Posted on 11/13/2007 11:13:48 AM PST by pissant
The American electorate is a fickle mistress. Just ask former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
When Thompson announced his candidacy for president just after Labor Day most national polls showed him running a close second behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the majority of state polls had him in the top three.
No longer. Thompson's campaign has yet to take off as expected and voters -- especially in crucial early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida.
The most recent data comes from New Hampshire where two surveys were released over the weekend. The first, conducted by theUniversity of New Hampshire for the Boston Globe, put Thompson in sixth (yes, SIXTH) place with just three percent of the vote. (Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led the way with 32 percent.) In a Marist University poll Thompson again took sixth place with just five percent support. To be clear, Thompson was never a frontrunner in New Hampshire but polls conducted in the run-up to his announcement and just after he formally entered the race show him regularly polling in double digits.
Thompson's shrinking support is apparent in other early states as well. The last three polls taken in Iowa put Thompson in fourth, fifth and fourth place, respectively, and his high water mark in any of those surveys is 11 percent. In Florida, too, Thompson appears to be fading. A new poll conducted for the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times showed Thompson in fifth place (eight percent) behind Giuliani (36 percent), Romney (19 percent), Arizona Sen. John McCain (12 percent) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (nine percent).
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
Oh stop with the holier than thou bit already...
The day I see you take the same stance with your side, yes I said your side, I will take that bit seriously...
According to what I have seen he would lose that bet...
Who is “they”?
He said he “probably” wasn’t a Christian. That’s not really a denial, it’s an expression of doubt.
I’ll admit that there are times when I have doubts about some people being Christian, even though it is not my place to decide, as I sometimes remind the Romney bashers who insist he can’t be a Christian.
I’m completely confused. Is anybody named Betty or Sally?
It seems clear Kevmo thought Petronski’s name was Sally, and Petronski hasn’t said otherwise, BUT has taken to calling Kevmo Betty, although I’ve seen nothing to suggest Kevmo’s name is Betty.
If someone wants to give ME a girl’s name, I’d like it to be Cassandra. I don’t know if I get to pick or not. I also like Melanie.
Why?
You got something against Article VI?
I thought so, but now I’m not sure. Dobson isn’t so easy to read. I think he really would like Thompson to simply be more open about his faith, or Hunter to get a bump up in the polls. I think he’ll put up with Romney but would rather not have to.
Actually, since you’ve said that several times, I think in some cases you CAN denounce the “faith” of another person, but we are not the arbiter of whether people are saved or not.
Faith is something we can see in action, so we can judge the actions of a man and question their faith.
If I see a man who goes to church cheating on his wife, I can denounce his profession of faith, even though he may well be a Christian and saved. He’s still not living the life his faith should lead him to.
I think a Christian who does not attend to the fellowship of believers has a problem in the practice of their faith — doesn’t make them a Christian or not, but it’s not good.
Petronski’s allowed to believe that Dobson behaved dishonorably even though he has never met the man and can’t see his soul.
But you are not allowed to believe that Fred is not a Christian, because you have never met the man and can’t see his soul.
You have to remember that Petronski is a Fred supporter — then the logic will all make sense.
Petronski: “Dobson’s an ass.”
That. Of course, he never would. A man can’t be judged by the character of his supporters.
The problem is the perception left from that pronouncement and Fred’s response to it.
If someone questions my conservatism OR my christianity, I try to straighten them out.
I’ve defended Fred on attack-Fred threads. But Fred supporters do a good job of that, so I don’t have to do it much myself.
If I engage in it at all, I hope I’m called on it. I want to discuss issues and policy. I want to be able to have a real debate about Hucakabee, rather than the trivial name-calling we always end up with. There are people with facts which seem to point to opposite conclusions, and there has to be a truth somewhere in there but we’ll never figure it out because anybody who tries to approach the question dispassionately will get crushed before any good comes of it.
Most discount the possibility, but we may be heading towards a three or four way brokered convention.
Maybe you have been clear in what you have said. Others have not.
Mitt will never shame anybody into voting for him. The best he can hope for is to negate the natural inclination to vote AGAINST him because he is a Mormon.
I am increasingly thinking that will be impossible. I’ve already learned that if you are a conservative and a muslim you might as well just forget being a part of the political environment — heck, some people here think they shouldn’t be in the military or even be allowed to stay in America.
I’ll say that if we do a good enough job, we can pretty much guarantee that the only Mormons in politics are the likes of Harry Reid. But I don’t say that to shame anybody into voting for Romney, I say that because politics is not about electing Christians, it’s about electing conservatives. Mormons have been our allies on many issues of importance to social conservatives. They are strong pro-family voters, they are moral, they tend to support conservative positions.
About the only thing that would chase them away is an uprising of conservatives attacking their faith.
>>>...and that Log Cabin guy...
Robert Traynham
Robert Traynham was on Freds campaign for a while. Some blogs report that Traynjam is still seen with the Thompson campaign. Robert Traynham was named to some czar type or board position with the Log Cabin Republicans back in late 2006.
No. But the Constitution also allows liberals to be elected, and I don’t want that either.
But maybe I was too forceful in my statement. Maybe my thought was more that we were EXPECTING he would be, based on things that were said. Maybe it’s not that we were set on him being a Christian, just that it was what we were expecting.
Also, lest someone else jump on me, I am NOT saying our hopes were unmet. I’m not saying he is NOT a Christian.
I’m saying that he doesn’t HAVE to be, but it would help if he was.
I don’t know anything about the guy, but I hope the implication isn’t that a gay man can’t be associated with a conservative campaign.
“Time to ditch Fred and join the Hunter Campaign folks.”
Yeah, keep dreaming. Hunter never climbed above one percent.
“It does mention SC. Fred has the lead.”
And that state matters far more than Iowa. New Hampshire is utterly meaningless now. 3 out of the last 4 GOP winners in New Hampshire didn’t go on to win the nomination.
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