I disagree with the analysis. Thompson wasn’t ‘too conservative’ to win in South Carolina. He was just a terrible candidate that ran a campaign that was almost a template for how not to do it.
If he was too conservative to win South Carolina, why did the majority of polls between mid-August and mid-October show him with the most support in the state? Did SC suddenly become less conservative between October and January? Did people not realise back then what Fred’s political philosphy was? Both seem unlikely. Instead they looked at the candidate and he didn’t impress them, didn’t convince them that they should vote for him and so they looked at other candidates instead.
Thompson’s woeful 2% in New Hampshire can’t be explained away with ‘oh but they’re all liberals’ when Thompson was out-polling McCain in the state before he’d even declared to run.
Conservative SC nominated McCain? and you think “conservatives” did that?
What you are pointing out here is another huge problem in the electorate...
At this point in history, even Republicans have been trained to vote for the best trained seal and since all candidates were better trained seals than Fred, even Republicans wrongly concluded (like you) that the lesser trained seal was not a serious candidate because he refused to play a trained seal...
So, you end up with trained seals, not leaders.
Thompson was never attacked on his policy statements, which were indeed more detailed and more conservative than anyone else’s.
He was attacked for not being a good trained seal. A valid criticism...for sure. But not a very smart one.
I think over time many people fell for the media’s constant message of “he can’t win so don’t waste your vote”.
JMO.