Posted on 09/23/2007 10:07:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Rich Galen is a veteran of Republican campaigns, former press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich, Internet-based political commentator and (lately) senior adviser to former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, the lawyer-actor who recently declared his candidacy for president.
He spoke to the Austin American-Statesman last week during Thompson's Austin stop, which included a visit to a Dell Inc. manufacturing plant in Round Rock and a fundraiser at the Driskill Hotel. The conversation started with the conventional wisdom that Thompson may have entered the Republican fray too late compared to others who have been stumping for months.
Austin American-Statesman: As much as the conventional wisdom is that Sen. Thompson got into this race too late, isn't the truth that the presidential race started way too early?
Rich Galen: In our view, of course ... I mean, we'll all be really smart about that very answer somewhere five to seven months from now. In reality, you look at all the work that has been done, all of the groundwork, all of the money, that 60, 70 millions of dollars — and we're all tied at zero delegates.
(Thompson) has the advantage of celebrity. I mean, every candidate has tools. Hillary (Clinton)'s got tools. Mitt (Romney)'s got tools. (John) McCain has got his tools. The secret is to use the tools that you've got and build a successful campaign with them.
(Thompson's) tool is that a lot of people know him. ... You know, when he gives his kind of "these are the problems we have to solve, these are the problems facing us" speech, that's the guy that 25 million people a week have been watching as (District Attorney) Arthur Branch (on NBC's "Law & Order") laying out the difficulties, the complexities of the problem and asking the people that he's talking to come up with the right decision. So they're perfectly comfortable with that.
It's the press that wants the red nose and clown hair, and he doesn't give them that.
If this race in the end perhaps started too early, don't you run the risk that voters, whether they live in February (primary) states or not, are just going to tune out?
If you look at the Internet and the cable news and everything else, if you can't get your message out in four months, I don't think you're going to get it out in 11 months or 12 months or 24 months. The realities of campaigning have changed so dramatically.
But is voter fatigue a real problem this round that wasn't there before, or was it always there?
We can't tell yet. We're doing fine in the polls. Given early polls, you'd rather be first or second rather than seventh or eighth.
Given that, Newt Gingrich has a great theory about how people vote and why people respond to polls different than they do when they actually go and vote. People vote the way men buy cars. If you think or I think I need a new car, I might drive a Jaguar or a Hummer or a Maserati if I can find one, whatever.
And if you ask me after I drove it, did you like that car? "Oh yeah, that was a great car." (A pollster's conclusion:) "Galen likes Hummers." ...
And that's what happens when people are asked by a pollster if the election were held today, (who would you support)? If I was going to buy a car today — yeah. But I'm not buying a car today, so I can say whatever I want.
But when the day comes that I do buy the car and I have to actually write the check, I drive out with a Windstar because that's the right car for the family.
So Howard Dean was leading, was the (Democratic) nominee presumptive in December 2003, and four weeks later he came in third, and six weeks later he was out of business, because when it came to actually voting, people said mmmm, no, we can't do that.
Is Thompson getting a fair shake?
Yeah, sure. I mean, this is the NFL. If you're not prepared to get hit, then be a kicker.
"Is Thompson getting a fair shake? Yeah, sure. I mean, this is the NFL. If you're not prepared to get hit, then be a kicker."
And we all know a lot of those kickers are just soccer players that tried to be manly...
It's like public speaking - don't drone on forever - people will go to sleep.
Fred's refreshing - and he's not talking down to us - he's talking WITH us. That's something the MSM and the libs dont' get...
Once people stop paying attention to the bells and whistles, like Hillary’s “healthcare plan” (wow, she really set the world on fire with that, didn’t she?), and concentrate on competence and vision, Fred’s going to be in a good place.
...but rudy was mayor of NYC on 9/11!
(it changed his views on gun control, abortion, environment, taxation, apporting left wing judges, government spending, and everything else under the sun)
how can we tire of that!
(/s)
*snort*
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