Thompson Drops Out
January 22, 2008
After an extremely lackluster campaign, Fred Thompson dropped out today. In July, it appeared Thompson may have turned out to be the Presidential nominee, polling above current leaders McCain, Huckabee and Romney before he even declared his Presidency. However, it appears that actually entered the race did nothing but hurt him.
Thompson appeared exhausted by the rigors of a Presidential race, and pundits joked that he looked tired just walking up to the podium. Which, honestly, isn’t that surprising, given that some Presidential candidates put in 100+ plus hour weeks on the campaign trail.
Thompson did not appear to hit any kind of stride in New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, and Nevada, consistently finishing behind “long-shot” candidate Ron Paul. He called South Carolina his “firewall” state, but placed a distance third, and served mainly to draw votes away from Mike Huckabee. His presence may ultimately result in John McCain’s nomination as a result.
P.S. Expect a similar post on John Edwards on Saturday, after he receives only 10 percent of the vote in South Carolina, and another one on Rudy Guiliani next Tuesday after he places fourth in Florida.
I’ll expect a similar post on John Edwards because of his little meeting with Hillary after the Democratic debate Monday night.
Then I’ll expect Edwards to throw his support behind Hillary for the VP, basically finishing Obama’s run.
Gotta love dirty politics… sigh.
Umm, Patrick, Edwards has already hinted several times that he prefers Obama to Hillary.
Andy:
In the world of dirty politics, I doubt that has any meaning.
Patrick: good point. But don’t count out Obama offering Edwards the VP for his support. I don’t think Barack wants to fight dirty, but the Clintons haven’t been leaving him much choice.
Andy: True enough, I suppose. Edwards seems like a pretty good guy. If Obama weren’t in the race, Edwards would be my choice.
Obama is obviously trying to walk the line between being assertive and being the same sort of politician Clinton(s) is. It’s pretty hard to do, because he’s made a pretty big deal about doing away with divisive politics, but that’s the only kind of politics Clinton(s) knows - so it rather forces him into dealing with it instead of ignoring it.
I don’t envy him, certainly, although at this point I wouldn’t hold it against him if he opened up the big guns on Clinton(s) a few times.
[...] Last week I predicted that Edwards would drop out shortly after taking a distance third in South Carolina. Likewise for Guiliani with Florida. [...]