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BTW, my congrats to the headline writer. Any more, most people wrongly use “floundering” instead of “foundering.”

That is an excellent point. It appears that Fred's floundering on the campaign trail has led to his foundering in the polls.

Usage Note: The verbs founder and flounder are often confused. Founder comes from a Latin word meaning "bottom" (as in foundation) and originally referred to knocking enemies down; it is now also used to mean "to fail utterly, collapse." Flounder means "to move clumsily, thrash about," and hence "to proceed in confusion." If John is foundering in Chemistry 1, he had better drop the course; if he is floundering, he may yet pull through.

colorado tanker wrote: “BTW, my congrats to the headline writer. Any more, most people wrongly use “floundering” instead of “foundering.””

foun·der
1. To sink below the surface of the water: The ship struck a reef and foundered.
2. To cave in; sink: The platform swayed and then foundered.
3. To fail utterly; collapse: a marriage that soon foundered.

floun·der
1. To make clumsy attempts to move or regain one’s balance.
2. To move or act clumsily and in confusion.

Seems to me either could be used correctly for this headline.

BTW, my congrats to the headline writer. Any more, most people wrongly use “floundering” instead of “foundering.”

I like to watch those kinds of usages myself and -- as a conservative in all matters -- hate it when a linguistic corruption becomes so pervasive that the dictionaries accept it as legitimate.

I agree with you and the headline writer that what Fred is doing is mostly foundering, as in sinking, collapsing, as in an overfed horse, rather than floundering.

My dictionaries (electronic Merriam-Webster's Unabridged and electronic American Heritage, 4th edition) both seem to think that flounder is a corruption of founder, although they accept it, with a different definition. They don't put it exactly this way, but flounder to me suggests the behavior typical of a flat fish dropped onto a dock. (I suspect that it is this image that led people to corrupt founder, creating a new word so similar to the old that the distinction is often lost.)

And as to Fred, I do think he has been flapping around like a fish out of water, but mostly I think the Tennessee Stud has been sinking to his knees like an overfed horse.