Posted on 01/05/2008 9:05:25 AM PST by pissant
Manchester (NH): Fred Thompson spent most of caucus night in Iowa hovering between third and fourth place -- a far cry from the lofty first-place position he held in Rasmussen's poll of likely Republican caucus-goers last June. It has been a long time since Thompson has made a compelling reason to be in this race. And it should be a very short time before he confesses a compelling reason to exit stage right. A bystander in his own race, Thompson's political what-could-have-been slipped through his fingers long before he announced his candidacy. “The process for running for president has begun so early,” says GOP political strategist Charlie Gerow, “that if you are not in the game, you are not in the game … and Fred Thompson was never in the game.” Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, says “the biggest loser of 2008 is already known: Fred Thompson. The biggest pre-candidacy buildup since Ted Kennedy in the 1980 cycle has led to the same result -- a failure to come close to fulfilling his high expectations.” The short story of Fred Thompson started just about a year ago at the conservative love-fest known as the Conservative Political Action Convention, or CPAC. There, hints of a Thompson hat-toss began. By late spring, he was all the rage. He hit his high note with a clever video smacking down docudrama king Michael Moore. Suddenly, the political and media worlds could not get enough of Fred. It was his shining moment -- except that Fred forgot to shine. Summer came and went. So did a whole lot of staff and a whole lot of opportunities.
His eventual announcement in September came with a hefty price tag -- the Republican Primary voters in New Hampshire. He chose to announce on Jay Leno’s show, bypassing the first New Hampshire debate the same evening.
“He was an attractive idea, an image, and the reality couldn’t match it,” Sabato says. “This may be the fate of anyone touted as the next Reagan. Reagan is no longer a man. He’s a myth. No living human being can fulfill those expectations.”
“My opinion of what happened to Fred Thompson is that he turned out to be ... Fred Thompson,” adds Matt Lebo, political science professor at New York’s Stony Brook University.
“I don't think it’s just his late entry -- that is just a symptom of the problem,” Lebo says. “The problem is that he has never shown a willingness to fight for conservative causes. Believing in those causes isn't enough. There should be some evidence that you are willing to do something about it.”
While comparisons have been made to the failed 2004 campaign of Wesley Clark, those may not be fair. Clark was a political novice; Thompson is not.
So why did Thompson go wrong?
“I think he was expecting to ride in, pick up the bouquet, and that would be that,” says Bert A. Rockman, head of the political science department at Purdue University. “It doesn’t work that way.
“People confuse appearance with reality. Thompson played hard-as-nails authority figures on TV and in the movies. But his campaign had no distinctiveness, no comparative advantage.”
Somehow, someone must have convinced Thompson that times had changed and he could run a different kind of campaign, one that suited his low-key approach to politics. A campaign sans rubber-chicken dinners, moldy bus tours and all the other degrading aspects of running for president.
Tack on the misconceptions that tens of millions of dollars were waiting for him, that he could easily round up organizational support -- and that pretty much sums up why the promise of Fred never happened.
As the country shifts its gaze toward New Hampshire, Thompson stands to fare even worse here than he did in Iowa. As of Friday morning, he was polling sixth among likely Republican voters.
So, the near-term question for Fred Thompson isn't if he drops out of the race but when.
He will be the same place vis-a-vis Fred as he is now, since neither are actively contesting NH. A loss there will not be against expectations.
However, if Romney comes out of NH in second, with 26% to McCain's 33% current polling, that means that Romney will be in the lead in delegates. Both Iowa and NH are proportional distributions, and with what Mitt is getting in WY today, he could have as many as 20 delegates to Huck's @14 (13 + whatever he picks up in NH) and McCain's 9.
It ain't the number of first place finishes that count, it's the number of delegates you have.
I guess we’ll now get to see Hunter’s number spike as he picks up all Fred’s supporters, like you said.
Huckabee is riding high with his win out of Iowa. Like it or not he is going to be the victim of diminishing returns. He is seen as the front runner and finishing fourth is going to hurt him.
Women's suffrage was a mistake. No doubt about it.
His number has already spiked, he’s all the way up to almost 1%.
You’re gonna pay a heavy price for that one!
By the end of the month, we'll have heard from New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. If Duncan Hunter has not gotten good support by then, he's done. Period, end of discussion
By Super Tuesday, conservatives need to unite behind the only candidate who seems a viable real conservative. And it's not going to be the RINO Baptist or the RINO from Massachusetts
I'm so fed up I just don't care.
What about all of his white papers and policy proposals? If that's not "willing to do something about it" then nothing is.
It makes sense-— it seems to me, at least-— that a Duncan Hunter proponent would be highly anti-Fred. Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson are diametrically opposite one another when comes to economic matters.
The former doesn’t have any tax-cutting plans to speak of beyond the Fairtax, which is the sort of thing even a moderate like Huckabee can easily promise to support since the 16th Amendment stands no chance of being eliminated during the eight years, while Thompson has a highly practical and specific plan to flatten the income tax and simplify the tax code. This is what one would expect, given that, according to the Club for Growth and the National Taxpayer’s Union, Hunter’s tax cutting record is mixed while Thompson’s is excellent.
Similarly, on trade Duncan Hunter thinks the economic nationalism and corporate welfare of other nations but especially China can only be defeated with economic nationalism and corporate welfare on the part of the United States. On the other hand, as someone who buys into the free market economics of Hayek, Friedman, Thompson believes that free trade is the best way to strengthen the United States and limit government.
One may agree with Hunter or Thompson as one likes, both being plainly good, patriotic men (especially Hunter, who has given so much to this country); but they are not equivalent or even very similar to one another in their politics.
No, they never said any such thing
Your wasting your breath. ‘feel’ sorry for someone who gives a rip.
The punditocracy purposely forgets that it was the democrat campaign machinery that launched the too early campaigning and that Fred’s entry was at the traditional time of past campaign seasons. That same ocracy will fail to see that American Conservatives actualy like such an attitude until Jan 19th is counted. Thaompson and Hunter are the ONLY electable conservatives running for the nomination. If pubbies nominate a liberal like Romney or Huckster, or a clueless Washington fool like McPain or Julie Annie, the nation will tipp over into the liberal cesspool never to rise again.
Hunter Duncan squandered 97% of his contract value at Intrade.
***Duncan has gone down 2.5 points over his premium value, and Thompson has squandered more than 10X that.
His chances of winning are shown at .1 because there’s no lower number on the Intrade scale.
***Thompson is trading 2nd highest at Intrade for the Dropout contract in January, behind Edwards. For February, he’s the most likely to drop out, at 85% likelihood. Last I heard, Hunter got one delegate and Thompson got 2 from Wyoming. Hunter’s contract prices are undervalued, and since he’s polling in the 3-4% range, if his contracts go up to 4$ it would be a 40X return on investment. In order to match that, Fred’s nomination contract would need to go all the way to 100.
According to Intrade, it’s twice as likely that Newt Gingrich will get the GOP nomination, and four times as likely that Condie Rice will get it.
***And neither of those “candidates” has any delegates right now. That makes Hunter a bargain.
Basically, it’s a wide open race, with the lead changing on a weekly basis. Might as well support the truest conservative, Hunter.
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The Efficacy Of Prediction Markets The Liberty Papers ^ |
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922961/posts
According to Intrade, the winner of the December 12th GOP debate was... Duncan Hunter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938773/posts
Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
That same ocracy
***Heh, good writing.
You were the one lecturing about how percentage was more important. I agree. It is.
Hunter Duncan is down 97%.
Hunter Duncan does not even have a dropout contract, because no one would be stupid enough to bicker over the difference between 99.9 and 99.8 points of value.
So one candidate’s numbers are in the low teens and the other is in, well less than 1%. And using your logic the 1%er is the better campaigner. You and pissant are cut from the same cloth.Fred has a slim chance at winning, Duncan has none. Simple truth!
***Whoever wins the GOP nomination is going to have the MSM media turn on him. What we need is the most solid, rock-ribbed conservative in the race. The media will work themselves into a frenzy trying to make him look bad, and it will backfire because most of america is conservative. When the media gets worked up and jumps the shark, it does not even know that it has done so, like when Dan Rather did his thing. But if the GOP candidate is a centrist, it plays right into the media’s hands and they don’t work themselves into such a frenzy. That’s how Bill Sali won Idaho, Prop 187 was passed in liberal California, and even how Reagan won. Hunter is the only candidate who can survive the oncoming media heat; Fred has said that he doesn’t even like the process of running for president. Hunter is the better man and the better candidate.
I am voting for Fred and if he doesn’t make, my vote goes to the Republican nominee.
None of this “writing in” stuff for me.
Being a better man is up to the ones personal choices, I wouldn't think of bad mouthing Duncan Hunter I deal strictly with realities and no matter how much you believe in Duncan he has gone nowhere. Fred has done little more at this stage but in the only voting that has taken place he was #3. Fred and Duncan are my two favorites. Unlike some people I see no advantage in dragging down another conservative.
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