It's memo time again. Brent Seaborn, Strategy Director for Rudy Giuliani, has authored a long memo framing Rudy's position in the race heading into Q4. In it he takes direct shots at his top-tier competition:

As it stands today, Senator McCain's support in national public polling has recovered somewhat. His national average has increased about 5 points from his summer low of about 10% according to the Real Clear Politics average. Still, it seems that McCain is capped at approximately 18% or 19% of Republican primary vote share as the field now stands.

Voters responded to Fred Thompson's September entry into the GOP Primary race with a smaller-than-expected announcement bounce. Typically an announcement will generate about a 10 point bounce. Senator Thompson's bounce ranged from zero points to 8 points, but averaged less than 4 points - certainly not what was expected for a campaign that spent so much time preparing to get in the race.

Mitt Romney's campaign spent more than $30 million during the first 2 quarters of 2007 and outspent others by $9 million or more. Nationally, the Romney campaign has spent $8 million on television and radio advertisements. And Romney's Iowa Straw Poll victory had a likely price tag of more than $4 million. Romney's campaign has spent nearly $2 million on television in New Hampshire and more than $1 million in South Carolina and Florida. In the 3rd quarter of 2007 alone, Governor Romney will have put more than $5 million of ads on the air.

Seaborn also points out there is no "clear conservative favorite" while touting Rudy's durability with this key consituency:

Primary elections usually set up contrasts. An interesting component of the race is that no candidate has clearly positioned themselves as the social conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Fred Thompson entered the race expecting to take the position as the primary social conservative alternative to Romney, but Mike Huckabee has also impressed many primary voters and there is no clear social conservative favorite.

Most notably, Mayor Giuliani continues to hold strong with socially conservative voters.

Seaborn then drives home what might be Rudy's strongest argument - electability:

President Bush made news last week saying Hillary Clinton will likely be the Democratic nominee - something the Mayor has been acknowledging for some time. Mayor Giuliani is clearly the strongest candidate to run against Senator Clinton in the general election and is likely the only Republican candidate that can beat her in 2008.

National polling head-to-head averages on Real Clear Politics show Mayor Giuliani running approximately 8 points stronger than Mitt Romney and about 5 points stronger than Fred Thompson against Clinton in the general election.

Finally, Seaborn offers the kicker in his conclusion:

As the MoveOn attacks on the Mayor demonstrate, there is no candidate that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats fear more in the general election than Rudy Giuliani. That strength is further supported by recent poll numbers showing Mayor Giuliani as the Republican's strongest general election candidate and reiterated by Democratic polling in swing Democratic congressional districts.

Read the full memo here.