The end of Fred and the end of True Conservatism
By No King but God Posted in Archived — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Fred Thompson was the most conservative candidate on offing, especially when it came to a deep understanding of conservative principles. His campaign is also over for practical purposes.
So does the end of Fred mean true conservatism is also over?
No. First, while this may be difficult to hear for true Fredheads, a lot of Fred's problems were about his campaign and not about his principles. Waiting to get into the race, not competing in Iowa until late, campaigning only in moderation, disarray and drift in the campaign organization, a lack of passion until that last SC debate (whether real or only percieved and unrebutted)--all these hurt Thompson's campaign objectively and also by giving a bad impression to voters who might have otherwise been interested. I refuse to beleive that a conservative campaign has to repeat these same kinds of mistakes in the future. Heck, if Fred had more time he'd probably fix a lot of those things himself. So I refuse to believe that the end of Fred means the end of true conservatism.
Second, this campaign never offered a clear choice between true conservatism and Rockefeller RINOism. I understand why Fredheads want to argue that Fred was the only true conservative, and I think there's a decent argument for that. But when Fredheads make the intellecutal leap to saying that Fredheads were the only true conservatives they're flattering themselves with lies. The truth is that the rock-solid conservative vote got split this campaign. Romney pulled away some conservative votes by campaigning as a conservative, by getting in earlier, and by emphasizing his record as an executive. Huckabee got some conservative votes by being unpolitically correct on religion and by tacking hard right on immigration and the Fair Tax. Giuliani has been running a pretty conservative campaign in many ways and on the social issues where he isn't conservative has been emphasizing his judicial appointments and so on. And exit polls show that in SC, many true conservatives who didn't like McCain much voted for him anyway because of electability concerns--they thought he was better than Barack O'Hillary.
Its too late, even with real passion. There was an outside chance for SC, but Thompson's best chance now is a brokered convention. For that, he's probably better off dropping out of the primary race but staying visible.
Another problem with Fred's campaign: he never really dusted off the brass knuckles, especially when it came to his friend McCain. Which is admirable in its way, but . . .
Coming from someone who contributed money/blogged/emailed friends/made phone calls, Fred needed to take off after McCain as harshly as he did Huckabee for exactly the same reason. He is/was the only person in the race who had the bona fides to call John on all of HIS recent flip-flops. Kinda hard for the guy who's shifted positions a bunch in the last couple of years to credibly attack someone else for changing THEIR position.
Having said that, the news coverage of Fred's campaign was abysmal, especially from Fox (I expect the conservative candidate to get dissed by the drive-by media but I expected more from Fox). Fred's Iowa surge was pretty impressive considering the amount of time he spent there and it was all but ignored.
Having said THAT, his campaign will not go done in the annals of history as one of the more shining examples of campaign strategy. He needed to start his "I don't do hand shows" moment about 3 months earlier.
"All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"I don't do hands" was awesome.
Fred has a genius for political theater. Unfortunately the campaign just let those kinds of moments happen, in the debates, and didn't go out and make them happen like they did with the Michael Moore video.
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Agreed on the news coverage. I think Fred alienated some of the press with his months-long tease about getting in or not and I don't think the campaign ever took that into account fully as a downside of getting in late.
As a Fredhead I agree Fred's campaigning has been a wreak, it's the only reason that can explain why after debates he rises in the polls and then just before the election he falls.
When you really believe in something people can see it. I do believe Fred could go on, but only if he can add some real passion that he strongly believes in what he's saying about the direction he wants for this country in comparison to where the other candidates want to take this country. That's probably not going to happen, but I can see some passion starting to develope in SC. Maybe a SC upset will be what sets him on fire. It does me! I can't stand to see where some of our candidates want to take this country. His got the message, but doesn't have the passion to back it up. Real passon is what it's going to take for Fred to get back in this thing. Otherwise, he needs to get out!
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