Patrick Ruffini has some good advice for both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani on dealing with the Huckabee juggernaut. Latest national poll: Huckabee within one point of overtaking Giuliani. So clearly both of Romney and Giuliani have a problem on their hands, but plenty of cash and time to deal with it.

For Romney:

How does Romney put away Huckabee? I've written "the memo" before, but it bears repeating: Mitt Romney's progress in the polls has been plodding at best because he appeals to people's heads and not their hearts. My advice to Mitt simple: let people get to know you. Talk about the Olympics, talk about your business successes, talk about how you've turned around everything you've touched - and go light on the policy stuff. Do an ad straight to the camera and say, "I'm not the flavor of the month - but if you want someone who has the real world experience to turn things around, I'm your guy." On conservatism, tell people you've got "the whole package" - and scratch the awful, elitist "three legged stool" metaphor. Rudy's a social liberal. Huck's an economic liberal. Mitt's just right.

The problem with that, as I noted yesterday, is the social conservatives. If Mitt has a whole lot of Massachusetts history arguing that he is not one of them on these issues that they care deeply about. If he tells them to not worry about that and go for electability, they just might go right on over to Rudy. And Rudy can make an equally good case on being an economic conservative.

For Rudy to survive, his campaign mantra for the next 29 days must be: national security, national security, national security. Is the national security party really going to nominee a former governor with zero national security experience to face al-Qaeda? This is Rudy's key differentiator against Huckabee - and Mitt too. It is also McCain's narrative - I saw first hand at the Florida debate how McCain gained goodwill just by being the only one to talk about the war. But by owning McCain's issue - and by remaining the stronger of the two - McCain's voters may finally get the hint and go Rudy.

Now that's some great advice, and it shows off Rudy's strength and matches it up against Huckabee's weakness: lack of strength on national security issues. Indeed, it's the one issue that may push my own vote toward Giuliani. I know for certain that he won't quit on national security. I do not know this about Huckabee. Which is why my advice to Huckabee earlier is that he needs to use this time to get tough on national security and now, it's his big glaring hole. Giuliani can capitalize on that, Romney can not.