Republican presidential candidate John McCain is back on the move and drawn within his two, top challengers according to a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Tuesday night.

   The Sept. 17-24 poll for WMUR-TV and CNN has former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (23 percent) and ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (22 percent) running neck and neck but the Arizona Senator McCain (17 percent) coming up on the outside.

    He's barely within the poll's 5.6 percent margin of error, plus or minus.

   A bigger surprise than the McCain ``surge'' (12 to 17 percent in two months) to the front is a softening of support for Romney whose backing plunged 10 percentage points from a UNH survey in July.

    Former, Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson had 12 percent support in the poll but Center Director Andrew Smith said nearly a third said Thompson should not have skipped last month's GOP debate at UNH to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

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