Posted by
JBDavis on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 9:38:44 AM
An excellent post on
Redstate:
Thompson is playing it smart. Why bother getting in now? The vaccum on the right ensures that a very large constituency in the Republican Party will be ready to open their wallets and find time on the weekends to work for his election. So while McCain gets pounded on Iraq, Guiliani gets pounded on abortion, Romney gets pounded on flip-flopping, and all the others struggle to find their voice; Sen. Thompson gets to speak to the entire country on ABC Radio about real issues as relaxed as possible. The strange circumstances of this GOP field gives Thompson time, a precious commodity. If he gets in--gone are the lower tier candidates claiming the Reagan mandate (Gilmore, Huckabee, Hunter, Tancredo, T. Thompson, et al). That leaves the big three: Romney, McCain, and Rudy. Arguably, Thompson hurts Romney the most. Romney has spent the last 14 months proving how "conservative" he is, helped by the fact that Rudy and McCain suffer in one way or another from a lack on enthusiasm from the right. But if a candidate of the right, like Thompson, jumps in--Romney's 14 months of work get washed away. Thompson also gets a rub from McCain, who's campaign he co-chaired in 2000 and is friends with. Why chance McCain when Thompson can win conservative votes but supported McCain enough to win some "I"s? As for Rudy, if it comes down to Fred v. Rudy . . . come on.
So Fred Thompson can continue to sit on that front porch and talk away. Becasue right now, as just a citizen, he looks and sounds more presidential than any of the ten good men who were at the Reagan Library.
Read the whole post at the link above.