Look pan...
There is no credibility in trying to convince that someone can beat the beast at this point. Polls mean nothing and change all the time, especially in the heat of a campaign and the stupidity of certain candidates. But, then again, we are not getting an opportunity to see Fred have to withstand a tough campaign because Fred thinks it’s ok to let this play out like it has been going. It’s incompetent and unworthy of being considered a real candidate yet the support he gets is based on hype and being somewhat acceptable on paper as ‘conservative’ when he has shown he is not always in the best judgment ala McCain-Feingold. And that is a MAJOR issue. It killed McCain in 2000! Yet we are all supposed to fall in line with a dud. And Thompson is a dud. He is certainly no Reagan.
IMHO Fred's being very competent by running his campaign the way he is. What's competent in campaigning is what works; Fred's campaign is working really well. After all, it's gotten him to number 1, but still within the margin of error, in the most recent Rasmussen poll. One or two reports that I don't have links to also say he's doing very well in fund raising. It looks to me like he's doing the old actor's trick of teasing the audience, building anticipation to an unbearable level, so it will all release itself in a huge, orgasmic ovation when he finally comes onto the stage. Elvis, another Tennessean, did the same thing and it really worked well for him.