[jveritas]

There is a very important reality that political junkies do not realize when it comes to Presidential elections. It is the extreme importance of the likability factor and the connections to regular voters who do not analyze and dissect every aspect of a candidate. In Presidential elections it is the messenger likability and connections to regular voters that make him win elections and not his purity on the ideological issues. First they have to like and then they listen to his message.

Hillary Clinton fatal flaw is that she is the most unlikable and meanest political candidate to run for President in decades and that is why she is not going to win the Presidency no matter how hard she, her husband and the media try.

Fred Thompson is by far the winner among conservative and republican political junkies, including Rush Limbaugh, because after detailed dissection of all candidates, they found out that from pure ideological point of view he is the most conservative. According to the political junkies he who is the purest must be the nominee. However all this does not matter, as long as Fred Thompson is not connecting with the regular voters, the non political junkies, then he is not going to win the nomination or anything else.

I know that many Fred Thompson followers on FR are not going to like it, some of them are great FReepers and good FRiends, but that is my analysis and I strongly believe it.

[Diogenesis]

The problem is that good candidates like Duncan Hunter
are not even known to the general public.
The MSM/DNC have chosen the RINOs again.
They will send their troops out to fix the polls and maybe
even some of the primaries.

I dont know what Romney is, but he mutates.
One month he praises Hillary, and another months he
gets HER HillaryCARE=RomneyCARE1 installed.
She could not do that.

[Cicero]

Fred is likeable. He comes over very well when you watch him. He was a popular actor for the same reason.

The problem is whether he can make himself known to the voters when so many others are getting the headlines and the media is burying him.

If he were running one-on one, I don’t think he’d have any problem having people like or instinctively trust him. But as long as there are whole packs of Dems and Republicans, it’s fairly simple for the media to bury him.

So, we’ll see if he can break through that or not.

[Edit35]

Fred Thompson is by far the winner among conservative and republican political junkies, including Rush Limbaugh, because ....they found out that from pure ideological point of view he is the most conservative.

Your analysis is spot on, except for the Limbaugh thing.

I've listened to him carefully the past month, and he has not spoken of Fred in terms of his most favored candidate.

Yes, Limbaugh has been careful not to endorse, but he has spoken glowingly of Romney... and sometimes Fred, on occasion.

As for rhe others, well, it's easy to read the inflections in Rush's tone and voice.

Limbaugh has no love for Rudy or McCain, and he dismisses Duncan out of hand.

And after Rush's rant against Huckabee the other day, which was just the latest in a long line of slams and jabs at Huckabee, it's obvious that Limbaugh realizes Huckabee would be an unmitigated DISASTER for the GOP.

Bottom line: I think Limbaugh likes Fred as a person and conservative candidate, but I sincerely believe Limbaugh sees what many others see: that Romney is the only one who can eventually pull all the segments of the GOP together next fall... to defeat the sHrillary Obacko machine.