It’s hard to fault Iowa voters for not being on board with Fred Thompson.
Until a few weeks ago, Fred Thompson was not running in Iowa. His supporters here said he was skipping the state entirely, along with New Hampshire.
Sure, you’d love the Iowa voters to pick him anyway, but it’s not fair to blame them for not picking a candidate who has said he doesn’t care about their state.
Now, he’s running in Iowa. But a lot of those voters have already made their choice, and see Fred’s entry into the state to be more opportunistic than representative of a real concern he has for their state. He saw Huckabee take a notch out of Romney, and thought there was a window of opportunity.
New Hampshire’s the same way. Fred ignored them, his supporters claim there are no conservatives living in New Hampshire at all, and Fred even blew off the New Hampshire debate to make his announcement on Jay Leno.
So again, you’d like the NH voters to recognize and vote for Fred Thompson, but it’s not fair to fault them for ignoring a candidate that ignored them first.
As of a week ago, it was reported that up to 60% of Iowans HAD NOT chosen a candidate, and were beginning to take a look at the field more closely. Seems like Fred got in at JUST the right time.
Considering the fact that the winner in NH has NOT gone on to be the eventual nominee in most of the last few elections, I’d say the outcome of their primary is irrelevant. The fact that they got angry because Fred didn’t come kiss the rings of the GOP leaders there, is indicative of the seriousness of their decisions.