Posted on 01/20/2008 2:15:03 AM PST by counterpunch
With the results unclear as to whether he comes in 3rd or 4th in S.C. Senator Thompson, thanked South Carolina supporters and said very little about his future. In recent days he has said he would return to Tenn.visit with his Mom and make a decision about his future. Parts of his remarks tonights referred to his candidacy in the past tense, but he issued forward looking challenges to the GOP on leadership and direction. If Huckabee comes up short, it could cause southern conservatives to give Fred another look and thus give him more reasons to stay in beyond the upcoming debates and explosion of state contests on 2/5.
(Excerpt) Read more at cameron.blogs.foxnews.com ...
The only one who has run a worse campaign that Fred this season is Rudy. They are both duds. In Rudy’s case, the wound was self-inflicted; he should have fired his campaign mis-manager long ago. In Fred’s case, he just lacked the fire in the belly. He was incredibly wooden for someone who is an actor—perhaps he needed his director around to tell him what to do.
The biggest reason Fred’s campaign went no where is because he never received any positive media coverage. If you don’t think the MSM is trying to determine the outcome of this election, I’ve got a bridge I can sell you cheap. Look what happened in Iowa. The day of the election, Fred has to spend all of his media interview time debunking the rumor that he was going to abandon his campaign. You can’t put out a positive message when every question has you in the tank.
Furthermore, every pundit after each one of the primaries has pushed the point that Fred is going to drop out “any day now.” The average voter doesn’t want to waste their vote on someone who isn’t going to be there in November.
Frankly, this has been the WORST campaign I can remember in my 50+ years. The media has dropped any pretense of being fair (and balanced) and has been pushing candidates at the electorate like a cheap suit. Look at the soundbites they show. McCain is always portrayed as a victim because he was a POW. Mitt is a MORMAN (a religion that promotes polygamy) according to the media; and Huckabee is portrayed as a golden-throated minister who hails from that cradle of great presidents, Hope, Arkansas; and lastly we have Duncan Who? A true conservative voice that never received any media exposure because his ideas might just possibly resonate with an electorate.
The bottom line in all this is that we are going to be living with a Democrat in the White House AND a Democrat controlled Congress until the MSM decrees that they are the favorites no more.
As far as Obama and Hillary are concerned, the MSM hasn’t decided who they will support (think Obama) they can always trumpet after the election the high negatives of Hillary, but....They will shape the coverage to fit the outcome they want.
Think about this. It is very easy to marginalize someone in a 5 horse race, once you have just the two main contenders it becomes much more difficult. How do you prop up a Hillary or a Obama against a Thompson or a Hunter? You can’t. The differences are too great and the contrasts are too striking. So your next best scenario is to support two candidates with similar positions. You can be much more subtle in your approach to slanting things favorably in the direction of the candidate you want to win.
IMHO McCain is just a hair breaths away from a “Dean moment” I predict he will have that moment during a national debate with Hillary sometime before the election. You can then kiss the Republican party goodbye...possibly forever.
For all the talk of Republican ideals, the bottom line is this electorate wants “something for nothing” and will be quite content to accept socialized health care and illegal aliens because they are just too stupid to look beyond the sound bite.
I, for one, will not participate in this farce. With Hunter gone and Thompson being shown the door, I will not vote for a loose cannon like McCain nor a Massachusetts Liberal like Romney. As for Huckabee, I don’t want the State of the Union address to sound like a tent revival.
I have NEVER sat out an election...but this year I just might. And please, don’t chastise me because we “have to elect a Republican” to the White House. Just because there is an “R” behind your name doesn’t mean you’re a Republican. This year the choice looks like the lesser of two liberals.
I guess the only candidate on my "side" that I really can't vote for is Rudy. Any from the rest of the pack probably (possibly?) get my vote.
Someday . . . maybe . . . I'll be proud of the GOP again.
Exactly. My impression of Fred is that he is going through the motions, either for his wife's sake (the director) or as a stalking horse for his friend McCain. Either way, his heart does not appear to be in winning the nomination nearly as much as his supporters are. I appreciate his emphasis on doing what's right for the nation, but he doesn't inspire me past that. Personally, I like the man- but he needs to step it up considerably in an outward fashion, get more aggressive on McCain and drop his McCain-Feingold baggage at the curb to get my vote. If he were nominated today based on how he portrays himself, he would be eaten alive by either Clinton or Obama.
I think you are right in your assessment, counterpunch.
I would just add that God's providence has a lot to do with outcomes in life. And, the prayers of righteous people avail much.
From the depths of my heart - God bless you, Fred Thompson, and God bless the United States of America.
Don't Quit
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seem all uphill.
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest,if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is odd with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you can never tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
~~~Unknown~~~
That said the primary system need to be seriously changed ... this system is stilted by the party elders for the media and McCain-Feingold fans. Something has to be done to bring the primary system to the party members
.
Beautiful sentiment, it brought a tear to my eye. I cannot believe how this country has changed. We have become a country without a backbone. We tolerate traitors in our midst, yet do nothing to call them out. While I don’t agree with everything GWB has done, I shudder to think of what awaits us in the next 4, possibly 8 years. I am truly scared that this country is in decline. We have ceased being a people of courage and have become a country of freeloaders.
I imagine if John F Kennedy uttered his famous inaugural line today he would be booed resoundly. If given an opportunity to ammend the line now it would probably read “Ask not what you can do for your country...ask what your country can do for you...” How sad.
If Fred decides to drop out, his support will go to Huckabee and that could give a positive infusion of political life to his campaign. Romney has the cash flow to march forward and could have a chance to win the nomination. Giuliani needs a miracle to be the nominee and for that I say, thank God.
Bottom line. John McCain's win in South Carolina was a huge victory and if you follow the historic record, McCain has the best chance of being the GOP nominee.
Does bullshiite just come naturally to you, or do you pay a striking writer for it?
Hey, it happened with Lincoln, so who knows.
What a jerk. All you do is say that Thompson is no Reagan. Of course he's not Reagan. Reagan is dead. And now Reagan's legacy will be dead too if someone doesn't carry on with it. The other choices we have are all so far from what Reagan stood for that they might as well be running as Democrats. We have the choices we have. Who of the other candidates is closer to Reagan's policies than Thompson? Because you will have to vote for one of them or vote Democrat.
Tes, it was Obama, I misread.
She is still as wacky as her dad for such a stupid comment.
Now pay close attention here, ok?
I’m not talking about the fact that Thompson is literally not Reagan, I’m talking about the fact that so far as political instincts, drive, the ol’ ‘fire in the belly’ factor, Thompson isn’t even a shadow of the Gipper.
He talks a fairly good game when he’s awake, but his own un-Reagan like laziness and lack of drive in this primary season means only one thing, and that is that he is not going to be the GOP nominee, not because he isn’t conservative enough, not because he’s wrong on the issues, he will fail to be the nominee because he let other candidates gain advantages that he will play Hell trying to overcome, and the odds are he’s not going to do it.
When Reagan was challenging Ford in ‘76, he fought on with everything he had, right to the convention floor, even naming his own Vice Presidential choice in hopes of smoking out who Ford was going to select as a replacement for Nelson Rockefeller (who Ford jettisoned from the ticket because conservatives rightly were in an uproar over Rockefeller being appointed VP in the first place).
The final score card was Ford = 15 primary wins, Reagan = 12, which led to the convention floor where Ford eventually prevailed.
As for ‘who’ of the other candidates is closer to Reagan’s policies? Here’s your answer:
NONE, which makes Thompson’s quasi-Reaganesgue bid for the title of ‘Mr Conservative’ meaningless because he is now positioned as the ‘default’ conservative candidate, but his own lackluster campaigning has made his electoral doom even more likely than ever before.
As for my “having to vote for one of them or vote Democrat”, let me remind you Mr. FC, that all I have to do in this life is pay taxes and die.
If the Republicrat Party becomes the RINO Party, they will be partying on without me.
There wouldn't be a Huckabee presidency. If he is nominated, that ensures a Democrat victory.
As for John McCain, he has spent the last eight years stabbing conservatives in the back at every turn. If he is elected, the Democrats not only get to have their policies implemented, but they get to blame the failures on "conservative Republicans". No thanks.
In match-point bridge, if one is guaranteed to get a cold bottom on a board unless the opponents have some particular arrangement of the cards, that is the arrangement one should assume exists, no matter how unlikely it may be. Even if there's less than a 1% chance of such a play actually working, it costs nothing to take that chance.
I think this country would have a reasonable shot of surviving if Romney is nominated. It would have a better shot if Fred is nominated. If any of the other front runner is nominated, I'm not sure what else matters.
My husband and I were discussing that very thing today. For the first time in our lives we are truly concerned about the future of our country.
If we don't wake up on our own before it's too late, we are going to have a rude awakening after it's too late.
I read somewhere that only 10% of the adult population of the Soviet Union were members of the Communist Party, and yet....
Some were so indoctrinated and conditioned that they wanted to turn back, even after the people were freed from the stranglehold of Communist oppression.
We are getting close to the tipping point where the percentage of people who know and care about the intent of our Founding Documents are being outnumbered by those who do not know, or care. That is scary.
Wise up Sparky, before anyone can vote for Thompson, he’s got to win the nomination.
What you apparently are unable to grasp, is the reality that
a.) Thompson may very well pull out of the race before Super Tuesday even gets here, or
b.) If Thompson stays in, he will fail to overcome the momentum that has already been generated by his rivals.
And I might add, I’m not ruling out supporting Thompson, but he’s already screwed the pooch so far as his campaign is concerned, and it’s more likely than not that he won’t even be a candidate by this time next month.
So after you quit foaming at the mouth with insults about ‘handing the country over to Hillary or Obama’ or faux-clever sneers about me being an ‘Edwards admirer’, think about what you’re going to do when (and I emphasize *when* not ‘IF’) Fred drops out.
That’s what you need to be concerned about.
Evidently they didn’t have Plan B in place before they entered the race, either.
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