Posted on 12/31/2007 9:55:24 AM PST by rface
And so this is the way the savior's campaign ends - not with a bang, but with an empty signup sheet..........
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This is what a disaster looks like: Fred Thompson, the former future "savior" of the Republican Party, looking droopy-eyed and jowly in a black leather jacket and tan ten-gallon hat, wandering like some lonesome lost cowboy through the snows of southeastern Iowa in search of voters - and not finding many.
A few minutes earlier, the former U.S. Senator, "Law and Order" star, and would-be conservative hero had emerged from the Smokey Row coffeehouse, where, in his endless search for the only kind of media he can afford - free - he'd sat down with the local newspaper. Otherwise, Smokey Row held at most two dozen largely disinterested patrons. Thompson famously loathes the grip-and-grin side of politics and smiled wanly through his chit-chats. As he staged a handshake with one woman, the photographer had called out, "Look at each other!" Thompson couldn't resist mocking the artificiality of the forced smiling eye contact. "That's the hardest thing in the world to do," he chuckled.
At least someone cared enough to get her picture taken with him. Many of the folks in the quiet coffeehouse ignored Thompson.........
[ snip ]
Perhaps defensive about the wan crowd at the Smokey Row, Thompson's press secretary took care to note that this visit was an unannounced drop-by; nothing should be read into the head count.....
[ snip ]
Out in the hallway stood three campaign workers holding clipboards. "Would you like to sign up to caucus for Fred?" they called to the departing voters. Few stopped.
"That's it. The room's empty," one worker reported back to the others. I could see the signup sheets from over their shoulders. One had two names recorded on it, another just a single name. The third was entirely empty. And so this is the way the savior's campaign ends - not with a bang, but with an empty signup sheet.
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I think I see a pattern here:
The New Republic
Meet the Press
by Michael Crowley
John Edwards begs the media to look in his direction.
Post Date Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Peterborough, New Hampshire
In the basement cafeteria of the ConVal High School, John Edwards is being stalked by a geeky teenager. The candidate’s predator is a local student with braces and black hair in a bowl cut. Most notably, he is unwaveringly holding a crude computer-printed sign that reads: ANN COULTER 08!
Edwards has just finished a town hall forum here and he’s swarmed by voters. These flesh-pressing sessions are unpredictable. At a house party in Bedford earlier in the day, the jolly hand-shaking and autographing suddenly paused for an intensely personal moment as a woman pressed a photo of a soldier into Edwards’s hand, explaining that her son had been killed into Iraq. “We’ve been through something similar,” Edwards said softly, referring to his son’s tragic 1996 death. “It never goes away, does it?” The woman hugged Edwards, unmindful that a boom mike hovered overhead.
Here at ConVal High, events have moved from the tragic to the absurd. As Edwards works the crowd, the Coulter kid, who also clutches an article questioning the medical science Edwards relied on as a trial lawyer, tries to maneuver into position to confront him. At each turn, an alert Edwards aide repositions himself between quarry and prey. Finally the boy breaks through. Braces gleaming, he begins to pose his trial lawyer-bashing question. “I don’t have time for this,” Edwards says, and quickly spins away.
Yet now Edwards faces an even more unpleasant encounter. He relocates to a pre-designated corner of the room and does something his chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, almost never do: holds a press conference. In campaign speak, this is known as a “press availability,” or, in shorthand, “an avail.” By the day’s end, Edwards will have held an avail after each of his four public events. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can go a month without having four avails between them. And woe to the reporter who tosses the front-runners a question on the fly. One newspaperman who tried it while Hillary worked a rope line in New Hampshire last week received a sharp glare from the candidate, and an aide promptly arrived to shoo him away. (”Excuse me, can I speak to you over here?” is the preferred technique of the campaign aide seeking to lure meddling reporters away from the candidate.)
Similarly, I saw an Obama aide practically berate a foreign television crew that tried to ask him some basic questions after a town hall in eastern Iowa this fall.
But, unlike his rivals, the attention-starved Edwards needs to keep the press interested. For months, and with mixed results, his campaign has battled the media’s tendency to cast the campaign as a two-”man” race between Obama and Hillary. At a house party in Hampton, N.H., last month, Elizabeth Edwards cited with frustration a New York Times public editor column noting that the paper had run 47 articles about Clinton since Labor Day, and just 18 on Edwards.[excerpt]
I think also that Crowley fancies himself a Queen-maker.
Not this again. LOL
How much are we betting?
bump
In order to get anywhere near a national election to present your ideas and what you have to offer, you HAVE to be a wealthy individual — a person of means. That is the reality. It’s rather simplistic, don’t you think, to be “concerned” about the “rich” buying the White House?
Just my 1.5 cents..
Thompson is now saying he HAS to come in at least second in Iowa.
I suspect he will drop out soon if he doesn’t.
Republican Candidates
Giuliani 15%
Huckabee 16%
Thompson 12%
Romney 16%
McCain 17%
Thompson is in 5th place but he’s 5% off the lead.
He is much closer to the lead than Edwards and obama are close to Hilary.
Yeah, but Mitt has purdier hair than Ross Perot, so it's alright this time around.
I agree. All dem candidates’ biggest fear is going up against Fred at the end. The debate ALONE is enough to get them shakin’ in their boots (or in Hillary’s case, shakin’ on her broom).
Easiest way to kill a campaign is to just not report on it, and when they do report that the campaign is dead (they’ve been doing that since before the campaign even started).
I’m for Fred and his strategy.
Okay. I can settle with that description.
:-)
> I am betting that on Friday, Thompson will announce he’s supporting Mc Cain. <
You can take it to the bank, if McCain comes in third.
But if Fred comes in third, I’m betting he’ll stay in the race a while longer.
Romney’s a conservative?
“The truth is, Fred Thompson is the last candidate they want to run against.”
Yes. The Democrats (candidates and the media, one and the same) in no way want to run against Thompson. One, he’ll be a tough candidate to beat in the general election. What are they going to run against him, he doesn’t want to be President bad enough? Two, if he wins, he’ll actually govern as a conservative, unlike a number of contenders like Huckabee, McCain, Giuliani. One thing you will not see in this campaign is any positive articles or polls about Thompson, and that is not an accident.
Depending on the sampling size, that might as well be a statistical five-way tie. This race is wide open - declaring ANY candidacy dead (well, okay, other than Hunter and Paul and Keyes) is a bit premature.
Office Last Name First Name Occupation Birthdate
President Giuliani Rudy Attorney 5/28/1944
President Tran Hoa Oriental Medicine Doctor 2/12/1949
President Huckabee Mike Consultant/Speaker 8/24/1955
President Hunter Duncan US Congressman 5/31/1948
President Cort Hugh Physician 10/29/1951
President Romney Mitt Former Governor 3/12/1947
President Paul Ron 703- US Congressman 8/20/1935
President McCain John US Senator 8/29/1936
from: TX SOS/Elections - http://www.texasgop.org/site/DocServer/Primary_Filing_12-28-2007_by_office_pdf.pdf?docID=4363
If I'm not mistaken December 3rd was the filing deadline date to be listed for an office. Write-in candidates also had a deadline.
I've read other posts when not only Thompson but other candidates (Repub & Dem) have failed to file to be included on the ballot. How can they expect to run for an office if not working in all States (and on all cylinders). I seriously doubt after the primaries that at the Convention the delegates would bolt from the State's Primary results (until possibly 3rd, 4th, 5th or later ballots) to support someone who didn't make the filing deadlines.
I like Thompson ... but his organization appears to falls short.
That much was obvious at a town hall forum later that day in nearby Ottumwa. At a time when other candidates are pulling in several hundred voters per stop, at most 75 voters turned out (albeit on a very snowy day) to hear him. Thompson put in a soporific performance made worse by an over-warm room and a noisy child in the audience. And echoing a moment famously recounted on the front page of the New York Times several weeks ago, Thompson had to coax enthusiasm out of his audience. Speaking of the distinction between legal and illegal immigration Thompson said, “We need to be a nation of high fences and wide gates.” A man in the audience called out in agreement. “You like that?” Thompson asked hopefully. “Alright,” he continued, looking for some momentum. “Can I get a round of applause?” A few long seconds later, the crowd obliged.
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