Sunday Morning Fred Thompson Update: Watts V.P. Speculation, NYT Coverage, South Carolina Momentum
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Thompson has raised close to $500,000 online since Thursday night’s debate, and close to $900,000 this week. At the current rate, look for the Thompson campaign to top $1 million online for this week at some point tonight.
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The New York Times has an article this morning about Thompson’s surge in South Carolina:
A Combative Thompson Sways Voters
By PAUL VITELLOMYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – John and Ann Berenberk dutifully watched the umpteenth Republican presidential debate on television on Thursday night and had an epiphany. It was about the candidate they had previously referred to as the tall, silent one. Fred D. Thompson.
The last of the candidates to enter the race, Mr. Thompson, 65, a former Tennessee senator, has so far seemed to distinguish himself mainly by a laconic style that has made him almost invisible beside the others on the stage in past debates, the Berenberks said.
“But then last night – we hadn’t even been thinking about him – all of a sudden it was clear he was the one,” said Mr. Berenberk, a retired teacher. “The bluntness, the forcefulness. He was really impressive.”
Whether this was a new Fred Thompson, or just a sign of mirage-inducing campaign fatigue among voters, many people attending Mr. Thompson’s campaign rallies here on the day after the debate reported having similar revelations.
Read the full article here.
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The Charlotte Observer (S.C.) picks up on the Thompson buzz in South Carolina:
SURFSIDE BEACH, S.C. –Fred Thompson comes out from behind the curtain and his eyes get big.
His supporters are elbow-to-elbow inside Surfside Jenny’s restaurant on Friday. Dozens more are crowded outside on the wraparound porch, heads poking in through the windows. Just about everybody is wearing a “FRED ‘08″ sticker.
Fred Thompson is not a man prone to grin, but he tries one on and it seems to work. The night before, at the Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, he stood out as the most aggressive, the most willing to take on his opponents. He has caught the buzz.
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The Oklahoma Political Newswire reports on talks between J.C. Watts and the Thompson campaign:
OKPNS also received a telephone call from a source close to former Congressman J.C. Watts and the talk of him being a V.P candidate is even more rampant throughout the Beltway and Thompson campaign. OKPNS will update you as more develops with this story.
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Human Events editor Jed Babbin comments on the reaction to the magazine’s endorsement of Fred Thompson in a blog at Fred’s website:
Since we endorsed Fred Thompson on Friday, Human Events has had a huge reaction –overwhelmingly positive – to the editorial from our readers all across the country
January 13th, 2008 at 11:54 am
ROFL, I predicted this as a killer ticket (Fred/J.C Watts) 8 years ago, when it looked like W would lose to Gore.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Wow. A Thompson-Watts ticket would make me take a second look. A Monday-morning press conference (thus stealing the O2 from MI headlines) would be noteworthy. And in the context of an increasingly fractured primary season outcome, it would put pressure on other candidates to name their running mates much earlier than normal.
It would make an already interesting primary season that much more interesting.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
McCain’s cash will only cover him as far as South Carolina according to Jonathan Martin. He is begging donors for cash to compete in Florida but I doubt he’ll get it unless he breaks away from the pack very quickly. Meanwhile, Romney raised $5 million a day after he lost New Hampshire:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/91455
In a few weeks candidates will begin to drop out due to money shortage. McCain will probably be the first.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
T.O., you know Fred has moved up to a distant 2nd with me mostly because everyone else but Mitt is dropping down. The big red flag is that he’s untested and has never demonstrated that he has an executive skill set. So how does J.C. Watts, who like Fred is acceptably conservative, compliment him? Considering the choices that the other side has maybe this is the year that you can get away with that but what about the four years after that? We can do better and I would be happy to see Fred and J.C. fill important roles under Romney/DeMint.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
A Fred Thompson/J.C.Watts ticket would crush the opposition in a landslide in the general and likely revolutionize politics in America, possibly elevating the GOP to permanent majority status.
MoFredtum 08!
January 13th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
so are we going to see the media create a ’surge’ before there are any poll numbers to support with thompson now? good news for him. better him than mccain or huck. just don’t think he has what it takes to win next year.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
tommy, if Fred doesnt win South Carolina, do you think he ought to drop out? Just curious what your thoughts on that are. If he drops out, who do you think he would endorse. He strikes me as too conservative to endorse Huck or McCain, though I know McCain is a friend of his. I would hope it would be Romney, or Rudy as a 2nd choice. Let me know your thoughts.
I think Mitt should stay in if he finishes in 2nd in MI and can win NV. Why not if he continues to do well.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Boy, wouldnt this race be different next sunday if Romney wins NV and MI, and Fred wins South Carolina. Either way, if Romney wins MI and NV (and thats a big IF), he would move on to compete against South Carolinas winner as a 2 horse race *unless Rudy can pull out a miracle in Florida*!
January 13th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Why are you people talking like Thompsons going to get the nomination and then pick J.C. Watts who has not held office for years and when he did he was a congressman. Fred Thompson does not have a prayer, first in South Carolina, second, the nomination. Our party has gone so down hill. J.C. Watts and Fred Thompson, two southerners…this is a joke right.
January 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
if fred loses in sc, he will drop out and endorse mccina. m ost of his people will probably not follow suit.
January 13th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Hello, Tommy-
You’re pulling out all the stops to keep all of us informed about Fred. I am impressed by your thoroughness and dedication in supporting your candidate, not just in this post but in the campaign overall. Consider it a job well done.
Per husky, #7 (my two cents)-
Clearly, Fred has to do very well in SC to continue the campaign. If he withdraws at any point, I would be very surprised, if he didn’t endorse McCain immediately. As you noted, Fred and McCain are good friends and sat together in the Senate. When McCain ran in 2000, Fred was one of only four Senate Republicans to support him and was in fact national co-chair of the campaign.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I have come to the conclusion that if Obama is the nominee on the Democrat side, our best chance at attracting African-American voters is probably to nominate Fred Thompson. If Thompson added a J.C. Watts to the ticket then the perceived advantage among African-Americans for the Democrat nominee is almost immediately balanced out and I think that Fred could compete for that vote. Fred also polls very well with women voters, so if Hillary is the nominee Fred should not cede any votes in that demographic either. In any case the buzz and excitement coming out of S.C. for Fred is palpable and the public across the board, including the youth vote, is very jazzed about Fred’s message of Federalism.
MoFredtum 08!
January 13th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
The anecdotal from the first quote reminds me of my dad. He occasionally asks me for an update on where things are, and when I run through the list of candidates he keeps saying “oh, I forgot Thompson.” Sadly, TO, we don’t have cable so he didn’t watch the SC Debate, so he couldn’t have the change of heart the folks in that article did
January 13th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
A Watts choice as VP, after the infinitily unlikely nomination of Fred, would be seen as the most blatant form of tokenist / identity politics imaginable. Watts, as has already been noted on this thread, has not held office for years, and when he did hold office it was only as a congressman. The one thing it would accomplish would be to totally undermine any “lack of experience” argument against Obama, if he were the opponent.
Watts would be widely seen, quite correctly, as having been chosen for one reason, and one reason only – that he is black. How stupid you must think the American people would have to be to not see through this cynicism.
January 13th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
“If Thompson added a J.C. Watts to the ticket then the perceived advantage among African-Americans for the Democrat nominee is almost immediately balanced out and I think that Fred could compete for that vote”
My eyes are just rolling out of my head!!! Is this how you guys really think?
Do you really think that a presidential candidate, who has earned his spot at the top of the ticket by going out and fighting for the nomination, persuading the majority of his party (which is of course, majority white) that he would be the best leader for the party and for the nation, can be “balanced out” by a cynical appointment of an obscure former congressman who happens to be black?
And that having done this, ol’ Fred is gonna go out and compete for the black vote with Obama?
Please, Please, Please do this! As a Dem, I would take this as a direct sign that there is a loving and benevolent god, and that he is a democrat!
January 13th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I think an even better ticket would be with Michael Steele or George Allen.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Go, 2-man race between Mitt and Fred, Go!
January 13th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I am surprised to see Watts considering going with Fred. Well, perhaps I should be surprised because 1) I do not follow politics as closely until this time around, so I do not know much about Washington DC and 2) I have seen Watts’ name floating around at Romney blogs almost regularly. I would say his name is second most often mentioned, behind that Senator from SC, DeMint or something. 3) See! I do not know much about the who’s who in Washington DC!
January 15th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I, too, would crawl through crushed glass to vote a Thompson-Watts ticket! Whether JC is black, white, pink or purple has nothing to do with anything. JC’s an honest-to-God conservative, as is Fred. So what if he was “an obscure Congressman”? Is that such a bad thing? JC is a successful businessman, and he blew off DC for the real world. I can’t think of any better qualifications!