PrintAugust 28, 2007
Fred's Date with Destiny Slips to October?
Hot Air blogger Allahpundit writes of an interview undeclared Presidential candidate Fred Thompson had with an Indianapolis TV station where the former Senator said he would announce in "September or October:"
An Indianapolis TV station says he told them the announcement would come in “either September or October.” He told Politico today, though, that he expects September to be a big fundraising month, which pretty clearly suggests he’s planning to announce in the first few days. The only thing I can think of to explain him holding out October as a possibility is that he still doesn’t have things together organizationally — a theory supported by the fact that his campaign lost another top staffer today. Romney supporter Dean Barnett crows that the wheels are coming off this bus, and fast. Are they?Good question. The Thompson campaign has gone from a standing start in July to an almost full blown national operation in a matter of weeks. Staff turmoil - whether resulting from interference from the candidate's wife or ther reasons - are not totally unexpected. Trying to fit all the pieces together is a tough job.
Politico is less than charitable toward Fred's management style but I believe the story misses a larger question; did Fred wait too long to announce?
In essence, no. He really had no choice since he couldn't begin to compete with the Romney/Giuliani fund raising juggarnut. Both those gentlemen are going to raise close to $100 million - or, in the case of Romney, lend his campaign whatever it needs from his own deep pockets - which means that Thompson had to make his campaign a sprint, hoping he could raise a sufficient amount of money to compete in the early contests and stay in the race long enough to emerge as an alternative to either Mitt or Rudy.
The Thompson campaign will probably get started sometime early next month. But it is clear from the Politico article and other sources that sometime soon, Thompson himself is going to have to show a little drive and energy if he expects to attract the money and voters that will bring him the nomination.
