NR has been very anti-Fred for some reason. The man declared two days ago and he gets berated for not having a ‘ground game’ yet.
“We’re going back to the tick-tock to get the boo-boo!”
Fred Thompson
“Baby’s Day Out”
Fred ping!
I think Fred is in excellent shape now that Rudy has basically come out in favor of open borders to absorb many of those who will jump that sinking ship.
More people watch Leno than live in New Hampshire. Fred chose where he wanted to go. I respect that.
NO.... New Hamshire is merely a Dog and Pony Show..
Seems like he is running a right of center General Election campaign and NOT a Republican Primary. Has he ever ran in a Primary before ?? Maybe that’s his problem.
THE answer to THE question is: why does anyone even give a shiite.
I’m not from NH...but how many people would vote for Rudy vs Fred based on Rudy spending more time in NH? If so, they are stupid enough to deserve anything they get.
I find the fact that Romney spends so much time & $$ in two small states trying to get name recognition a sign of weakness. This isn’t 1960. You don’t have the option of doing well in NH and building up momentum. The front loaded primaries we have now mean you need name recognition and strength across the board right away. You can’t build it month by month.
NH helps knock out the bottom tier. Beyond that, I doubt it means squat.
And that matters because....
Good grief, the man is going to be in NH this weekend, and folks will get to see him in person in several different places. Sounds like he’s gonna connect with voters, to me. Maybe the PUNDITS are getting their knickers in a twist, but I doubt if regular voters will.
> When Fred Thompson opted to announce his presidential
> candidacy from the comfort of Jay Leno’s arm chair
> Wednesday night — instead of participating in the
> Republican debate in New Hampshire that same evening ...
FT would have had to effectively announce before the
debate in order to be in the debate.
The rest of the article complains that FT didn’t give
the DNC any ammo to use against him in their bogus FEC
complaints of BCFR violations.
JFK didn’t even announce until Jan 1960 for the 1960 election.
Agenda-based “reporting” and “analysis” is not the
exclusive province of the left.
*YAWN*
I love NRO, check in on their site every day. But Mitt has been an early contributor to their foundation or whatever and has given them plenty of his time. Hate to say it, but it seems that between the Mitt-love and their local Rudy-love—not too many McCain supporters!—they have come off as pettily biased against the Fredster.
Critics may like to target him for supposed laziness and a less-than-bill-crazy senate record, but those are two of the best things they could be picking on: the guys who take too much to the senatorial collegiality or spend a great amount of time focused on details are not chief executive material. And Fred has accomplished too much in his life for such complaints to ring truer than you’d want. Going after the younger wife is another sign that they actually haven’t got anything too potent against him.
************
The New Hampshire of today is not the New Hampshire of twenty or thirty years ago. There has been an influx of Massachusetts residents, and it has changed the political climate for the worse.
We are also looking at a changing primary season. New Hampshire no longer will have the clout it has had in the past.
And finally, Fred is not going to run his campaign to suit anyone but himself. It may be one of the reasons his supporters are with him. I know it's one reason I am.
“[B]ehind in fund-raising” is necessarily a baseless assertion. The whole point of the delay was to keep the size of his campaign warchest secret until late January. Because Thompson doesn’t have to report his finance to the FEC until then, neither his opponents nor the pundits know whether he’s ahead or behind in fundraising.
I still think the delay in the formal announcement was a piece of strategy worthy of Sun Tzu himself, however much the supporters of other candidates may try to paint it as a mistake.
Ditto New Hampshire.
Ditto South Carolina, and Florida...
Ditto the NE states, and what might loosely be called 'Dixie'.
Ditto the mid-West, and the mountain states.
I don't think anyone has enough money to campaign in 30 or 35 states right now, but the way all these primaries are compressed this election, that's really what's required right now, or very soon will be.
I think the Republican primaries this year are going to be much more of a marathon than a sprint. Everyone is spending time, money, and associated resources where they feel they have the best leveraged impact.
If any one person had 6 times the money of the second closest competitor, it might be different.
"...disappointing Granite Staters in general..." WTF is this idiot talking about? Who are the "lot of Republicans"? I live in NH. No one but the political junkies give a rat's a** at this stage. This guy is just repeating whatever Carl Cameron @ Fox News spouted.
"...he offended Republican insiders in particular." Yeah, pretty boy Fergus Cullen, NH GOP Chairman. No wonder there was a split in the state party over choosing Fergie for chairman.
Gosh! Fred Thompson is barely in the race officially, and he’s already being attacked just on the conservative side! If Fred does eventually end up as the final GOP Presidential nominee, then he may be so worn out after all of the attacks that he’s continuously getting from all political sides that Hillary Clinton and “socialism” end up as the final victors on November 4, 2008! The entire U.S. could truly be in an even greater “mess” for both the short-term and for the long-term after the ‘08 elections are truly done!