Here's the statement, just out from what's left of Fred Thompson's campaign:

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

Guess that manly after-shave and those shoulders that you can land a Space Shuttle on didn't end up working out for him.

Late Update: It appears that I have my pundit man-love poetry scrambled. It was Mitt Romney, not Fred, who was praised by The Politico's Roger Simon for having "shoulders you could land a 737 on." Apologies for the mix-up.

It should also be noted that Fred is a man of many manly scents. Chris Matthews not only praised Fred's "sex appeal" based on his after-shave; he also enthused about the whiff of "cigar smoke" that apparently hovers around the former candidate.

Either way, we stand by our original assertion that the whiff of manliness that Matthews detected around Fred just didn't get him very far as a candidate.

Okay, I know none of you care about the GOP South Carolina primary, but just f.y.i., McCain looks like he may be on his way to winning this thing handily. With more than one-fifth reporting, here's where we stand:

McCain 36%

Huckabee 28%

Romney 15%

Thompson 15%

And Thompson is already sending signals that he's about to drop out of the race.

New poll numbers just released by USA Today/Gallup find that John McCain has taken a sizable national lead over second-place Mike Huckabee -- a suggestion that his New Hampshire victory, combined with all the media talk about his comeback, have provided him with a big national lift:

Republicans:

McCain: 33%, up from 19% a week ago.

Mike Huckabee: 19%, down from 25%.

Rudy Giuliani: 13%; down from 20%.

Mitt Romney: 11%; up from 9%.

Fred Thompson: 9%; down from 12%.

Rep. Ron Paul: 3%; down from 4%.

Meanwhile, the poll also finds that Hillary has jumped 12 points to regain a national lead comparable to the one she enjoyed in some polls before her Iowa loss:

Democrats:

Clinton: 45%; up from 33%.

Obama: 33%, unchanged.

John Edwards: 13%; down from 20%.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: 1%; down from 3%.

Is Fred Thompson really going to quit the race before New Hampshire if he posts a weak showing in Iowa, as an anonymous adviser said this morning?

Thompson himself says it isn't happening. Here's what he had to say in an interview this morning with KCCI-TV in Des Moines:

"That is absolutely made up out of whole cloth," said the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee.

Thompson said a rival campaign was likely the source of that rumor.

"Can you imagine such a thing in politics?" he asked.

The Thompson campaign is working overtime this morning to shoot down the rumor, which has it that if Thompson folds, he'll throw his support to John McCain.

Okay, this could be significant. For the first time, a reputable poll has found that Rudy is behind, and Mike Huckabee has edged into a slight lead, in the national GOP primary.

The GWU Battleground poll finds that among likely voters, Mike Huckabee is first with 24%, Rudy is second with 22%, Mitt Romney has 16%, John McCain has 15%, and Fred Thompson has nine percent.

Though Rasmussen has found Huckabee with a national edge, those are robo phone polls; the GWU poll is a reputable telephone survey. Several other polls have found the two tied.

But now, for the first time, Huckabee has earned more respondents in a reputable poll.

Some new national numbers just in from USA Today/Gallup:

Hillary 45% (39% two weeks ago)

Obama 27% (24% two weeks ago)

Edwards 15% (unchanged from two weeks ago)

The rest are all in single digits. The numbers, which were taken over the weekend, suggest that Hillary has rebounded somewhat from the battering of bad news she's weathered, USA Today theorizes. Meanwhile, among the Republicans:

Rudy 27% (25% two weeks ago)

Huckabee 16% (unchanged from two weeks ago)

McCain 14% (15% two weeks ago)

Thompson 14% (15% two weeks ago

The Associated Press asked all the Presidential campaigns to name their principal's most "prized possession." Fred Thompson's answer:

Trophy wife

A gaffe? Naah. The AP reassures us that Thompson's answer was meant to be "tongue in cheek."

So Fred Thompson will pick up the much-coveted endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, a critical get at a critical time for Thompson.

Last week, amid Thompson's dropping numbers, three of his top rivals -- Rudy, John McCain, and Mitt Romney -- all paraded out conservative endorsements. This was a blow, to put it mildly, to Thompson's efforts to portray himself as the person conservatives would rally around. But now that he's been embraced by this leading pro-life group, Thompson finally has a prominent conservative endorsement to call his own.