Posted on 01/07/2008 12:12:29 PM PST by SmithL
Fred is not dead. But his campaign is hanging by a thread.
That pretty much sums up where Fred Thompson's bid for the White House stands.
Heading into last week's Iowa caucuses, many political observers were saying the former U.S. senator from Tennessee needed to at least finish third to remain in the hunt for the Republican nomination.
Thompson got that, narrowly beating out Sen. John McCain for the third-place spot by less than one percentage point.
That's the good news, such as it was. But the bad news is that attention has now shifted to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, where Thompson isn't expected to do particularly well.
According to data released Friday by the Zogby International polling firm, Thompson was running in sixth place there, behind the other four major Republican contenders and long-shot hopeful Ron Paul.
Thompson's not polling well in Michigan, either, which will be the next event on the primary calendar. That leaves him in a situation where he'll almost have to win the Jan. 19 South Carolina primary in order to last until Feb. 5, when more than 20 states, including Tennessee, will hold their primaries.
Winning South Carolina may be an even tougher task for Thompson than it seemed a week ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at commercialappeal.com ...
“I think the more someone “wants to be President” the LESS we should want to vote for them. Washington was PRESSED to the position.
Thompson had to be begged by literally thousands of us to “join up”.
He’s the man.”
JMO but playing hard to get doesn’t make a candidate anymore qualified for the job. FDT can still pull it out, but it’s a long shot. I still don’t understand what happened to his numbers...he fell right off the chart.
. I still don’t understand what happened to his numbers...he fell right off the chart.
What numbers? LOL Polls are insipid and mostly useless. Don’t pay attention to numbers when picking a candidate. Pay attention to the MAN (or woman) and their message. People who listen to polls are lazy and mostly illiterate. :) (Not you, because you’re obviously not choosing a candidate based on numbers)
I would like to see Fred’s wife as First Lady too... (ok, NOW you know my reasons for voting for him!) j/k
They don't know any more than we do.
I'd prefer it, if Fred were comfortably in the lead, but I'm not disappointed with his current positioning. The only thing that worries me is that the MSM is studiously ignoring him.
Because we all know how representative New Hampshire is of the rest of the country?
These early primaries really don't mean a lot. The media hypes them for the sake of ratings, and there are some things that can be learned from them, but doing bad in a couple early primaries that account for relatively few delegates doesn't mean a candidate isn't viable.
If a candidate can't find a solid base of support from somewhere they are in trouble, so Thompson does need to do reasonably well in South Carolina, but he doesn't need to do well in New Hampshire, and never really expected that he would.
“Thompson needs to take Huck OUT, NOW.”
Not now, but Wednesday, after Huckster finishes what he started and chops off Romney’s other leg. Then it’s time for Fred to take this bozo down.
“What numbers? LOL Polls are insipid and mostly useless. Don’t pay attention to numbers when picking a candidate. Pay attention to the MAN (or woman) and their message. People who listen to polls are lazy and mostly illiterate. :) (Not you, because you’re obviously not choosing a candidate based on numbers)”
Sorry to disagree with you, but I think the polls while not 100% accurate, do in fact show trends. Fred entered with great numbers, polling 2nd in national polls(national polls don’t mean much in a primary, but again point out trends) Fred was trending down in Iowa, and finished in a virtual tie with McCain who didn’t seriously contest Iowa.He’s now polling 3rd or 4th. As I said he can still win, but his window is closing rather quickly.
“These early primaries really don’t mean a lot. The media hypes them for the sake of ratings, and there are some things that can be learned from them, but doing bad in a couple early primaries that account for relatively few delegates doesn’t mean a candidate isn’t viable.”
I keep reading here that the early primaries don’t matter. If they didn’t matter, nobody would contest them. They matter because of the momentum to be gained or lost, and the fund raising opportunities that go with winning. Rudy decided to skip the early contests and try to get all his delegates after Fl. Fred seemed to be taking that same strategy, but then with 3 weeks left before Iowa, decided to contest it. His 3rd place finish in a virtual tie with McCain, while certainly not the kiss of death, isn’t really much of a victory either. It gets Fred a ticket to the next couple of primaries, but he has to win SC. A 3rd place finish in SC won’t get it done.
;-)
The game is afoot!
Which means he's an excellent candidate for a platform of change from the status quo that seems to be resonating with so many voters.
Huckabee shows some social conservatism, but is generally just another big government liberal. More of the same.
Rudy? More big government interference in our lives, very little change.
McCain? More of the same.
Romney? Hard to really tell what to expect from Romney. He has leadership skills, but it's hard to tell where he will lead, but I suspect he is more conservative than he sold himself as in MA, and less conservative than he is selling himself now. However, I still expect more big government liberalism, maybe slightly less, but not significantly so.
Paul would bring change, but he's an example of how not all change is good. He takes some good ideas about smaller government and runs off to the loony bin with them.
Very few people are happy with the Bush administration. Liberals hate him despite his liberal social programs, and conservatives hate him because of them.
The only changes Obama offers people is ending the war, and more, bigger social programs. As someone once said, American's aren't opposed to the war, they are opposed to losing, and oppose a war that it doesn't appear we can win. Turning tail in Iraq isn't a winning national strategy.
Eight years ago we were sold on how Bush's compassionate conservatism which was supposed to represent Bush being a moderate, would bring the country together. Instead it has torn us apart even more, as much because of Bush's failure to lead as for his bad policies.
We need a true conservative that will also lead, and who won't try and play nice with a media that has no intention of playing nice with him.
As unpopular as Bush is, Congress is even more unpopular, and I suspect the media is even less popular than Congress.
People are sick of the way things are. They want change. They don't seem to really know what they want, but they know it isn't the way things are now.
The need someone who will lead them on a new path and will take on the establishment, and that establishment is the media and big government.
I’ll be voting for FRed here in MI. Just had a call from “Romney for President”. Didn’t bother to pick up the phone.
What’s with this constant oh they can’t survive until the next primary stuff? They can too. Any of them can survive. McCain hasn’t had any money to speak of for months now, and he has survived (unfortunately). Thompson, Romney, Huckabee, Guiliani, even Hunter, they can all survive until the Feb 5th primaries. I’m so sick of these can they survive, oh no they can’t stories. It’s all baloney. The candidates will continue until they don’t want to and pull out.
You should be writing speeches for Hillary Clinton.
Most Huck voters have NO idea about Huck’s positions or history.
In this they share one important characteristic with the candidate; they are both completely clueless.
Obviously some states have a greater chance of supporting certain types of candidates, so they mean more for some candidates than they do for others.
Rudy doing badly in Iowa isn't a big deal for him. Fred's weak third place is more of a big deal to him than Rudy's considerably worse showing.
NH is relatively liberal, but often more small town liberal. McCain plays well there. If he did poorly there, it would be a very bad sign for him. Since Romney is well known there, he is expected to do well there.
However, a poor showing for Fred doesn't mean much.
You are however correct that doing well in early primaries can often translate into campaign donations, so they do have some importance in that regard, and they do skew the nomination process some because of that, but you still can't say that if someone comes in low in the pack on the first couple primaries that the race is over for them.
Historically, the early primaries don't mean a lot.
Hillary is also far more likely to do well in the heavily populated states like California and New York that come later. As much as I wish the race was over for her, it is still her race to lose.
However, her worst nightmare is a likable opponent because Democrats have a habit of voting based on how they feel about an opponent much more than on the issues or on experience. No one really feels good about Hillary Clinton and no one really likes her.
I think Obama will win the nomination because he will be seen and the noble agent of change that defeats the old hag of the status quo. However, I'm not basing that on her inability to trounce Obama and Edwards in Iowa and NH.
I don’t trust Huckabee either, he is the only Republican, besides maybe McCain who I don’t trust. I don’t trust the two for different reasons. I am almost thinking Huckabee is a Clinton plant, though I hate to go there. But I do agree with you, I can’t put my finger on it either. I think his support is coming from Evangelicals. Personally, though I am a Christian myself, I have always tended to mistrusted Evangelicals as being a little disengenous. Its why I won’t go to a church that is part of the Evangelical Movement. Just too many have raised my eye-brows wondering about their true motivations. And it has happened too much for me to ignore. Despite this, I am sure there are some who are sincere. But as a group, they have had more then their fair share who seemed lacking in that quality.
Considering the fact that the Republican winner in NH has NOT been the nominee for several of the last few elections, and they almost never pick Southerners, Fred wisely realized it wasn't worth the time or money to fool with it. There will be some there who will vote for him, but he's looking at the delegate rich South to use his campaign funds.
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