Posted on 10/25/2007 9:07:19 PM PDT by Calpernia
Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign continues to have more departures than a Greyhound bus terminal.
Thompson personally hired Jim Mills, a highly respected Fox News producer, as his press spokesman. Two weeks later, after Thompson hired William Lacy as his campaign manager, Thompson fired Mills.
Mills gave up a hefty paycheck at Fox to join the Thompson campaign. He told friends he considered Thompson essential to the future of America. His firing outraged colleagues at Fox. Because Mills joined a campaign, his chances of being re-hired are diminished. He is still looking for a job.
J. T. Mastranadi, Thompson’s director of research, quit in horror after Thompson’s wife Jeri began taking attendance at campaign headquarters in McLean, Va., one late Friday afternoon. Jeri Thompson actually called staffers at home to ask where they were and why they should be paid.
“The younger ones thought they were going to lose their jobs,” a former staffer said. “The more established ones were offended and asked themselves, why do I need this? One asked if Jeri would be calling him at 1 a.m. to check up on him when he was doing campaign work.”
Despite that incident, Jeri, formerly with the Republican National Committee and Senate Republican Conference, is highly respected in Republican political circles.
“Message-wise, Jeri is great,” said a former staffer. “She understands him and how he is best presented. She is a very bright and a good political thinker.”
However, this week, Nelson Warfield, Thompson’s media consultant, left in disgust as well, Top advisor Mark Corallo quit previously.
Warfield was offended by Mills’ firing, Jeri Thompson’s meddling, and Thompson’s “lazy” approach to campaigning, according to one former staffer. Corallo left out of loyalty to Mills and dismay over what he considered Thompson’s mismanagement of the campaign.
Asked for comment, Thompson advisor Mary Matalin called a story about the departures “a very old item” that “very much mischaracterizes the campaign effort.”
She said Lacy was hired “to pull together a first class professional operation commensurate with the task at hand, namely, getting the best conservative elected, which is the only way to unite the party, which is the only path to beating the liberals next fall.”
Matalin said Lacy “has in fact accomplished his mandate above and beyond what anyone thought possible after the other money throwing campaigns vacuumed through the political community.” Lacy “is doing far more with are fewer and less paid staff who are all there because they believe in Fred,” Matalin said.
Many staffers who have quit or were fired felt Thompson misled them about the energy he would put into the campaign. While Thompson shows up at fund raisers, he leaves quickly and doesn’t spend much time making calls to raise money.
“That’s just distasteful to him, or else he’s busy doing other things,” a former staffer said.
Early on, Thompson told campaign aides he was not going to be frenetic. As they understood it, that meant he would not pop in and out of states. Instead, he would spend three or four days in a state like Iowa, for example.
“We thought he would be going from town to town, spending two hours at a time and talking to people,” a former staffer said. “Instead, he gets out of a bus and wears a baseball hat. The reporters laugh about it,” he said.
Often, Thompson attends a few events a week.
“Instead of an all-out campaign, it seemed he thought of campaigning as a break from the rest of his life, which entailed hanging out at home with his wife,” a former staffer said. Meanwhile, he noted, campaign aides are expected to work around-the-clock.
If Hillary Clinton is the candidate and Thompson is matched against her, the former staffer predicted a Republican disaster.
“Hillary is tireless,” he said. “She doesn’t take anything for granted. Nor do the rest of the candidates on the Republican side.”
I think that Thompson has squandered the momentum he had when he entered the race. We are seeing more and more disillusioned former supporters. He isn’t going to make it.
I didn’t know Reagan had attendance taken in the campaign office.
SSDD ping.
Maybe so but you and yours are wallowing in glee over the trivial inner workings of Fred's campaign. I've worked in an office most of my life and office politics has got to be the most ridiculous thing anyone can endure, and no office is immune to it.
Are we going to next get a thread about Fred picking his nose or farting?
Be thankful for that , because i’m sure he would condemn most of the comments on this thread. Too bad Hunter won’t break 1% ..... just isn’t fair is it ...
“a former staffer said”
“said a former staffer”
“according to one former staffer”
“a former staffer said”
“a former staffer said”
“a former staffer said”
“the former staffer predicted”
This article is useless. The meat of the article that the headline is based on is from a couple of anonymous former staffers. This has no value and really makes we wonder about Newsmax nowadays. Doesn’t mean these statements were not made but an anonymous pair (or more) of former staffers does not a credible article make.
Campaigns almost always go through growing pains. Thompson started later so those growing pains are more obvious in this stage of the game. Yet it is better to accept your miscues (or the former staffers miscues) and get the team best suited for you profesionally and collegially (they spend ALOT of time together) than to try to keep up appearances.
Body functions don’t amuse me. Taking attendance with adults does.
Ok,case in point. Is there something you would like me to do about it before the primaries?
I doubt it. But you are welcome to ping him. I’m sure he is very busy with the fire right now. But if you would like to ask him what he think of things that make me laugh, I’m sure he will answer you when he logs in.
lol, but Hunter is!
I think that Thompson has squandered the momentum he had when he entered the race.
Hunter never had any to begin with and he never will, at least in this election.
Check out my new tagline...
“lol, but Hunter is!”
LOL!! You bet, just wait and see.
My advice is to ditch the conservative wannabes like Thompson and join up with the Hunter Victory Team. You will sleep easier at night knowing you did the right thing.
I know I’m slow on the uptake, but... I don’t get it.
(psst. Jeri, try timesheets! These are adults, not preschool) Then they should act like it -- you know like being at work when they are supposed to be -- earning their pay, I think it's called.
Her Thighness’ minions must be pretty worried about Fred. This is quite the hit piece.
The BlogsforFred guy has gone to Huck? good grief, that was a good site he had!
Hunter's the best choice.
This thread would be more entertaining if it wasn’t a slight update of THIS thread “http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1891652/posts “, posted on September 5, 2007. Some folks here are obsessed with ‘process’ campaign inside baseball.
The Republican establishment, including conservative establishment, cares about these things.
I’m not saying a strong organization isn’t important. It would just be nice if the message & record was considered at LEAST as as important from these people.
But, no, not really. Because most of these people to this day still oooh and ahh over Clinton’s “war room” and his speech patterns and just how gosh darn well he’s able to lie and get away with it. can you tell I lost a lot of respect for these people? These are the same people saying Rudy won the second to last debate, even though apparently thompson was almost mistake free in his answers and Rudy was not. these are the same people saying he’s lazy without substantiation, yet say rudy won the last debate because he acted presidential even though he completely sidestepped the question on whether he and Hillary were alike.
Anyway, I don’t have control over Thompson’s day to day operations. he’s been fairly steadily ranked at around 20% in support. Solid number two. Not good enough to win, but good enough to place him in position to win. that means he probably needs some tweaks in his organization, but I’m not in a position to know what those would be. They are, and hopefully they make the right calls on these changes. Either way as long as his record remains the same and his positions the same I’m supportig him. Unlike the establishment, the record matters more to me how well someone lies.
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