The world — the conventional wisdom goes — continues to wait for actor and former Senator Fred Thompson to jump into the race for the 2008 Republican nomination. Voters are just waiting for him as an alternative to Mitt, Rudy, John and others (except Ron Paul whose supporters want a different kind of Republican).
The early conventional wisdom was that once he jumps in Thompson, with superb communications skills, ability to get to the nuts-and-bolts of an argument, early supporters who included many prominent Republican bigwigs (conservative columnists, bloggers, a portion of the Bush camp plus his respected mentor former Tennessee Senator Howard Baker) would suck up the political oxygen, wow the media and quickly be a major contender.
The early implication was: the others are wasting their time running — and Democrats beware.
But now Reid Wilson, an associate editor and writer for RealClearPolitics who formerly covered polls and polling for The Hotline, National Journal’s daily briefing on politics, asks and answers the question: Has Fred Thompson waited too long?
Fred Thompson’s window of opportunity could hardly have been wider. His opponents were fatally flawed in the eyes of the socially conservative Republican base; he’s well-known, can raise money, and speaks language that both Republicans and independents leaning right can embrace. Even thinking of entering the race put him above double digits in polls.
But, thanks to a number of missteps and opportunities his pseudo-campaign has failed to capitalize on, Thompson’s window is now closed, making him more likely to go the way of Tommy Thompson than win the nomination.
And, indeed, even before reading Wilson’s Thompson post, a look at news stories over the past few weeks will underscore something that has perhaps not been fully acknowledged in the political world: the Republican race has now dramatically changed.
Tommy Thompson is out. Senator John McCain’s support eroded to where his continuation in the race is now truly painful to watch. Mitt Romney stubbed is toe but won a key victory and polls show he is a force to be taken seriously. Mike Huckabee is coming on strong. And Ron Paul’s supporters are hanging in there and are as active and loyal as ever.
But the key change is this: in terms of poll numbers, solidifying support, winning over some who don’t agree with his key positions, and media attention for his (his own or ghost written) writing, former New York Mayor Giuliani’s campaign is now where many assumed it would go before Giuliani’s rather poor early debate appearances.
Rudy Giuliani is now a real option for many Republicans and more and more Republicans who disagree with his stance on some social issues seem to accept him as a viable White House and a potentially effective stop-Hillary-Clinton option. (UPDATE: See this Rasmussen Reports graph which shows Giuliani’s poll advance over Thompson.)
Wilson’s analysis is an intriguing and convincing one:
The Law & Order star, running a “testing the waters” committee, raised approximately $3.46 million in June after launching June 4th. The campaign’s goal was $5 million raised in the same period. Missed expectations are not enough to doom a campaign, but Thompson’s media team did little to dampen expectations when they released the report on the last day of July, even though they had to know for weeks that the numbers were lower than expected.
In other words, Thompson’s early press stories suggested he had Big ‘Mo.
But when the numbers came out, it was clear it was No ‘Mo. MORE:
The campaign has also been beset by staff turnover, as controversy surrounding Jeri Thompson’s involvement in the campaign has leaked into the media. Thompson’s first manager in waiting, Tom Collamore, was dumped after just over a month. Campaign aides said former Sen. Spencer Abraham and a prominent Florida Republican, Randy Enwright, would take over. Then, just weeks later, Thompson went to his former advisor Bill Lacy to run the race. The campaign has also been on the verge of becoming official for months. The latest reports have an announcement pushed back to just after Labor Day. When Thompson needs the media to be penning stories about his conservative credentials, reporters are content to focus on staff departures and timing questions.
There are several repercussions from this.
(1)The press will only do a huge breathless HE HAS ENTERED THE RACE!!!!! story if it happens more or less when it is supposed to. Otherwise it is a he has entered the race story. His entrance will not have the same journalistic play it would have had months ago — because he has played with editors (and news consumers) too long.
(2) Early stories and speculation portrayed Thompson as a slick professional who would wow the political world and intimidate the other candidates. Stories of staff problems and his wife’s involvement changed the image so that he now appears as just another candidate but one who has gotten lots of ink and airtime (on news as well as on his TV show).
(3)He was early on portrayed as potentially another “Ronald Reagan.” The factors mentioned by Wilson undercut that aura as does THIS:
Then there is the question of those conservative credentials. Recent reports have suggested Thompson lobbied for a pro-choice group before he served in the Senate. And his record on campaign finance reform isn’t exactly what conservatives are looking for: We heard a rival campaign refer to the “McCain-Feingold-Thompson” bill recently. Those two strikes seemingly only need one more to make Thompson as unacceptable to the base as the other top candidates.
Finally, other campaigns aren’t waiting around to hear whether Thompson is in or out. Mitt Romney is beginning to act like a front-runner, while Rudy Giuliani barely mentions Thompson. And the second tier may be creeping up on him: After a strong showing at the Iowa Straw Poll, it is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at whom conservatives are taking another look. While Huckabee has a smaller chance than Thompson of winning, Thompson can’t afford to have others basking in what was supposed to be his spotlight. Had Thompson competed at the Straw Poll and finished second, Huckabee may have been at home in Little Rock, out of the race by now.
And, indeed, the larger question becomes whether any candidate in this modern era can simply sit out a key chunk of the increasingly earlier presidential primary campaign season — where other candidates are beginning to get comfortable with the debate process, become attuned to how these long interviews billed as debates work and avoid errors but advance their campaigns.
Thompson will now have to go into debates cold at this point.
Meanwile, the larger political tapestry has now been largely filled in — others have begun to fill in their identities before opponents could fill theirs in for them.
And Thompson? He has been a blank slate upon which Republicans could draw an identity. And, true, since he has not official entered yet, no one could draw it for him.
But his delay in entering, his absence from the debates, the disappointment in funding and the campaign turmoil have all helped to draw a portrait — and one he will have to quickly erase unless we’re to see two Thompsons bite the political dust in campaign 2008.
Writes Wilson:
Every day he remains out of the race is another day of organizing and winning support lost. At some point, time simply runs out. Thompson has simply waited too long to take advantage of the good will, good fortune and good position that awaited him once he entered the race.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.