Posted by Ryan S. Jackson

So, after five contests that did little more than rid the field of the likes of political giants Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson (who made the decision to winnow himself long before any actual electoral embarrassment could), last night’s Florida Republican primary may finally be the contest that causes one person to emerge as a possible nominee.

John McCain won big last night, and he’s looking fierce in general election polling already:

With John McCain now the true front-runner for the GOP nomination, it will soon be time to start testing the theory that, if nominated, he would stand a good chance of winning in November, despite all the negative trends for his party in this election cycle. Rasmussen’s latest head-to-head numbers show McCain jumping to beyond-the-MOE leads over both Hillary Clinton (plus 8) and Barack Obama (plus 6) — and those results are from a survey that was completed before McCain won the Florida primary last night.

As for everyone else?

- The undisputed loser from last night, Rudy Giuliani, will be endorsing John McCain at the Reagan Library just prior to tonights big GOP debate. The autopsy of the Giuliani campaign has already begun: Jonathan “Politico” Martin’s take is here, Mark “The Page” Halperin’s is here.

- Mitt Romney is going to continue his campaign. The AP reports that Camp Romney is presently debating where the Romney message will play best, how hard to hit McCain at the debate tonight, and how much of his personal fortune he intends to spend on the campaign.

- Huckabee? It should be noted that I had to go digging deep into Google news to find out what exactly Huckabee is up to in these days before Super Tuesday. His strategy seems to be heading to the states with the most organized evangelical voting blocks and hoping for the best. He’s totally vanishing from the national horserace narrative (yes, narrative).

- The Ron Paul Blimp is finished (and so are my dreams). More to come on this later today.