Rudy Giuliani is a weak front-runner.
Mr. Axelrod said Mr. Romney left Iowa in the same shape he entered it, as a "weak front-runner".
If he falls short of that, it's a further warning sign of a weak front-runner; President George H.W. Bush, while fending off the primary challenge in 1992, won so unimpressively that it was a harbinger of his later failings.
The latest Marist poll of the race has Christine Quinn as the very weak front-runner at 24%, Weiner at 19%, Bill de Blasio at 14%, Bill Thompson at 13%, John Liu at 8%, and Sal Albanese at 1%.
With next-generation Republicans like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mr. Perry's fellow Texan, Senator Ted Cruz, eager to test the presidential waters, the primary could be far tougher than last year's, when Republican activists seemed to examine and discard a shifting group of candidates in searching for an alternative to Mitt Romney, the weak front-runner.
WASHINGTON — Bolstered in their view of Mitt Romney as their likeliest opponent, President Obama's campaign advisers gleefully skewered him on Wednesday as a "weak front-runner" in a narrowing Republican field and made clear they would cast him as out of touch with the concerns of middle-class Americans.
"She has emerged as a weak front-runner," Devine said.
WASHINGTON — With two key Southern primaries on the horizon this week, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich sharpened their attacks against Mitt Romney on Sunday, as Mr. Santorum bluntly declared that his leading rival "can't close the deal," and Newt Gingrich called Mr. Romney the party's weakest front-runner since 1920.
In what will become a footnote of Grand Old Party history, a weak showing for the one-time front runner to challenge Mr Romney, and Tea Party favourite, Michele Bachmann, prompted the congresswoman to quit the contest entirely.
It was clear from the start that Jeb Bush was a weak establishment front-runner.
Leicester: Surely the front runner?
