Posted on 09/08/2007 2:51:30 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
The question: When Fred Thompson opted to announce his presidential candidacy from the comfort of Jay Leno’s arm chair Wednesday night — instead of participating in the Republican debate in New Hampshire that same evening — did that hurt his campaign in New Hampshire?
The answer: What campaign in New Hampshire?
“I think we’ll be getting staff within a week,” Thompson adviser Dan Hughes, a former Republican state representative from New Castle, told me Friday. “I think there’ll be an announcement within the next few days.”
Thompson not only has no paid staff in New Hampshire, he has no organization. He has two advisers, Hughes and former Reagan administration official Gerry Carmen of Manchester. But Carmen is known to spend a lot of his time in Washington, and Hughes has been the one carrying Thompson’s water in New Hampshire this summer.
It was Hughes who organized Thompson’s first visit to the state in June.
“I told everybody he was running and they didn’t believe me,” he said. “But now they do.”
Thompson’s no-show at Wednesday night’s debate unquestionably hurt him with a lot of New Hampshire Republicans. The debate was co-sponsored by FOX News and the state GOP. A lot of Republicans felt that by skipping an official party-sponsored debate Thompson was rudely dismissing the entire state party. So in addition to disappointing Granite Staters in general, he offended Republican insiders in particular.
(Carmen and Hughes got tickets to the debate, but they did not get passes to the spin room afterwards.)
But hurting the pride of top Republicans is the least of Thompson’s worries in New Hampshire. If he commits to campaigning here and impresses Republican and independent voters (New Hampshire’s primaries are open) in the next five months, he certainly could overcome this offense. But to do that he has to have a ground game. New Hampshire is all about the ground game. Thompson has nothing. Nor does he seem too concerned about getting one.
This late in the game, an impressively organized campaign would have had staff in place, or at least announced, the day after the official declaration of candidacy. Thompson’s staff might take a week to get here.
I asked Hughes if he had signs ready to put up and bumper stickers ready to hand out.
“I have some bumper stickers from the committee that was before Friends of Fred, whatever the hell that was,” he said. “We haven’t been actually even trying to get them out. You really can’t be running a campaign if you’re testing the waters, and we haven’t.”
Hughes does have a database of supporters. But it cannot be a big list. At the debate, there were exactly two “Fredheads” holding signs outside the arena. They told me there were a lot of Thompson backers in New Hampshire — “100 of us.”
How is Thompson going to drum up more support in New Hampshire, where he consistently ranks third in the polls, a good 15 to 20 points behind Mitt Romney? Apparently not by campaigning here. Thompson is doing exactly three events in New Hampshire this weekend. When will he return?
“He’ll be back I know in October, but I don’t know the schedule,” Hughes said.
It is an axiom of political campaigning that candidates improve with experience. As Hughes acknowledged, “The more you’re out there, the better you get.” In New Hampshire, Rudy Giuliani has spent the past six months becoming a much better campaigner. John McCain is hitting his stride again and Mitt Romney, Wednesday night’s debate performance aside, is an outstanding campaigner. Thompson, on the other hand, is rusty and almost entirely untested in New Hampshire. Nationally, most of his early performance reviews have been abysmal. So although he enters the race at the traditional starting point — around Labor Day weekend — he is way behind in fundraising, organization and practice.
He also has the distinct disadvantage that most of New Hampshire’s top-flight Republican operatives are committed to other campaigns. Even the big-name endorsements are being snatched up, though there are plenty left to be had.
If Thompson plans to win New Hampshire, he enters the contest at a serious disadvantage. It is not an insurmountable one. He has five months, and Granite Staters are famous for not making up their minds until days before, if not the day of, the primary. But it will take time for him to build an organization here and get to the point where his campaign is really competitive. The other candidates have a big head start, and Thompson does not seem to have a natural base of support in New Hampshire. He polls worse here than he does nationally. Most NH Republicans I’ve talked with say Thompson needs to essentially camp out in New Hampshire for the next five months if he wants to win it.
However, if Thompson does not plan to win New Hampshire, none of this really matters. If he plans, say, to let the eight other candidates duke it out in Iowa and New Hampshire, leaving one winner to take him on in South Carolina and Florida — southern states where he would have a natural advantage over a Northeastern Republican like Giuliani or Romney — then he doesn’t need to pay more than token attention to New Hampshire.
So far, token attention is all New Hampshire has received from Fred Thompson.
So true!
“In the meantime, the Fed Heads are quite emotional and prone to ad hominem argumentation.”
Seems like the reverse is also true in intentionally describing Thompson supporters as “Fedheads”.
Actually, many supporters of candidates of both parties suffer the same inclinations.
well said my man
Go Fred!
“Fed Heads” is not a pejorative. It has come into use and is being used by self-described supporters of FT.
Well, let’s see.
N.H. chose John Mccain in 2000.
N.H. chose John Kerry in 2004.
New Hampshire is looking toward a Democrat Senator, and where there are Republicans, they are increasingly altering their rhetoric to be liberally appealing.
Why should I care whether he takes N.H.? I don’t think he should dismiss it, but they aren’t as important as they’ve set themselves to be either.
And, the same bright eyed “leaders” in the state that have allowed Democrats to make gains in their state are NOT the people that should be giving him advise if he wants to win anyway. By all means, GO to N.H. But go to the people and speak conservatism. Educate them. But don’t kowtow to the Liberals in N.H. nor the leadership that has done little to nothing to combat that liberal movement inward.
As for Fox? Fox is holding fundraisers for Hillary, pimping Rudy, slavishly devoted to wall street’s dream of no borders and NO friend to conservatives of late. If they got ticked off that he didn’t show at their debate, good. I feel no more need to soothe their ruffled feathers then i do NBC, CBS or ABC at this point. heck, I actually feel more favoably disposed to CBS lately just because of the fairer Iraq piece they did the past week.
Sure. Because we support “Fed” Thompson.
I suggest you do research before spouting ignorant lies. It makes you look like an idiot.
Well said! (And I’m a NH voter.)
I interpet your 3X use of “fed head” as a derogatory term in the context of your post. I have never seen it used even on FR, except in typo’s, which doesn’t mean you are not accurate in describing it as a pejorative.
Actually, New Hampshire gave its four electoral votes to George Bush in 2000. Had that not happened, we would have all been uttering the frightening words, "President Al Gore," beginning in January 2001.
In 2004 the Granite State narrowly reverted to Democratic control, giving its electoral votes to fellow New Englander John Kerry.
“I think Fred is in excellent shape now that Rudy has basically come out in favor of open borders to absorb many of those who will jump that sinking ship.”
At this point, I think Rudy could commit murder and his supporters would still back him. Largely because the media would never get around to telling them until AFTER the primaries.
“How many electoral votes from New HAmpshire have gone to the GOP candidate the past several Presidential elections?”
Electoral votes are irrelevant in a primary... It’s the delegates that count.
IMHO, it is retarded that the New Hampshire primary is considered to be sooooo important. No offense to New Hampsters (lol), but the state is a very small fraction of the country. It is just a freak accident of history that they are first and therefore prominent among the primaries.
NR and Fox News are both in Rudy’s corner, as I’m guessing you already know. Carl Cameron of FNC was the one that called attention to Fred’s “Gucci” shoes at the state fair and Sean Hannity is almost slavish in his Rudy-boosting.
Poor Fred! The MSM hates 'em. Hugh Hewitt can't stand him. The National Review don't like him much. Everybody is out to get Fred. Fred is probably singing:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, Guess I'll go eat worms, Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones, Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.
Down goes the first one, down goes the second one, Oh how they wiggle and squirm. Up comes the first one, up comes the second one, Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
1. New Hampshire
2. Iowa
3. fund raising
4. announcing b4 Labor Day
5. National Review
6. Fox News/Sean Hannity/O' Reilley/Carl Cameron
7. Hugh Hewitt
8. ground organization
9. skipping debates
10. face to face campaigning
Things that are suddenly important
1. Internet/You Tube
2. Announcing on Jay Leno
3. South Carolina
Well, some people were spouting off just before Fred declared, that he wasn’t going to run.
Some people who don’t support Fred like to hang out on Fred threads, I guess they have nothing better to do.
One group of Fred supporters came out with this:
Nine out of ten dogs prefer the scraps off Fred’s table.
LOL, don’t gripe at me about Fredheads, I’m a Duncan Hunter guy.
I just think it’s funny NH is such a hueg deal. :p
NH goes back to the days of JFK election and Paul Harvey anouncing the results at 5 AM in the Morning!
and saying it was a good indicator who would win the election if they won NH in that small town population 20?
This year's election may determine whether the old ways are still relevant. Still, its jarring to see conservatives constantly throwing conservative institutions such as National Review under the bus, simply because some criticism is thrown their way.
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