — Iowa and New Hampshire.

Heading into the fourth quarter of fundraising, it begs the question: who will bow out next?

Interestingly, while independent support for Clinton grows modestly, their support for the Republicans in match-ups against her absolutely plummets. Against Clinton, independent support for Giuliani drops 8 points, support for Thompson drops 10 points and support for McCain drops 6 points. (The undecided column is a larger beneficiary of these defections than Clinton is.) Independents flee Giuliani and Thompson against Obama as well, although in fewer numbers: 6 points and 1 point respectively. But independents’ support of John McCain actually jumps 6 points when against Barack Obama and Obama’s support falls a stunning 13 points; in fact, independents now prefer McCain to Obama 37% to 32%. But one thing is clear: no matter who he is matched up against, Rudy Giuliani is losing independents.

This is the story that the major media are not talking about. There is absolutely a relationship between McCain’s strong performance among independents and his weak numbers among Republicans. It’s becoming ever-more clear that there is something of a zero-sum relationship between Republican support and independent support. And the big victim of that equation right now is Rudy Giuliani, who is watching his numbers among independents drop even as he solidifies his position at the top of the GOP field. The one is a consequence of the other.

The narrative on Giuliani is that he’s a “moderate” or a “liberal” Republican; this notion derives almost entirely from his nominal pro-choice stance and his failure to be as full-throatedly anti-gay as his GOP rivals. He has worked hard to overcome this disadvantage among primary voters, running as perhaps the most savagely partisan Republican in the race. So far this strategy has helped him keep his edge in the fight for the nomination, but it’s undermining his general election chances — hardly a surprise, given the pervasive anti-GOP sentiment in the nation at large.

The fact is that while Rudy may be a “moderate” on abortion, he is an extremist conservative on other very important issues. He is a vocal Iran war hawk; his foreign policy team is full of unreconstructed neocons — most notorious is Norman Podhoretz, but the others are just as bad — and he plainly offers nothing but a hyper-aggressive form of Bushism abroad. His judicial advisors are right-wing extremists; his economic advisors have him wandering the country making ludicrous claims derived from the crackpot theories of the voodoo economists; and he’s deeply out of touch on health care, babbling about “socialized medicine” when most Americans want to see a plan for government-backed universal health insurance. Giuliani is in many ways the most right-wing of the Republican candidates. He is simply not in the American mainstream. If independents are sensing this, it’s hardly a surprise that he’s losing them.

The survey, released Wednesday, shows the former Massachusetts Governor drawing support from 25 percent of Republican primary voters to 24 percent for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

That statistically-insignificant, 1 point margin is a major change from CNN/WMUR’s last New Hampshire poll, taken in July, when Romney held a comfortable 14 point lead over Giuliani.

Full poll results here (pdf).

Update: Just wanted to note this analysis from the article:

So what’s the reason behind Romney’s 9 point drop here in New Hampshire?

“Romney maintains an advantage over Giuliani among Granite State conservatives; but Giuliani has regained the lead among moderate and liberal Republicans while Romney falls to third place with that group,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. In July, Romney had the edge among both moderates and conservatives.

A plurality see Giuliani as the most likeable and the most electable Republican in the field, while McCain is seen as having the right experience to be president.

For the life of me, I’ll never understand how anyone can find Rudy Giuliani “likeable,” but maybe the “electable” part has more to do with his recent gains. Will Romney, just days after taking a Viguerie-esque hard conservative tack, make a new effort to appeal to moderate voters? Will people still think of Giuliani as a moderate if he keeps sounding just as belligerent as the Bush administration? Will Fred Thompson remember what he had for breakfast this morning? Tune in next time, to As the Republican World Turns…