Like it freaking matters because he was just a lazy good-for-nothing actor doing what his wife and the Clintons told him to do.
La-oo-sah-ER!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8039.htmlThompson bows out after weeks of rumors
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen
January 22, 2008 07:07 PM EST
Three days after coming in a distant third in a South Carolina primary that he portrayed as a must-win, Fred Thompson abandoned his presidential bid Tuesday in much the same way he began it: his way.
In fittingly odd fashion, Thompson left the race through a brief statement e-mailed from his campaign office and said nothing publicly to the press or his supporters.
?Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States,? Thompson said in the message. ?I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.?
Thompson?s exit, in many ways, was as idiosyncratic as his entrance. He kept his supporters and potential supporters waiting for months over the summer as he mulled whether and then when to get into the race.
And he did the same since delivering an everything-but-withdrawal valedictory speech Saturday night in Columbia, S.C.
?He was not driven to do this,? said adviser Rich Galen, Thompson?s frequent travel companion, echoing something the candidate made abundantly clear in both his rhetoric and his decidedly unambitious campaign schedule. ?Either it was going to work on his terms, or it wasn?t going to work on his terms.?
It didn?t come close.
As his hopes cratered, the former Tennessee senator increasingly voiced his displeasure with a process he plainly loathed. Thompson?s stump speech became mostly a bitter expression of grievance against what was expected of him or any White House hopeful.
And the candidate?s unhappiness filtered down through aides and advisers, many of whom could barely stand to work for an unpredictable candidate who seemed to be hungry some days and barely driven on others.
The campaign became so dysfunctional that staffers just wanted it to be over so they could get on with their lives. After the South Carolina loss, staffers on the road said goodbye and began making other plans, knowing the campaign didn?t have the money or the spark to survive.
But the die was cast long before Thompson?s last gasp in the Palmetto State.
One outside adviser to the campaign was shocked to see the staff line up a schedule for a normal campaign day, then watch Thompson and his wife, Jeri, start removing events ? crossing out their chances at the same time.
A Republican who was very involved in the campaign ? and who greatly respects Thompson ? said it was hamstrung from the beginning by inadequate infrastructure and staffers who lacked national campaign experience. And all this was compounded by a laconic candidate.
Participants recalled that Jeri Thompson?s hands-on approach was invaluable when the campaign was germinating, and witnesses said he never would have run without her impetus. But as the campaign grew, her involvement created a bottleneck that made subordinates feel powerless and paralyzed whole departments, according to witnesses.
She clashed with Thompson?s initial set of advisers last summer, before he got in the race, and also butted heads with those who were later brought in.
?They had a wish and a desire to run for president and little else at the start,? said a Thompson friend who helped start the campaign. ?It was a perfect opportunity but we could not survive even one major mistake, and we made several.?
Among them, according to the friend: ?Fred was still playing Hamlet when he launched, and he took three months to limber up. He actually enjoyed it at the end, but it was too late.?
Mary Matalin, an adviser to Thompson's campaign, was among several supporters who said the party still needs someone who can unify it around "21st century conservatism" ? a quest that goes on. "Fred's candidacy was bigger than him," she said.
But given his diminished standing, Thompson?s decision won?t have a major impact on the GOP contest.
And advisers say he?s not likely to throw his support to any candidate anytime soon.
?I certainly don?t expect him to now or before Florida,? said Galen.
?You never say never, but I think he is disinclined to endorse,? added another longtime Thompson adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ?He has not spoken with any campaign or other candidate.?
The truth is, as was the case with much of the campaign, Thompson?s aides and advisers aren?t exactly sure what he?ll do going forward.
Some of them expected him to drop out after going ?all in? at the Iowa caucus and then barely edging out John McCain for third place.
What is known is that Thompson was one of just four senators who got behind McCain in the Arizona senator?s 2000 bid.
And Thompson offered only the mildest criticism of his old friend in this campaign, even when it was clear McCain was the man to beat in South Carolina.
But an adviser pointed out that Thompson had just based much of his campaign on immigration, taxes and judges ? three issues on which McCain has been crosswise with the GOP base.
?How can Fred turn around and overlook all this?? asked this source.
Despite his poor finish and a campaign that never came close to living up to its early hype, Thompson did retain a degree of support in Florida. Two polls taken there before the South Carolina primary showed him at 7 percent.
So the Thompson?s most important legacy in shaping the race may then be exactly where those remaining ?Fred-heads? land.
Veteran GOP strategists in the Sunshine State all pointed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as being a likely beneficiary ? but they also said that Thompson backers there would not move en masse to any one candidate.
?With Thompson out of the race and with [former Arkansas Gov. Mike] Huckabee focused on other Southern states, Romney is being viewed as the only viable conservative in a three-way race between Romney, McCain and [former New York Mayor Rudy] Giuliani,? said Brett Doster, who ran President Bush?s reelection in the state in 2004. He added that Giuliani and McCain are likely to split the moderate vote in the Republican-only primary.
David Johnson, a former executive director of the Florida GOP, also noted that the constituency to watch would be Thompson?s gun-owning backers.
?Where they go will be very important, as they are active and vote in primaries,? Johnson said.
One individual to watch is Bill Bunting, Johnson pointed out.
Chairman of the Republican Party of Pasco County ? in exurban Tampa ? Bunting is among the best known gun-rights advocates in the state. He was an early Thompson backer and arranged to have Thompson deliver the keynote speech to a major party dinner when the candidate launched his campaign on a bus tour around Florida in September.
?Where [Bunting] goes now will be a key with that vote bloc,? said Johnson.
Overall, though, Johnson said there would be no ?monolithic move? among former Thompson supporters.
?They?ll be split in some fashion between McCain, Mitt and Huck,? he said.
Rick Wilson, a Florida-based GOP ad man and Giuliani sympathizer, predicted that Romney would get his share of Thompson votes but that Giuliani would get some from those in the ranks of Republican activists who are more attracted to a tough-talking persona than to social issues.
?Many [voters] are looking for a strong leadership figure,? Wilson said.
Given his lack of funds and decision to downplay Florida, Huckabee will draw fewer Thompson votes than he otherwise may have, Wilson added.
For Thompson?s campaign, the diminished status of Huckabee may be the only vindication in an otherwise disaster of a race.
Thompson had little regard for his fellow Southerner and enjoyed perhaps his best moment of the campaign at a debate in South Carolina two weeks ago when he unloaded on Huckabee and portrayed him as a liberal.
And on Saturday, when the votes were counted, it was clear that Thompson?s last-minute stumping in the Palmetto State had taken away from Huckabee?s vote share and allowed McCain to edge out the Arkansan.
Explaining what went wrong, Galen acknowledged the ?rocky start? and conceded that the campaign ?didn?t have the capacity to push back against the ?lazy/doesn?t want to do it/is being pushed by others? rap.?
But what sealed it, Galen said, was that Huckabee took Thompson?s place in the race toward the end of last year.
?When Huck got hot, there wasn?t enough room for both of us,? said Galen. ?And now I suspect there is nothing for either of us.?
TM & ? THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company
