Two days ago, writing in the comments of Dave’s post on the Fred Thompson boomlet, I stated:

I wonder though, if [Thompson] does get in the race, it seems like he would hurt Brownback, Huckabee, but especially Romney the most. After all, Thompson wouldn’t be flirting with a run if Romney had established a hold on the right flank. [Romney] has a huge head start in terms of money and organization, but given that he’s still at around 7%-10% in the national polls, he’d be incredibly vulnerable to a Thompson surge. If Thompson pulls even or surpasses Romney (several months down the line), it could be an almost deadly blow to Romney.

Little did I know that Thompson would pull even with Romney in a mere two days time. In Quinnipiac’s recent Ohio poll, they both manage to get 6% in the polls. As Kavon marveled:

He ties Mitt Romney without any organizational structure, money, official endorsements, or making even one campaign stop?

This, in effect, punctures the argument that Romney is lagging in the polls because he’s still unknown to have the country. Fred Thompson has even less name recognition than Romney. He’s been at this for close to two years, has more endorsements than McCain, more money than most of the contenders in either party and the best he can manage is to tie an actor from Law and Order who is in the midst of a comparatively weak (compared to Obama’s) boomlet.

It seems that Ryan Sager noted the same turn of events:

The lawyer-turned-actor-turned-senator-turned-actor — best known from TV as the down-home, tough-as-nails District Attorney Arthur Branch on “Law & Order” — hasn’t announced, hasn’t campaigned, and hasn’t been on the political radar since leaving the Senate in 2003. Yet suddenly he’s being hailed as the next Ronald Reagan. With this kind of rhetorical heat at his back, Mr. Thompson’s a threat to every candidate for the Republican nomination.

But there’s one candidate whose campaign he could end almost instantaneously, should he choose to run: that of Mr. Romney. Mr. Thompson is pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage, and anti-tax — like Mr. Romney. But he has one advantage over the former governor: He didn’t just come to these positions over the last year or so, in a “Road to Des Moines” conversion.

On virtually every issue, Mr. Thompson is as far right, or further, than Mr. Romney, and he has been for some time. Mr. Romney’s claim to fame so far in the campaign has been that he’s the “true conservative” in the race — in contrast to Mayor Giuliani and Senator McCain. If Mr. Thompson jumps in, however, the rationale behind Mr. Romney’s candidacy drops out.

“Romney would want [Mr. Thompson] in the race the least,” the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Peter Brown, told me yesterday. According to Mr. Brown, Mr. Thompson “potentially has the profile that no other candidate in the race has yet demonstrated, to appeal to the mainstream conservative.”

Mr. Romney is “trying to become that mainstream conservative,” according to Mr. Brown, but he is failing. While Mr. Romney has low name recognition, it’s clear from his favorable-unfavorable numbers that “the people who know him aren’t that excited about him.” To take just one recent poll, a Gallup survey released yesterday showed Mr. Romney’s favorable-unfavorable rating among Republicans to be 32%-12%, with 56% not knowing enough to answer. That’s a relatively high unfavorable rating for such an unknown candidate.

Dun-dun.

When you view the Thompson boomlet together with the speculation that he might be an angler for Senator McCain, things get very interesting.

I’ve often argued that McCain’s biggest challenge isn’t Rudy Giuliani (despite the polls), because if the race were to come down to the two of them, McCain would have an easier time getting to Rudy’s right and winning over skeptical social conservatives. You’ve already begun to see that with Rev. Richard Land coming out and sounding open to McCain, when just a few years ago they were at each other’s throats. This is because Rev. Land thinks that Rudy’s candidacy is unacceptable. On the other hand, were the race to come down to McCain and Romney, Romney would have a easier time consolidating the social conservatives around him by reopening the old wounds from 2000 and playing up SoCon skepticism about McCain. But if Thompson’s boomlet effectively knocks Romney out of the race (or, at least, down to the second tier), he would remove a big obstacle to McCain. If he keeps the speculation up, he could draw this out for some months and then announce that he’s endorsing McCain for president. This would bolster his standing considerably.

Interesting times, indeed.

Posted on March 22nd, 2007 by David
Filed under: Uncategorized

Two days ago, writing in the comments of Dave’s post on the Fred Thompson boomlet, I stated:

I wonder though, if [Thompson] does get in the race, it seems like he would hurt Brownback, Huckabee, but especially Romney the most. After all, Thompson wouldn’t be flirting with a run if Romney had established a hold on the right flank. [Romney] has a huge head start in terms of money and organization, but given that he’s still at around 7%-10% in the national polls, he’d be incredibly vulnerable to a Thompson surge. If Thompson pulls even or surpasses Romney (several months down the line), it could be an almost deadly blow to Romney.

Little did I know that Thompson would pull even with Romney in a mere two days time. In Quinnipiac’s recent Ohio poll, they both manage to get 6% in the polls. As Kavon marveled:

He ties Mitt Romney without any organizational structure, money, official endorsements, or making even one campaign stop?

This, in effect, punctures the argument that Romney is lagging in the polls because he’s still unknown to have the country. Fred Thompson has even less name recognition than Romney. He’s been at this for close to two years, has more endorsements than McCain, more money than most of the contenders in either party and the best he can manage is to tie an actor from Law and Order who is in the midst of a comparatively weak (compared to Obama’s) boomlet.

It seems that Ryan Sager noted the same turn of events:

The lawyer-turned-actor-turned-senator-turned-actor — best known from TV as the down-home, tough-as-nails District Attorney Arthur Branch on “Law & Order” — hasn’t announced, hasn’t campaigned, and hasn’t been on the political radar since leaving the Senate in 2003. Yet suddenly he’s being hailed as the next Ronald Reagan. With this kind of rhetorical heat at his back, Mr. Thompson’s a threat to every candidate for the Republican nomination.

But there’s one candidate whose campaign he could end almost instantaneously, should he choose to run: that of Mr. Romney. Mr. Thompson is pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage, and anti-tax — like Mr. Romney. But he has one advantage over the former governor: He didn’t just come to these positions over the last year or so, in a “Road to Des Moines” conversion.

On virtually every issue, Mr. Thompson is as far right, or further, than Mr. Romney, and he has been for some time. Mr. Romney’s claim to fame so far in the campaign has been that he’s the “true conservative” in the race — in contrast to Mayor Giuliani and Senator McCain. If Mr. Thompson jumps in, however, the rationale behind Mr. Romney’s candidacy drops out.

“Romney would want [Mr. Thompson] in the race the least,” the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Peter Brown, told me yesterday. According to Mr. Brown, Mr. Thompson “potentially has the profile that no other candidate in the race has yet demonstrated, to appeal to the mainstream conservative.”

Mr. Romney is “trying to become that mainstream conservative,” according to Mr. Brown, but he is failing. While Mr. Romney has low name recognition, it’s clear from his favorable-unfavorable numbers that “the people who know him aren’t that excited about him.” To take just one recent poll, a Gallup survey released yesterday showed Mr. Romney’s favorable-unfavorable rating among Republicans to be 32%-12%, with 56% not knowing enough to answer. That’s a relatively high unfavorable rating for such an unknown candidate.

Dun-dun.

When you view the Thompson boomlet together with the speculation that he might be an angler for Senator McCain, things get very interesting.

I’ve often argued that McCain’s biggest challenge isn’t Rudy Giuliani (despite the polls), because if the race were to come down to the two of them, McCain would have an easier time getting to Rudy’s right and winning over skeptical social conservatives. You’ve already begun to see that with Rev. Richard Land coming out and sounding open to McCain, when just a few years ago they were at each other’s throats. This is because Rev. Land thinks that Rudy’s candidacy is unacceptable. On the other hand, were the race to come down to McCain and Romney, Romney would have a easier time consolidating the social conservatives around him by reopening the old wounds from 2000 and playing up SoCon skepticism about McCain. But if Thompson’s boomlet effectively knocks Romney out of the race (or, at least, down to the second tier), he would remove a big obstacle to McCain. If he keeps the speculation up, he could draw this out for some months and then announce that he’s endorsing McCain for president. This would bolster his standing considerably.

Interesting times, indeed.

Posted on March 22nd, 2007 by David
Filed under: Ron Paul 2008