Posted on 11/13/2007 11:13:48 AM PST by pissant
The American electorate is a fickle mistress. Just ask former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
When Thompson announced his candidacy for president just after Labor Day most national polls showed him running a close second behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the majority of state polls had him in the top three.
No longer. Thompson's campaign has yet to take off as expected and voters -- especially in crucial early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida.
The most recent data comes from New Hampshire where two surveys were released over the weekend. The first, conducted by theUniversity of New Hampshire for the Boston Globe, put Thompson in sixth (yes, SIXTH) place with just three percent of the vote. (Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led the way with 32 percent.) In a Marist University poll Thompson again took sixth place with just five percent support. To be clear, Thompson was never a frontrunner in New Hampshire but polls conducted in the run-up to his announcement and just after he formally entered the race show him regularly polling in double digits.
Thompson's shrinking support is apparent in other early states as well. The last three polls taken in Iowa put Thompson in fourth, fifth and fourth place, respectively, and his high water mark in any of those surveys is 11 percent. In Florida, too, Thompson appears to be fading. A new poll conducted for the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times showed Thompson in fifth place (eight percent) behind Giuliani (36 percent), Romney (19 percent), Arizona Sen. John McCain (12 percent) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (nine percent).
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
“Either way, I see significant blocks of delegates being picked up by five candidates (Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, McCain and Huckabee), depending on state rules for delegate allotment.”
Which, unfortunately, means Giuliani will probably win by default. It’s time to start thinning the herd. Preferably, given that several will not be participating in the next debate, they will start thinning themselves and endorsing candidates OTHER than Giuliani.
I have no desire to preach to the Hunter cheerleading choir.
This bolsters the point I made.
No, it doesn't. I think Thompson is both the better man and the better candidate. However, Hunter is someone, unlike Romney or Giuliani, I would not have think about whether or not I could actually vote for him. That isn't a strong endorsement of Hunter -- I'm merely saying that I could settle for him if need be... but that's an academic exercise as Hunter has zero chance of winning a single state, let alone the nomination.
correct. I have read many of Fred's writings. He truly seems to have a strong sense of the Founder's desire for a limited Federal government. Fred reveres the Constitution. I also have seen many of Fred's speeches on C-SPAN. What I sense is those who are biased against Fred will comment with a negative perspective (which is only natural). I have seen an across the board attack by the MSM to trash Fred. No other candidate on the Republican side is being attacked in such a manner. One has to ask why? It is because Fred Thompson is the only true conservative in the top tier. Hillary and her team know that Fred will be the most difficult to defeat.
It’s not a percentage.
***That’s exactly what it is.
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We’ve created an exchange for you to trade (speculate on) events that directly affect your life, like politics, entertainment, financial indicators, weather, current events and legal affairs - these are our trading categories.
Within each category we list a set of contracts, a contract is an event that will have an unambiguous result.
For example, some of our political contracts are: “Will George Bush be re-elected in 2004” or “Will John Kerry win the Democratic Nomination”. Each one is an event with an unambiguous result, either George Bush will be re-elected or he won’t.
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Since our contracts trade between 0 and 100, you can think of the price at any time to be the percentage probability of that event occurring. Let’s go back to our George Bush example, on December 1, 2003 the George Bush re-election contract was trading at 63, meaning, traders gave him a 63% chance of being re-elected.
If you thought President Bush will be re-elected you would expect that price to go up - towards 100. In that case, if you bought one contract at 63 and Mr. Bush did get re-elected you would make the difference between your purchase price - 63 - and the closing price - 100 - or 37 points. How much profit would that be? Click here.
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100 – 63 = 37 points X 10¢ per point = $3.70 a profit
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The Romney supporters have been particularly vicious, and from early on, as their only hope is for Romney to be considered "conservative" compared to Giuliani and McCain.
“I just hope Mitt kept the receipts. Otherwise, getting a refund will be a b*tch.”
Hehe... He’s been saying from the beginning that these are “loans.” It remains to be seen if he’ll have enough money left over at the end to pay himself back. He’s expecting early victories to bring money in - if that doesn’t happen, his “loans” may end up permanent.
and having his son ride into office off of hisfather’s popularity.
NO. It's not.
Losing track of the prize is the problem with being idealistic beyond reason. You can try to vilify Fred all you want but he's a good conservative candidate and we need desperately to defeat Rudy and Hillary. We will almost assuredly not have the House or the Senate and we need the Presidency or we will lose judge appointments, the veto, the bully pulpit, not to mention the glaring issue of our national security. We will lose any say or influence in ALL of it. Without the Presidency, Democrat leftists will be in complete control. That's what's at stake here.
Why would they fear a candidate who is falling in the polls like a rock and is just about to pass Huckabee and join the second tier of candidates.
I don’t think the Huck supporters really believe he’s a liberal. He says he’s for the FAIR tax and ending the IRS.
Fred on the other hand doesn’t tell you exactly what tax reform plan he is for.
Here’s another comparison. go to both websites to see what Huck and Fred say about the 2nd amendment.
Fred says:
I strongly support the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Gun control is touted as a major crime-control measure. But some of the places with the strictest gun-control laws also have high violent-crime rates. Disarming law-abiding citizens does not prevent crime. The answer to violent crime is smart, effective, and aggressive law enforcement. The real effect of these gun-control measures is to place onerous restrictions on law-abiding citizens who use firearms for such legal activities as self-defense, sport-shooting, hunting, and collecting. I am committed to:
* Strictly enforcing existing laws and severely punishing violent criminals.
* Protecting the rights individual Americans enjoy under the Second Amendment.
No candidate has a stronger, more consistent record on Second Amendment rights than I do. Our Founding Fathers, having endured the tyranny of the British Empire, wanted to guarantee our God-given liberties. They devised our three branches of government and our system of checks and balances. But they were still concerned that the system could fail, and that we might someday face a new tyranny from our own government. They wanted us to be able to defend ourselves, and that’s why they gave us the Second Amendment.
riiiiiight go from a floundering by MSM campaign to a dead for over a year campaign.
The only function Hunter serves right now is to help Giuliani get the nomination so Hilalry can beat him.
By the way, there you go again.
***Wrong. Addressed at post #70.
...you can think of the price at any time to be the percentage probability of that event occurring.
You can think of the price as a percentage probability. But it's still a price.
Secondly, this is not a percentage of people who say they would vote for candidate X (a poll), yet your posts keep interchanging and conflating these futures prices with polling data.
As I said above, what you are doing is misleading. I can't tell if it's intentional, but it is inaccurate and misleading.
““Not having the fire” is a media creation. It was also used on President Bush.”
No, Fred doesn’t have the fire or excitement to win over swing voters and the undecideds, pure and simple. It’s not a “Media Creation” it’s not hyperbole, it’s a fact that anyone who looks objectively at any of his public appearances can see. President Bush, even with the gaffes he’s famous for, can rally a crowd and a country, Fred puts ‘em to sleep. It’s a shame, Fred’s got the right ideas for the direction of the country, but sucks at the delivery of that message.
Excellent comments. It would be best to shut it down ASAP. Entitlements is a big nail in the coffin of our Republic.
I use his own words and votes. I did not ask him to be a mushy moderate and join the Centrist Coalition during his years in the Senate, he did it himself. I did not want McCain Feingold Thompson shoved down our throats. I did not try to cancel the B2 bomber program along with John Kerry. I did not support Howard Baker and John McCain for President.
He dug his own grave.
He's only "falling like a rock" because they've been able to sell Huckabee on the unsuspecting public. Once that bloom fades off the rose, Thompson will be back up -- so the media tries to make hay about the trends while they can.
Meanwhile the NRLC endorses Thompson, despite heavy lobbying by Romney and Huckabee, and the NRA isn't going to be far behind, if the rumors are true. Do you think those organizations think Fred is "foundering"?
That’s completely non-responsive. ejonesie22 said one would have to read the polls upside-down and you replied with futures prices, insinuating they are polls. Your post at #70 is irrelevant.
There you go again.
“Long, long before Thompson declared, many of the Republican elites were bashing him. I really don’t recall many attacks (before Thompson declared) coming from the left. Most of it was in house, particularly from Rudy supporters.”
I remember it that way as well. I have to also say that I’m not really sure the attacks on Fred are from the left now. Let me say that I don’t get cable so I don’t watch any cable news shows. I posted earlier that I’ve only seen Fred in short bytes. I did watch about half of his MTP interview. He did ok, didn’t set the world on fire. I think the GOP candidates are sniping each other pretty well, and the left has decided to let them. I’m sure that will all pass during the general election.
Ain’t you been pushing RootyMcRomney before?
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