[Common Tator]

"Interesting comments by Fred. Either his internal polling is showing something different from publicly available data, or he shouldn’t have raised expectations like this."

This is a gamble.. If he can convince his supporter he is going to do quite well, the reasoning is they will come out to support him. But such tactics rarely work.

If the gamble works as usual he will be at the bottom of the pack.

Typically in Iowa it takes a huge ground game to get out the voters on caucus night. Fred does not have a lot of workers so he is trying this tact. It rarely works but at this stage long odds gambles are all that is left.

It is like his final week of TV ads. They are almost always counter productive. By this time the TV viewers are really annoyed about all the TV Ads and tend to vote against the guy who saturates the air waves with political spots in the final week.

But the gamble is that if the spots are especially good and the voters respond as he hopes they might, it could work. But the odds say the spots will be counter productive.

Such advertising campaigns are almost always counter productive as are claims of doing better than expected. But they are a gamble .. if they work, he could be in tall cotton. But the odds are he will be out the race by the time they count the votes in New Hampshire.

[Kevmo]

But the odds are he will be out the race by the time they count the votes in New Hampshire.
***If you feel that’s true, then the dropout contract for Thompson is a bargain on Intrade at 20% likelihood.

DROPOUT.JAN08.(F)THOMPSON
Fred Thompson to drop out of 2008 Presidential race on/before 31 Jan 2008 M 10.0 - 20.0 60 0

[ejonesie22]

Fred’s entire political career has been based on taking a gamble, a different tact than others. It has worked before, no need to believe it won’t work again. Just because he does not fit the standard issue cookie cutter candidate does not mean it won’t work and work quit well.

[NittanyLion]

Good commentary...thanks for posting.