Fred has an excellent chance to actually get the nomination, if he had gotten in the race in July, when everyone was clammoring for him, instead, he sat on the sidelines. He still had a chance, if he had “hit the ground running” when he got in, but he didn’t do that either. He hardly campaigned, did just enough to help McCain win in S. Carolina, than he gave up. I personally don’t like being played for a sucker, I don’t know about the rest of you.
If Fred were in the race campaigning vigorously, that would be the best refutation of the rumors that his only purpose was to help McCain — but his actions just support those notions, not refute them.
He campaigned vigorously in both Iowa and SC against an up hill battle with the media. Huckabee and then McCain were getting all the press at that time.
Fred did not get in late, the campaign started months earlier than normal. (We do not need a two year campaign, something the Dems started out of a we hate bush, he's a lame duck syndrome.) Fred did not have the campaign team put together as a result of his normal starting time nor the finances of the others. He was playing no one for a sucker.
Huckabee is the phony conservative who has been siphoning off conservative votes and facilitating McCain's nomination. With Thompson out, Huckabee draws votes away from Romney and Giuliani who are semi conservative and who are certainly more so than either liberal McCain and Liberal but pro-life Huckabee.
You have been suckered, but it wasn't by Fred. You're still repeating the MSM talking points about Fred's campaign. He DID hit the ground running, visiting many states before the Primaries got started. You could be forgiven for not knowing it, if you only relied on the MSM for that information. But if you were a Fred supporter, you could have accessed his website, and you'd have seen just where he had been and where he was going, at any time.
As for the timing of his campaign, I don't see how gettting in July would have been any better than entering the race in September. It was shown that many voters in IA and in SC were still undecided in the week just preceeding their primaries, so that two months wouldn't have made any appreciable difference for Fred. We who supported him were happy to wait for his entry, and the fact that he waited in order to honor his professional obligations, only reinforced our respect for him.