Did Fred Thompson Wait Too Long?
Posted by: Tomahawk | 11/25/2007 11:00 PM
That's the question James Carney of Time Magazine is pondering:
THOMPSON'S (TOO) LATE ARRIVAL
Fred Thompson is finally getting the hang of running for president. In the last few weeks, the former actor and senator from Tennessee has sharpened his message, picked up the pace of his campaign, leveled some clean shots at his opponents, cut two effective television ads, received one very big endorsement and issued some of the most substantial policy proposals of any of the Republican contenders.
But it may be too late.
The rationale behind Thompson's candidacy was simple, and sound: in a G.O.P. primary that glaringly lacked a conservative who was both true and viable, Thompson would enter late and immediately be embraced by all those Republicans who had been unhappy with their options. Then he would roll to the nomination.
It hasn't turned out as planned, primarily, say Republicans both inside and outside the Thompson operation, because he waited too long to get in the race — and then, once he did get in, ambled through his first month as an official candidate as if his heart wasn't in it. The result: in national polls that once had Thompson running even or better with front-runner Rudy Giuliani, Thompson now trails by double-digits. More troubling for Thompson is the emergence of Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist minister and Arkansas governor who is now statistically tied for first with Mitt Romney in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll of likely Iowa GOP caucus voters. Huckabee's sudden surge of support among conservatives threatens to shred the rationale behind Thompson's candidacy.
For that reason, the Thompson campaign has been on the attack lately on just about every topic that might resonate with conservatives, going after, among other things, "Huckabee's liberal immigration record," as one Thompson spokesman put it, and the fact that Huckabee raised taxes and increased spending as governor. Thompson has even raised questions about Huckabee's multiple run-ins with the Arkansas Ethics Commission during his 10-year stint as governor over issues ranging from how he paid himself with campaign cash in the early 1990s to his claim in 1998 that some $70,000 in furniture donated to the governor's mansion actually belonged to him and his wife. (Most of the 14 ethics complaints against Huckabee were small bore, but he did receive five admonitions from the Commission and $1,000 in fines).
Thompson's numbers in Iowa have actually inched up since he started broadcasting ads in the state; in the ABC/Washington Post Iowa poll, he ranks third with 16%, slightly ahead of Giuliani. And the campaign is hoping for a similar bump in South Carolina, the state Thompson almost certainly has to win to have any chance of becoming the nominee. "This thing is wide open, everyone's numbers are soft," says one Thompson aide optimistically. But then the aide ads, "I do think this Huckabee thing is real. If Huckabee wins Iowa, that changes things dramatically."
The pity for his aides and supporters is that Thompson has of late been living up to at least some of the expectations that surrounded his potential candidacy through the spring and summer. Surprising many skeptics, he has issued substantive policy proposals on reforming Social Security, dealing with immigration and enlarging the U.S. military. The proposals themselves have been uneven; as my colleague Mark Thompson has written, Senator Thompson's plans to expand the size of the Army to 775,000 troops and to mandate that the Pentagon's budget be set at 4.6% of GDP are both problematic. But his proposal to create add-on savings accounts to Social Security and to reduce the program's cost by changing how initial benefits are calculated could be the foundation for a bi-partisan compromise. At the very least, Thompson's policy proposals prove that he's not running just on his acting skills and regional appeal.
Thompson also received the coveted endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee, which gave his flagging campaign a welcome shot of adrenaline and rekindled the debate about who among the Republicans is a true conservative. It also reinforced what has become one of the truisms of the GOP race this cycle — that the social conservative movement has splintered to the point where it may no longer be a movement at all. The ABC/Washington Post Iowa poll showing Huckabee's surge into a first-place tie with Romney was taken after Thompson received the NRLC endorsement. Thompson's improvement has cheered up his supporters and advisers, but some wonder whether it has come too late to carry him deep into the primaries. "I wish it were August," laments one outside consultant. "You get to the point in a campaign where it's definitely better to be up than it is to be down [in the polls]," adds a campaign aide. "We're almost there."
Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
Desperate times call for desperate measures for fading Fred. Operational definition of humiliation: Being in the position of having to attack the little engine from Arkansas that could in order to avoid being permanently relegated into the Post's second-tier ring of hell.
Fred Thompson is a nice guy and all, but if you want a real candidate with real values, then check out Hillary Clinton. You won't be disappointed. We need some change in America and we need it now.
You're kidding, right? "Change in America" can only be accomplished by putting the Clintons back in the White House? And then Jeb Bush for two terms. By then Chelsea Clinton will be ready.
To cease a useless argument about which candidate is best: from a strategic perspective, Thompson did wait too long. However, this was not the fatal flaw in his campaign, but should rather be viewed as minor mistake that could have easily overcome. The reason that Thompson sunk from being a defiant representative of Reaganesque conservatism (remember the Cuban cigar fight with Michael Moore) to a non-starter was the same reason that he failed to make a big splash upon finally entering the race: he just doesn't have that much to say. This is the fatal flaw in his candidacy, not his delayed entry.
To cease a useless argument about which candidate is best: from a strategic perspective, Thompson did wait too long. However, this was not the fatal flaw in his campaign, but should rather be viewed as minor mistake that could have easily overcome. The reason that Thompson sunk from being a defiant representative of Reaganesque conservatism (remember the Cuban cigar fight with Michael Moore) to a non-starter was the same reason that he failed to make a big splash upon finally entering the race: he just doesn't have that much to say. This is the fatal flaw in his candidacy, not his delayed entry.
Sen. Fred Thompson started too late? The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day.
At this time four years ago, the mass media crowned Vermont Gov. Howard Dean the Democrat’s nominee. Sen. Kerry came from behind to clean his clock.
In the first in the nation Iowa caucus, an ABC/Washington Post poll shows Thompson in third, AHEAD of Giuliani and McCain. In South Carolina, the Rasmussen poll shows Thompson and Romney tied for first. Most national polls show Thompson in second, behind Giuliani.
As for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, I’m not too worried that he will be the nominee of a party that was seriously burned by an overspending Congress and President in the 2006 elections. Bob Novak’s headline in his column today says it all: Huckabee, the False Conservative (see: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/huckabee_the_false_conservativ.html). In the piece, Novak writes,
There is no doubt about Huckabee's record during a decade in Little Rock as governor. He was regarded by fellow Republican governors as a compulsive tax increaser and spender. He increased the Arkansas tax burden by 47 percent, boosting the levies on gasoline and cigarettes. When he decided to lose 100 pounds and pressed his new lifestyle on the American people, he was far from a Goldwater-Reagan libertarian.
But Huckabee simply does not fit in normal boundaries of economic conservatism, as when he criticized President Bush's veto of a Democratic expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Calling global warming a "moral issue" mandating "a biblical duty" to prevent climate change, he has endorsed the cap-and-trade system that is anathema to the free market.
Quin Hillyer, a former Arkansas journalist writing in the conservative American Spectator, called Huckabee "a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak."
There is plenty of time for true conservatives to get a full understanding of Huckabee’s record and take another look at Sen. Fred Thompson.
Meanwhile, the two leading GOP candidates with moderate records are beginning to bash each other. Mayor Rudy Giuliani is properly going after Governor Mitt Romney’s record in Massachusetts (see: Rudy: It's time to unmask Romney at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7029.html). Politico.com picks up the story in New Hampshire:
In a big strategic shift, Rudy Giuliani hammered Mitt Romney’s record Sunday on three fronts, saying it was time to “take the mask off and take a look at what kind of governor was he.”
Using some of the toughest language of his campaign, Giuliani, in an interview with Politico, slammed Romney on health care, crime and taxes. At the same time he portrayed the one-time moderate as a hypocrite on a host of social issues who lives “in a glass house.” It was easily the most sweeping attack Giuliani has delivered against Romney in this campaign.
“He throws stones at people,” Giuliani said in an interview on his campaign bus. “And then on that issue he usually has a worse record than whoever he’s throwing stones at.”
The net effect on the growing intensity of attack between Giuliani and Romney will be to highlight that both candidates have moderate mixed records that give the Republican conservative base pause. As Huckabee becomes better known as a big-spending, big-taxing, social conservative, look for Senators Thompson and McCain to benefit.
Time will tell. But my bet is that all those early polls will mean little by the time the actual voting and caucusing starts happening.
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.ChuckDeVore.com
P.S. To help Fred Thompson's campaign, see:
https://www.fred08.com/contribute.aspx?RefererID=e09fdee2-4f86-4775-9fc3-fccd8dafdb78
Yes, he did get in too late. And it had a lot to do with his residual payments.