Let's get real. Fred is done.
Posted on 01/20/2008 2:27:30 AM PST by counterpunch
COLUMBIA, S.C.- John McCain was the winner of Saturday's South Carolina primary. Mike Huckabee came in second. Fred Thompson came in third, followed closely by Mitt Romney.
This is a victory that eluded McCain in 2000, and if history is a guide, may have set him on course to become the GOP presidential nominee. No Republican since 1980 has won the party's nod without a win in the first-in-the-South primary.
Saturday's primary loss was clearly a big disappointment for Fred Thompson, but you never would have picked up on that when you heard him speak to his supporters.
"Well, it may be a little early to declare victory, I am not sure," Thompson joked. "We told our folks to vote late, so they'll be trickling in I am sure."
So a lot of folks are now weighing in on Fred Thompson's political future. One political expert from Tennessee weighs in.
"I think he is through if he doesn't do well here, I think he has said so. Even a second place finish won't do," said Jackson Baker, Memphis Flyer.
"This is a gun show he just attended, if he can't get votes from this crowd, in this state which is probably the most conservative state in the union probably, then his message just probably won't play anywhere else," said Baker.
Thompson spent more time campaigning in South Carolina than anyone else. An army of Tennessee Volunteers also came through. They sent out a scripted message to undecided voters.
In South Carolina, apparently, Thompson's message did not catch on. Fred Thompson, however, was far from making any sort of statement about bowing out of the presidential race. Thompson returned home to Virginia Saturday night. His campaign most likely is regrouping, and gearing up for another big fight in the Florida Primary.
And McCain is 71. He’s hardly the fresh face the GOP needs in the fall election against Billary.
I don’t think so. Fred waited much too long to enter the nomination race. I just don’t think many voters know who the man is. He should have entered the race early in ‘07, and he would probably be doing much better today.
If McCain isn’t a conservative then Reagan isn’t a conservative.
Reagan passed an amnesty bill.
Reagan raised taxes to lower the budget deficit.
Reagan raised social security taxes.
Reagan bugged out of Lebanon.
McCain has been the only candidate to be right about Iraq and the WoT. Heck, if the president followed his lead and did the surge six months earlier we would have kept both the house and Senate.
He opposed the tax cuts because they were fiscally irresponsible, nobody was proposing spending cuts to go along with it. McCain is the closest thing to a fiscally responsible Republican in this race.
“The news coverage REALLY hurt Thompson.”
Yup. That sort of unfair media coverage doomed Bill Richardson, too. /s
Let's get real. Fred is done.
Yes, because Romney and Guiliani want nothing more than Fred to be president. LOL!
I heard Thompsons mom is in the hospital and that is why he went home.
I’ve got to agree that Fred didn’t do as good a job as he should have in getting in early and vigorously, and in setting up a good organization nationwide. With the media—including Fox!—so against him, that apparently has been too much to recover from.
What a shame, because I believe he’s by far the best candidate we’ve had and the most likely to have been able to defeat the Dems. He may have done us a favor in turning back Huckabee (though Huckabee only surged due to Fred’s giving him an opening earlier), but he did SC a disservice by not exposing McCain’s hypocrisy (e.g., on immigration) more forcefully.
I’d like to see him hang in and come out tougher, but I am discouraged.
A concern I have is Fred appearst to be helping McCain by staying in the race. Does it make sense for me to support Fred, when it appears he has no chance?
Now thats just funny
Uh, it was the American people that stopped amnesty not the congress.Had we not blistered their collective asses with phone calls and emails that sorry group of elitist swine would have passed the amnesty bill.John mcnutts cant wait to start this all over again if he gets in.
Dittos.
Nicely put and dead on with regards to mitman.
Just from my personal observation of the Mega evangelical churches in SC, the answer is yes, the members are susceptable to a herd mentality on one issue, that being abortion.
It is an issue that evokes passion and commitment. And in a state like SC, a few thousand votes for Huckabee on this issue seperates him from being a contender rather than a pretender.
One more passing thought, the absence of Jerry Fallwell.
I always saw him as being the glue that kept evangelicals
in tow with the conservative wing of the GOP. Does any one think his passing has allowed the evangelicals to follow their own narrow path?
Thompson did make a stong surge in the two weeks leading up to the election. I agree too little, too late. McCain
has been campaiging in SC since 2000. Even when he disappeared from the polital map last summer and fall, he was still making regular appearences through out the state.
Winning elections is about organization, boots on the ground, and name recognition. I thinks the powers that drafted Thompson felt he could charge in like the cavalry
and save the day at the last minute. That only works in
the movies.
I agree that Fred needs to keep up the fight! This race is still wide open and most folks are just now looking at the candidates because they don’t vot until Super Tuesday. I know Guiliani has his hopes set here in Florida, but he just might not pull it off. I also believe that McCain’s win in South Carolina will fade away soon. I am with Fred all the way, and hope he is going all the way too! GO FRED!
He’s a better speaker than Fred.
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Everybody is entitled to an opinion, my opinion is that your opinion is absurd.
Nope. Dobson is the big cheese now.
You could not be more wrong. Romney matches up very well with either Hillary or Obama in the South and West, and will win enough in the North to take the presidency.
He should suspend his campaign, wait for Huckabee to get knocked out of the race, then re-enter as the great conservative hope.
It’s not as weird as it seems at first glance.
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