Fred for real or a stalking horse?

January 11, 2008 – 10:24 am

Jen Rubin captures the most important dynamic leading into South Carolina:

Thompson gave himself an opening in South Carolina and gave conservatives a place to jump from the Romney leaking ship. He may have scuffed up Huckabee sufficiently to allow either himself or McCain to win SC. If the latter he ironically would have done his old friend the greatest of favors. (Perhaps one he might remember when it comes to filling VP slots should he get that far.)

Fred Thompson could be in a place to split the South Carolina conservative vote, especially with this nasty anti-Mike Huckabee ad running.

A John McCain win in Michigan, followed by Thompson knee-capping Huckabee in South Carolina could lead to a pretty positive place for McCain.

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The only thing to know about tonight

January 10, 2008 – 10:39 pm

No one touched John McCain. No one. Fred Thompson whacked Mike Huckabee a couple of times. Mitt Romney was nowhere to be seen.

McCain wins as the untouched front-runner. Fred for showing life. And Huck for handling some tough questions with grace.

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Fred giving up?

December 30, 2007 – 10:02 pm

Fred Thompson seems to be throwing himself under the bus. From ABC in Iowa:

By declaring that he needs to do better than he’s polled for months, Thompson risks setting a bar so high for himself that a third-place victory — which would be something of an achievement for his struggling campaign — is a self-imposed disappointment. Under his own rules, Thompson could beat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the caucuses and still be setting himself up to drop out of the race.

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Tancredo endorsement

December 20, 2007 – 1:54 am

UPDATE: Marc Ambinder hears interesting whispers on this endorsement:

Will he endorse? Unclear. If he does, the betting is on Thompson or Romney, although advisers to both men expect the other to get it, if it’s gettable. Note that Bay Buchanan is a member of the LDS church and is said to be pushing Tancredo to endorse Romney as a way of repudiating Huckabee, somehow. We’ll see.

So the word is that Tom Tancredo is dropping out this afternoon. That’s the good news. There is some speculation that he will endorse, although Marc Ambinder, who is smarter than me, thinks that he will not.

Here are some thoughts:

1. Tanc only has two kinds of juice left.

1a. He can provide a good press day for someone. The question is whether he blows his wad today or after Christmas. If I am getting the endorsement and I don’t need a big kick of momentum, I probably want it after Christmas. On the other hand, a Thursday endorsement may be the last real story going into Christmas. Scheduled at 3pm EST to guarantee that it is talked about on the afternoon talk shows and it is hard to get other stories in. That sounds to me like an endorsement of someone else.

1b. He provides a potentially solid endorsement for the xenophobic crowd. Of course, Tancredo has real baggage (crazy mecca comments, crazy xenophobia, etc.), so mileage may vary.

2. Mitt Romney needs a good press day. I have been hearing that he will get the endorsement. The entire Colorado GOP establishment is backing Romney. Tancredo would actually be helping Romney in Iowa. And if the rumors about Steve King are true, it would seem that Romney would be the natural choice of King’s buddy Tanc. Of course, in the past, Tancredo’s campaign has accused Romney of supporting amnesty. Furthermore, if Tancredo believes that Romney will be the nominee, a very credible position right now, then Tancredo can be there for Romney at the right time.

3. Fred Thompson. If Tancredo wants to help make the Fred Thompson boom happen, here’s his chance. Fred’s numbers aren’t taking off too much. He would need it. Of course, Tancredo would be wondering if it would be wasted.

My gut is Romney. I have a lot of trouble figuring out what Thompson is telling people with interest groups, not bloggers, who are endorsing him.

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Fred’s all in?

December 8, 2007 – 7:48 am

The Weekly Standard in reporting through a blog and a story that Fred Thompson is "all in" in Iowa. From the story, the operative quote appears to be:

"Iowa is critical to our campaign, and it may in fact be everything to our campaign," says one Thompson official. "If we don’t do what we need to do in Iowa, it will be tough to compete effectively down the road."

"What we need to do" appears to be "come in third":

Thompson has said publicly that he needs to finish in the top three in Iowa. Campaign officials say that a strong third place finish–presumably behind new frontrunner Mike Huckabee and former frontrunner Mitt Romney–would likely give them enough momentum to survive New Hampshire and compete in South Carolina and beyond. A second place finish would be a victory. "Just when the interest is there the greatest, is when we’ll be here the most."

Of course, Fred’s problem is that he has nothing in New Hamsphire, Michigan, or Nevada. He needs some indication of his viability going into South Carolina .  Can we take this to mean that Fred will be "all out" on Jan. 4 if this doesn’t happen?

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Birth of a meme: Huck as the real Fred

December 4, 2007 – 6:33 pm

Well, something weird is happening. People seem to think that Mike Huckabee is what Fred Thompson could have been. I think that a meme is born.

JPod:

Simple: Don’t think of Mike Huckabee as Mike Huckabee. Think of Mike Huckabee as Fred Thompson. Huckabee is filling the role Fred Thompson entered the race in September to fill. He is the socially conservative Southern pro-life candidate with a silver tongue and a pleasingly low-key affect.

Or Jim Geraghty quoting Scott Rasmussen:

I spoke to Rasmussen about Huckabee’s rapid rise yesterday, and our chat can be found here. Key quote: "Had anybody else resonated with GOP primary voters, this would have been impossible. What Mike Huckabee is doing is validating the dream of Thompson’s supporters -  that there was a vacuum or void in the race, but Thompson didn’t grab it for whatever reason."

My lunch partner said it slightly differently. There was a demographic that was frustrated, especially after Fred went nowhere.

While I see the logic in all of this, I do think that something else is going on with Huckabee. After all, Fred supporters didn’t want a soft-on-immigration populist who could change the party. They wanted to keep the whole game together. Somehow, I don’t think that’s Huckabee’s game.

UPDATE: Really a clarification. I want someone soft on immigration. Huck’s answer at the debate was brilliant.

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NRLC goes with Fred Thompson

November 12, 2007 – 4:00 pm

This is a shocker to me. Apparently tomorrow the National Right to Life Committee will endorse Fred Thompson. I have confirmation from a member of the committee. And, apparently, they are moving quickly to try to stop Rudy Giuliani.

There are several frames to look at this through:

  • What this means for the pro-life movement in the US.
  • The politics of the conservative movement.
  • The mechanics of implementing the endorsement

Last week, Fred Thompson appeared to have messed up pretty-badly with the pro-life movement. He came out in opposition to the Human Life Amendment. He didn’t score any of the big social conservative/religious right endorsements last week. But tomorrow, he gets NRLC. My understanding is that the internal debate revolved around (1) stopping Rudy and (2) whether Mike Huckabee was an acceptable endorsement either together or separately. My understanding is, additionally, that John McCain and Mitt Romney were deemed not acceptable because of their positions on stem cell research. But it is news in its own right that an anti-HLA candidate is NRLC material.

There are several very important things to realize about a NRLC endorsement: First, it comes with juice. They have money. They have bodies. They do mail. They do phones. They do election-day volunteers. They will electioneer, and they will electioneer to win. If they are endorsing Fred Thompson, it means that they actually intend him to win the nomination.

To win, they have a problem. Fred is in 3rd or 4th or 5th in Iowa. He is in single-digits in New Hampshire. NRLC is going to have to rip through a whole bunch of people above him. And, unlike most conservative, groups, they don’t just attack on their issue. In 2000, they attacked McCain over campaign finance, even though he was, arguably, more pro-life than George Bush.

It has been conventional wisdom for a while that Romney and Thompson are fighting over the same voters. You can expect the mailboxes and phones of those voters to light up with detailed explanations of why Mitt Romney is not the right man to be president, or at least our nominee. From a very credible outside group. I have long asked who is actually going to attack Romney. We have our answer. In the end, this will move numbers.

On a deeper level, though, one wonders if this is a split in the conservative movement. With so many people going so many different ways, a shatter seems inevitable. There are a number of endorsements left, but you almost wonder if this is a direct challenge to James Dobson. Does Dobson dare to come out now, challenging NRLC and setting up a deep split? After all, Dobson actually can move votes and money, as can NRLC. But if the ultimate goal is to stop Rudy, then perhaps they need, at least, implicit agreement.

The other question is what happens if Romney really fights for this turf. Can he undermine the interest groups? Can he go back to his pragmatic self after his strange rightward lurch.

How this plays out will be interesting.

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ARG, Fred, and Mitt

October 31, 2007 – 7:02 am

I normally don’t write about polls, especially ARG polls. But I was struck by two things in the most recent batch.

The first one, which lots of people have talked about is Mitt Romney’s rise in South Carolina. That’s new. Is it real? Is it TV moving numbers?

But the second thing is Fred Thompson. His collapse. In every state. What happened? Is that why Romney is rising? Are early state voters starting to really make up their minds?

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Why the religious right hasn’t found a candidate

October 13, 2007 – 9:54 am

A number of people have asked me why I think that the religious right hasn’t found a candidate. The supposition is that if the religious right came around and supported someone like Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback, they could be the nominee. Here is my attempt to answer that question.

First, the process starts with natural selection. Only very recently has there been a solid case for Huckabee being the obvious candidate of the religious right. In Q1 and Q2 Brownback outraised Huckabee and was about tied in the polls. Until Ames, the argument for preferring Huckabee was hard to ground in solid facts. (Now it is a lot easier)

Second, I think that there is a degree of sectarianism. This has been at its most explicit in the whole absurd media debate about Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. But really. Nearly everyone I know who is a strong Huckabee advocate is an evangelical Christian. Nearly everyone I know who is a strong Brownback advocate is a conservative Catholic. It was a great feat of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition to get these people working together. If the leaders were to intervene in this fight, then they might threaten the foundation of their coalition. Furthermore, Brownback could have argued, Catholics are a swing vote, while Baptists are not. Many swing states are also Catholic states. (Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.) Not so far Baptists. (Note that JFK’s campaign viewed their candidate’s Catholicism as an asset in a general election. In a deep sense, being able to win a primary in a Baptist state, the example was West Virginia, was when the deluge broke in the 1960 Democratic primary) In other words, Brownback could have argued that picking him would expand the size of the coalition.

Third, the leaders of the movement have a clear hierarchy of preferences:

  1. Support the candidate who wins the White House. Call this the George W. Bush case. Might be the Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney case.
  2. Support the candidate who wins the primary but loses the general. Call this the Hillary Clinton case or the Mike Huckabee case. It may also be the Thompson or Mitt Romney case also.
  3. Oppose the candidate who wins the primary, but then be forced to support the candidate in the general. (But probably get no love from the White House if the candidate wins) Call this the John McCain case.
  4. Oppose the (GOP) candidate in the primary and the general who wins the White House. Call this the Rudy Giuliani case.

Clearly the last two are unacceptable to any interest group leader. They simply lose access when, eventually, their followers will, to some extent, rally around whoever is in the White House. The leader is marginalized over time.

The other two cases are the interesting parts. I don’t know anyone who thinks that Brownback and Huckabee could really win a general election, although that is shifting for Huckabee to some extent. Huckabee would face his own problems; in some sense, Mike Huckabee is to the Club for Growth what Rudy Giuliani is to James Dobson. So conservative Christian leaders are sitting down and asking themselves:

  1. Can Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney win the nomination?
  2. Can they win the general?

If the answer to (2) is "no", then the right strategy is to back whoever allows them to build the strongest organization. Perhaps you could call this the Bob Dole strategy? But if the answer to (2) is "yes", then they have to figure out which pony to pick, or, at least, which pony not to kill. And, again, there are reasons, in both candidates, for the followers not to follow. In the case of Mitt Romney, it is his religion. (note that I am not defending that, just saying that it is a reality) Increasingly, Fred Thompson has disappointed religious right leaders on gay marriage. And these are echoes of a past that is even more problematic for them.

So you get a hodgepodge. Some people pick the purists. These people seem to be state level family group type of people. Some people make compromises. For example, yesterday Gary Bauer endorsed Fred Thompson. (not the first time that Bauer has done this. He also endorsed McCain in 2000) A friend on the religious left but political center talked to Richard Land the other day about Thompson, and Land was not so happy with his earlier statements of such strong support. Others, like Lou Sheldon, pick Romney. (although, again, the word on the street is that Sheldon is getting some money. To quote a friend of Sheldon, "Lou doesn’t do anything if money isn’t involved.")

So, back to the original question. There are interest-group internal reasons for not picking a candidate. There are also questions of how the interest groups maintain power. These combine to make it very, very hard on interest group leaders. That’s just politics.

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Thompson on Security and Unity

October 5, 2007 – 1:50 pm

Fred Thompson’s campaign’s motto is "Prosperity, Security, Unity". He addressed the first of these during his main speech to the Americans for Prosperity. He addressed the other parts during a speech to the Virginia delegation.

Nothing special, but interesting to see the rest of his message.

I was struck, again, by how much the crowd wants to like him. He did pretty well with this event. He got a big rousing standing ovation.

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