NEWTON, Iowa -- Fred Thompson points out to crowds that never in his political career has he lost an election. And he promises that he won't start losing with Iowa. Thompson, running a distant third in the race for delegates to be decided at Thursday's caucuses, should explain further: For him, a victory would be finishing third, winning a few delegates and surviving to fight again in South Carolina and other states that might welcome him more.

The former Senator and actor has been working the state hard in recent days after a slow start. Criticized for his perceived laziness, Thompson has jumped on a multi-week bus tour -- the only break being for Christmas Day -- and is pressing the flesh as much as he can. In Newton, a small town that once served as headquarters to the Maytag company, Thompson ended his day Saturday speaking to a packed room at a senior citizen's center.

That commitment alone should propel him to a good finish here; his opponents are not Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, who look poised to win and place, in either order. Thompson's chief rivals are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, two better-known commodities who have nonetheless skipped out on Iowa. McCain held a brief series of events immediately after Christmas before returning to New Hampshire. Giuliani held all of four events over a day and a half in Iowa before doing the same. Both candidates will not even be in Iowa when voters here caucus.

Thompson is running hard, airing television advertisements and meeting as many voters as he can. Giuliani has all but pulled out, while McCain's radio ads are seldom heard. Thompson even has a greater presence than Ron Paul, whose billboards and few television spots are the extent of his paid media; Paul, too, will be in New Hampshire on caucus night. It speaks to Thompson's weakness here, then, that he places fourth in the latest RCP Iowa Average, at 11%. That's behind McCain's 11.4%, though five points above Giuliani and Paul, who finish with 6.2% each.

Because of a number of factors, it is the fight for third place that has become perhaps the most important mini-drama on the Republican side. Much of Romney's strategy is predicated on winning New Hampshire, and if McCain or Giuliani get a third-place boost coming out of Iowa, Romney's chances could be severely imperiled. Thompson, polling little above an asterisk in New Hampshire, would get a boost coming out of Iowa that he could take, rejuvenated, to South Carolina. Even Paul, with gobs of money and more motivated supporters than any other candidate, could force members of the media to eat their hats with a surprise finish.

Like the contest for the GOP nomination itself, the race for the last ticket out of Iowa is filled with intriguing subplots. Voters who find national security the most important issue have two candidates speaking their language, in both Thompson and Giuliani. Many still associate Giuliani with the September 11 terrorist attacks and his response in the aftermath, and Thompson fills much of his stump speech with terrorism talk, noting that he was the Republican floor manager for the measure that created the Department of Homeland Security.

"I think [Thompson] won't make rash decisions," Laurie Nelson, a Republican from Newton who is backing Thompson, said. His tough-guy persona has an impact as well. "I wouldn't want to buck him," she joked. Giuliani projects a strong image as well. If just one of them were running, security voters might coalesce more and give that candidate a boost.

McCain, who seems to take joy in sticking his fingers in the eyes of every Iowa voter he can find, still finds time to speak out against ethanol subsidies, a stand tantamount to political suicide. But many Republicans still back the war in Iraq, and McCain's record of support for the troop surge and opposition to anything remotely connected to Donald Rumsfeld, who took much of the blame for the war's early failings, keep McCain in good position to win votes from caucus-goers more concerned with the war.

And while the Des Moines Register's endorsement is more important in the Democratic race, the paper's choice of McCain on the GOP side will surely win him some additional support. Even backing from one-time candidate Sam Brownback has helped; Tim Loraditch, one of the few Iowans with a McCain yardsign in front of his house, came over after Brownback dropped out.

And what of Ron Paul? The Republican electorate is in a state of malaise. Unlike the Democratic side, where voters are undecided largely because they cannot choose between several options they like, large numbers of Republicans remain undecided because they cannot choose between several options they don't like. Paul's supporters are the only ones madly in love with their candidate.

It is not hard to imagine a situation in which a Republican backing one of the other candidates decides to stay in and watch football on January 3 while a much greater percentage of highly motivated Paul supporters line up hours ahead of time, giving him a surprisingly strong showing.

Neither McCain nor Giuliani want to appear as if they are competing for third place, setting expectations so low that even a fourth-place finish might be good news. But both are running a more under-the-radar campaign than people are led to believe. Thompson is working the state hard, though his message is resonating less than it once did; in his twenty-five minute speech in Newton, he was interrupted by applause not once. While his campaign claimed 150 people in attendance, a count of the room and an adjoining spill-over area came to 86, including staff and media.

The race for third place in Iowa could have a dramatic impact on the GOP nominating contest as a whole. McCain could use a third-place "better than expected" bounce to beat Romney in New Hampshire, where polls show a narrowing race. Giuliani could use the boost to resurrect what looks like a flagging campaign. Thompson could do the same, catapulting himself back into contention in far friendlier South Carolina. And Paul would stun everyone and generate a new round of jaw-dropped coverage.

Because Huckabee is viewed by many as having a weak organization in later states, and because Romney's campaign suddenly looks vulnerable in Iowa, a bronze medal here could serve as a predictor for the race as a whole. It is exceedingly rare for a Republican who finishes in third place to win the nomination; only George H.W. Bush pulled off the feat, in 1988. By the end of the 2008 primary season, he may not be alone.