The Thompson effort

Fred Thompson Fighting Hard

In accordance with his all or nothing campaign as previously mentioned by Scott, Mr. Thompson has been relentlessly attacking the other GOP candidates and pulling strings with his own campaign. So far in numbers for the Iowa caucus Thompson is in the support deficit, trailing Huckabee and Romney. All the while, Right to Life sponsored Thompson continues to attack both Romney on his position on abortion/ tax policy and dismiss Huckabee completely. And while Thompson is on the aggressive, the Democrats are trying to steer clear of any dirty campaign dancing, as seen with the recent resignation of the Clinton campaign advisor. In Iowa, the ‘good’ state, negative and aggressive campaigns have proven to be detrimental to one’s own campaign but Thompson needs support and he needs to clarify his position as the “clear conservative choice. Hands down!”. Thompson recently criticized Huckabee on “Face the Nation,”; “Liberal is the only word that comes to mind.”. Yet Thompson remains low in numbers and in support. After Iowa, its New Hampshire but Thompson can’t afford to come out of Iowa a big loser opt of substantial support or else he’ll run his campaign in New Hampshire to the ground. We’ll have to see if he changes his campaign strategy or simply commits again to beefing up his campaign with diligence.

Thompson Commits to Iowa

This past week, presidential hopeful Fred Thompson launched an all-or-nothing campaign in Iowa in an attempt to register a strong showing in next month's election. Thompson, who hopes to rise from his third place tie with Rudy Giuliani in Iowa polls, announced on December 7th that "We're getting ready to make this not only our second home, but our first home," and told supporters that “I’m going to be in Iowa just about every day from now on." Beginning on December 17th, Thompson will launch a bus tour and campaign virtually nonstop acrosss Iowa until January 3rd, although he will return home to Virginia for Christmas. The news of Thompson's commitment to Iowa comes on the heels of announcements by Wisconsin Right to Life and former Texast Court of Appeals Judge Paul Pressler that they will endorse the former senator in the upcoming election. The announcement by Wisconsin Right to Life is just the most recent is a string of endorsements by pro-life groups, including South Carolina Citizens for Life, Right to Life of Wisconsin, and another pro-life group in West Virginia. Thompson, who knows that he will need as much support as possible for the upcoming primaries, has publicly stated that he needs to win either second or third place in the Iowa caucus in order to survive in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and since neither Giuliani nor McCain (Thompson's primary competition for third place) has spent much time in Iowa, Thompson will likely attempt to secure his position over the former mayor and senator by touting his experience with national security matters and the War on Terror, thereby leaving him in competition with Huckabee and Romney, two candidates without much foreign policy experience. As Thompson campaign spokesman Darrel Ng stated, “history shows that Iowa caucus-goers make up their minds in the final weeks of the campaign, and Fred Thompson will be campaigning at the time when the people have traditionally paid the most attention.”

Fred Thompson In Trouble? (Nov.25-December 1st)

Fred Thompson isn’t looking so hot. This past week, he aired the first negative advertisement in the Republican primary race. In the ad, Thompson accused Mike Huckabee of poor tax policy and Mitt Romney of being a closet pro-choicer. Then on Wednesday in the CNN/YouTube debate set in Florida, Thompson was criticized for his ‘dirty’ ad, but replied “"These are their words.", to which the accused candidates both seemed unfazed. In the debate, Mitt Romney defended his position "I'm proud to be pro-life. I'm not going to be apologizing to people for becoming pro-life." After the bout with Romney, the ‘dirty’ campaigning had taken a negative toll on Thompson. The mud-slinging Republican debate was testament to the growing contention and desperation amongst the presidential hopefuls. And Fred Thompson doesn’t appear to be taking the high road. But in the states that matter, it has yet to be said if the voters will be more inclined to view and partisan with the neg ads on tv rather than YouTube debates. With such ads voters might lean in the direction Thompson wants them. And the debate wasn’t all flawed, Thompson still managed to highlight his strong Immigration Policy and come out of the debate in once piece.
Thompson spent his last week campaigning in Florida, and although he was criticized in the New York Times for leading a weak and ‘unconventional campaign trail’, campaign advisors still urged the press to watch Fred as he sets off for the Iowa caucus. On 12/01, Thompson was featured with his wife, Jeri Thompson on Larry King Live to discuss the recent debate and his 2008 campaign so far. Also, Thompson plans to make a few stops in South Carolina this upcoming week. But Thompson seems to be slipping in the polls. Although he is still second to fellow Republican Giuliani in the Republican race, Thompson is slowly losing support. Compared to an averaged 23% of support back in September, January is right around the corner and Thompson’s at 14% (RCP). If this becomes a trend, keep an eye out for a Thompson dropout.

Thompson Attacks!!!

Recently Fred Thompson appeared on "Fox News On Sunday" hosted by Chris Wallace. Chris Wallace certainly pushed some of Thompson's button by showing two clips of conservatives negatively criticizing Thompson. The two critics were Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer, both FOX analysts. To their harsh criticism Thompson replied, "From Day One, they said I got in too late, I couldn't do it. ... wouldn't raise enough money, and that sort of thing. And that's their opinion. They're entitled to their opinion. But that doesn't seem to be shared by the cross section of American people. If you look at the national polls, you'll see that I'm running second and have been running second for a long time." It may seem like Thompson is attempting to justify the negative comments of the critics, but it could also be a retaliation against all those that say he isn't passionate of has no flare. While on the show Thompson accused the FOX network of being against him and claimed that FOX only highlights the negative aspects of his campaign, "For you to highlight nothing but the negative in terms of these polls, and then put on your own guys, who have been predicting for four months, really, that I couldn't do it, you know, kind of skews things a little bit." His appearance on this show is one of the few times that Thompson has shown an effervescent will to win the nomination.
This, however, is not the first time that Thompson goes on the attack. Recently Thompson attacked Mike Huckabee and his views on abortion. This once more shows an attempt by Thompson to show ardor and fight back the accusations that he is lazy and without spirit. Although Thompson attacked Huckabee, Huckabee quickly responded by accusing Thompson of being unclear about what his views on abortion are. Although Huckabee retaliated, Thompson is right in attempting to show passion and excitement, because he has dramatically lost popularity ever since he entered the race. Hopefully these demonstrations of energy and enthusiasm will serve him in increasing his popularity.

Thompson Unveils Social Security Solution

On Novermber 9, Fred Thompson became the first candidate from either party to offer a detailed Social Security plan for the next presidential election. Earlier, Thompson noted that under the current system, today's youth will be "saddled with enormous deficits, taxes, and problematic retirement programs." The new plan involves cutting the growth of benefits, rather than raising taxes, and will include private retirement accounts, where the government would supplement every dollar saved with an additional $2.50, up to a maximum of $12,000 a year. Thompson's proposal represents a move towards privatisation, and with the first primaries less than 3 months away, Democrats quickly attacked the plan: Senator Barack Obama claimed that the plan would "undermine" the promise of secure retirement. Thompson hopes that he will gain support for confronting one of the election's major issues early on and criticized the other candidates, saying "Nobody wants to talk about it, except to say it's a big problem and then change the subject."