Goodbye Fred

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.

“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.

Well, having marched for life in Washington, DC for some years now, I can tell you that the majority of the marchers every January 22 are Catholic. And the pro-life movement is at the core of the social conservative movement.
***That doesn’t address the contention of whether the folks who are out there are evangelicals or not. They sound like evangelical catholics to me.

I wouldn’t call evangelicals THE core of the social conservative movement, but rather A core.
***I would. But since neither of us is arguing from some statistical evidence (once again, yours is anecdotal), it’s becoming a moot point.

And since we Catholics actually voted in the majority for Presidents Bush II and Reagan, I didn’t think that evangelicals, our partners in the social conservative movement, would go all tribal on us.
***Good writing, makes a funny mental image. First you say, “we catholics” then you talk about evangelicals going “all tribal on us”. Pot, meet kettle. You’re drawing a distinction between catholics and evangelicals, and I’m not. Who’s the one going tribal here?

Kevmo: “You think you’re right, but you won’t put money down on that hunch.”
SiteTest: True enough. I also don’t go to Atlantic City or to the races here in Maryland. I have been known to buy a 50-50 ticket at Knights of Columbus meetings.
***So one is okay but the other isn’t. And the whole group of political junkies who DO put their money down, and happen to generate reliable data (more reliable than our ballyhooed polls) are dismissed because of your anecdotal approach because you don’t do it. Yup, sounds like a Navy Guy once again.

Kevmo: “***Your math doesn’t add up. Over at Intrade, when one guy is 10X more likely to win than another guy and someone else is 15X...”
SiteTest: Well, I’m pretty sure that I don’t care what Intrade “thinks,”
***In short, their math adds up and yours doesn’t. I’ll stick to the more reliable data, thank you.

but here’s the deal: I’d say that Mr. Thompson is maybe 30 or 40 times more likely to be the nominee than Mr. Hunter is, and Mr. Huckabee is probably closer to 100 times more likely to be the nominee.
***See here is where your math doesn’t add up. Earlier you said it was 1 or 2 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more likely that Thompson would win the Nom, and now you’re squarely down to 1 order of magnitude. Intrade has Thompson at 2.0, Hunter at 0.1 so it’s 20X at this point. Hunter tends to fluctuate from .1 to .2, so he can knock down that multiplier to 10X in one day. In engineering, when you’re off by an order of magnitude, you got the answer wrong. Huckabee is at 14.5, ~7X more likely than Thompson to get the nomination. Since both of us have noticed that the Huckster followers are evangelicals who have “gone tribal”, And that Huck is probably not going to get the nomination, it looks to me like much more of that support would land in Hunter’s evangelical camp than in Thompson’s Lukewarm Laodicean camp.

Of course, that means that Mr. Huckabee is significantly more likely to be the nominee than Mr. Thompson, but only by a factor of two or three, or thereabouts.
***I’ll stick with 7X, which is the accumulated wisdom of the market for now, thank you. They don’t make the mistake of being off by an order of magnitude.

Kevmo“***You’re doing exactly the same thing.”
SiteTest: I’m expressing my views, but I’m not interpreting YOUR views through my perspective, only disagreeing with them.
***Sounds the same to me.

Kevmo: “***Here, you say you see leadership qualities in Thompson that would make a good president, but you overlook stunning drawbacks about his character.”
SiteTest: I don’t see any stunning drawbacks in Mr. Thompson’s character.
***You’re star struck. Just like the aRINOld supporters a while back. Best of luck with your candidate.

Kevmo: “From my discussion with you it’s clear that it’s because you agree with him. It is centrism you value.”
SiteTest: From our discussion, it’s clear that you’re now willfully misrepresenting my views, because you’re unable to see things from outside of your own perspective.
***Likewise, Prince. We’ll let the readers decide for themselves.

On most issues, I think that Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hunter agree. On some issues, Mr. Hunter is more conservative. Abortion is one. I assure you that I’m much closer to Mr. Hunter on the issue of abortion than to Mr. Thompson.
***Good to see you acknowledge that. That one point is likely to draw the bulk of the support of the Huckabee followers, more than any other.

I just don’t see that we’re going to get all the way to that position without first going through a period where abortion becomes again a state issue.
***I do. No one would make babykilling a states right issue. I’m okay with an incrementalist approach, see my proposal. But a federalist approach is wrong in several ways.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1949702/posts?page=588#588

Thus, if Mr. Thompson appoints justices that vote to overturn Roe, AND appoints pro-lifers to posts that are sensitive with regard to the issue of life (which he has promised), then I can accept that. That will work. That’s as far as we’re going to get in the next few years.
***There’s a way to circumvent the entire Roe V. Wade thing by having the baby declared to be a person, just like we did with Slaves in the 1860’s. That will work if you schedule the vote right before congress runs for their election.

Unless Intrade is telling you that the likelihood of passing the HLA in the next eight years is above 50%?? LOL.
***HLA or RTLA? I have gotten them confused in the past. Hunter supports RTLA, Thompson doesn’t. Score one for Hunter, and a minus in Thompson’s column.

I wouldn’t say that Mr. Clinton was a COMPETENT president, but he became a sufficiently PASSIVE president after 1994 that the damage he did to the country was significantly minimized.
***Most freepers would disagree with you. I disagree with you. I signed up in 1998 when hope for the socons was at its lowest ebb. Thanks for being honest and candid about your positions. I can see from our point-counterpoint that there is no good reason to think that Fred’s candidacy will thrive.

Kevmo:“***It’s the most important aspect.”
SiteTest: I’d actually agree with that. That’s why I won’t vote for Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney. My 20% friend is my 80% enemy, as someone around here says.
***Significantly, it was me disagreeing with you when I wrote that it was the most important aspect. That bolsters my point that your perspective of Hunter proceeds from your idealogy. I’m pretty sure my perspective is colored in the same way, it’s probably human nature.

But Mr. Thompson is my 80% friend. Even if Mr. Hunter is my 90% friend, the fact that Mr. Thompson might possibly be president, and Mr. Hunter won’t, is important to me.
***Very interesting. I see that you’re closing out the discussion, so I won’t bother getting into this, but there’s a lot to be talked about on this one sentence.

But Mr. Schwarzenegger never ran as much more than our 40% friend. He was pretty dismissive of social conservatives from the get-go.
***It sounds like you weren’t around at that time. Maybe aRINOld was dismissive, but the rest of his followers, big factions of the GOP, and lots of Freepers managed to get stars in their eyes and convince plenty of socons that he was “conservative enough”.

Kevmo: “Your dismissiveness of Hunter is based upon idealogy.”
SiteTest: Your willingness to tell that untruth is based on your lack of ability to see from the other fellow’s perspective. My ideOlogy is closer to Mr. Hunter’s in some areas than to Mr. Thompson.
***You don’t know the meaning of an untruth. I established that your perspective is based upon idealogy, and if you say your idealogy is closer to Hunter than Thompson then I can see things from your perspective. Let the readers decide for themselves.

Kevmo: Interesting. Most conservatives see Homeland Security of SecDef for Hunter. So far, I really haven’t seen Thompson’s name come up for any of these slots, because he’s not as qualified as Hunter.”
SiteTest: Certainly not, since Mr. Thompson has already ruled out taking any other office.
***Then he’s selfish, not a team player. Also, he simply isn’t suitable. If a man isn’t suitable for the lower positions in an organization, there’s a likelihood he’s not suitable for the top position.

As well, Secretary of Homeland Security is more of a manager’s job, not a leader’s, and I don’t think that Mr. Thompson is an excellent manager.
***I agree with you here. Thompson isn’t a good manager, Hunter is a good manager. I think Thompson isn’t a good leader, you think Hunter isn’t. So who has more positive ticks on his scorecard? Hunter, who is an acknowledged good manager across the board; Thompson is an acknowledged “non-excellent” manager across the board. Hunter is better than Thompson.

There you go again.
***Likewise, prince.

Well, if you must persist in misrepresenting what I’ve said, perhaps we should leave it at that.
***Likewise, prince. We’ll let the readers decide for themselves.
Nice chatting with you.

Followup to this exchange...

Tonight after the New Hampshire results started coming in, Thompson’s Nomination contract dropped below 2%, down to 1.6 so he’s now at 16X more likely.

2008.GOP.NOM.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008 M 1.8 2.4 1.6 102809 -0.4

His presidential contract lost most of its value, it is only ahead of Hunter (still embedded in the field) by 0.1, making only 2X more likely to be president.

2008.PRES.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to win 2008 US Presidential Election M 0.3 0.4 0.2 41449 -0.5
2008.PRES.FIELD
Field (any other candidate) to win 2008 US Presidential Election M 0.2 0.3 0.1 17629 +0.0

His dropout contract rose 15 points and is now at 90% for January, no change for February.

DROPOUT.JAN08.(F)THOMPSON
Fred Thompson to drop out of 2008 Presidential race on/before 31 Jan 2008 M 75.0 90.0 90.0 134 +15.5

Dear Kevmo,

Oh, no, I asked specifically about the February 5, 2008 primary.

We were talking about primaries and caucuses in Iowa, Wyoming, and other places when I asked you about Mr. Hunter’s polling in his home state of California:

“’I’m not sure that’s much of a strategy. Pick off 1/12 of the delegates in the smallest states, and let the larger states go essentially unchallenged. Ouch.’
“***If those aren’t real delegates, then it’s a good strategy.”

“Winning 13% in the nationally-hyped beauty contest in Iowa would have eventurally yielded a lot more delegates in a lot of other states than winning 8% of the delegates in Wyoming.

“What’s the next Hunter target, Delaware? Rhode Island? ;-)

“How’s Mr. Hunter currently polling in his home state? Has he broken 5%?”

You replied with this:

“’How’s Mr. Hunter currently polling in his home state? Has he broken 5%?’
“***I’m here in liberal Cahleeforneya. Remember Proposition 187? Remember how polls don’t mean much to Hunter supporters? How’s that Intrade dropout contract for Thompson in January and in February? Does it give you confidence? The cool thing about the Intrade stuff is, if it really gets under your skin you can actually go ahead and do something about it and if you’re right you would make money, maybe as soon as tomorrow. I can’t do much about polls in liberal Cahleeforneeya, as far as I can tell.”

I asked for a clarification:

““How’s Mr. Hunter currently polling in his home state? Has he broken 5%?
“***I’m here in liberal Cahleeforneya. Remember Proposition 187? Remember how polls don’t mean much to Hunter supporters? How’s that Intrade dropout contract for Thompson in January and in February? Does it give you confidence? The cool thing about the Intrade stuff is, if it really gets under your skin you can actually go ahead and do something about it and if you’re right you would make money, maybe as soon as tomorrow. I can’t do much about polls in liberal Cahleeforneeya, as far as I can tell.”

“Do you think that Mr. Hunter will win California? Break 5%?”

Again, in that we were talking about primaries and caucuses, and even your previous answer was talking about what Mr. THOMPSON would do in January and February, the context is obviously the California primary on February 5, 2008.

And to this discussion, you replied:

“’Do you think that Mr. Hunter will win California? Break 5%?’
***This is basically the same question. Hunter will do in California as well as Prop 187 did.”

As well, since we’ve been arguing about whether Mr. Hunter even has the most remote chance of the nomination, it’s even clearer that we were speaking about the California primary. Further, it’s clear that I’m asking about the primary from my question of whether he’ll break 5%. Obviously, any major party nominee in the general election will break 5% in every state. To assume that I was referring to the general would be absurd and tendentious.

So, you’re no longer confident that Mr. Hunter will get nearly 60% in the California primary?

What’s your new prediction for Mr. Hunter’s result in the California primary?

Thanks,

sitetest

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