Abraham is one of the co-founders of the Federalist Society. I don't know what experience he has in running political campaigns, although he has been a candidate. He may be a figurehead type, more of a campaign chairman than a campaign manager.

Anyone check Fred Thompson's website in the last day or two? You should, lots of changes and enhancements...

I have to say, I think Fred is waiting too long.

IMHO, he should have been in the debate, and is now losing traction.

TR

Couldn't agree more. I'm shaking my head at the whole group, but I'm particularly irked at Thompson because I really thought he might have done something interesting if he'd have jumped in about a month ago.

It certainly wasn't a sure thing that he could have taken it all the way to a nomination, but now?? I doubt we'll never be able to prove RL wrong! ;)

I'm disappointed he has not yet declared, and truly hope September is not too late...

We are still 15 months out from the general election, right? Conventions are in the early spring? Tommy Thompson is bowing out, McCain will be soon, and who else will be leaving the field?

My memory is obviously not great, but it seems that we are expecting hard campaigning awfully early compared to two or three presidencies ago. I think Fred is hitting it just right. Let the Dems continue to expose themselves and let their true motives float to the top. Let the Republican field thin itself from the first burst out of the gate, and then be the fresh face on the news and be in a better position to dictate your own talking points in the media when the newsboys get tired of the same old story.

Ain't nothing close to being over yet. September is good - it's too damned hot outside to be worrying about it this month.

Fred showed up in the Iowa straw poll ahead of Rudy G. and McCain.....but the clock is ticking.

2007 Iowa Straw Poll a resounding success. No one was more pleased than Governor Mitt Romney who received 4,516 votes to win the Straw Poll.

In second place Governor Mike Huckabee 2,587;
Third Senator Sam Brownback 2,192;
Fourth, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo 1,961;
Fifth place was U.S. Representative Ron Paul 1,305;
Sixth Governor Tommy Thompson 1,029;
Seventh place finisher, and undeclared candidate, Fred Thompson 203;
Eighth Mayor Rudy Giuliani 183;
Ninth U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter 174;
Tenth Senator John McCain, 101;
And finishing last with 41 votes was John Cox.

Given his efforts in Iowa, what does that work out to in dollars per vote?

Maybe I should move for a month or so every four years?

TR

Daddy Warbucks in Iowa
 

I heard that Romney spent somewhere in the area of 4 million in Iowa...that is around $880 dollars a vote.

Mind you those that choose to vote in the straw poll have to pay $35 for the privilege. I think I would rather get a steak at Texas Roadhouse..:rolleyes:

(just in case you were wondering...the last election, President Bush won with 62,028,285 popular votes. Using Romney-math that comes out to $54,895,032,225.00 )

I think that these may possibly be the most bizarre results that I've ever seen come out of Iowa.

Mike Huckabee in 2nd place?

Brownback in third? Last national poll I saw had him with something like 2% of likely voters. ( I like Brownback, BTW)

Paul & Thompson? What is the straw poll, some sort of magic time machine?

I heard on NPR last week that Thompson is putting off his declaration due to the "Law and Order" season that should have its last episode the first week of September. If he declares before that time, networks have to give equal time to other candidates. The rule does not apply to old shows in syndication on cable TV. Rumors from his inner circle is that he's doing this so that the other actors can get paid for their appearances on the show, as they would not get paid if the show does not air. I'm sure the network has something to do with it too.

This is a marathon, not a sprint . . .

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3162457.shtml

CBS Poll: Giuliani Maintains Strength
Former New York Mayor Leads Closest Rival By 20 Points Nationally

NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2007

(CBS) According to a new CBS News poll out Monday, Rudy Giuliani retains a significant lead nationally among Republican primary voters in the race to become the party’s presidential nominee.

In all, 38 percent of Republican primary voters favor the former New York City mayor, a slight increase from last month. Senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson is next; he's favored by 18 percent of Republican primary voters, a seven-point drop from last month. Thompson has yet to officially announce his candidacy.

The third choice, at 13 percent, is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who improved five points from one month ago. He was followed by Arizona Sen. John McCain, who came in at 12 percent.

Republican primary voters appear to be growing more content with the Republican candidates for president: 46 percent say they are satisfied with their choices, up from 36 percent a month ago and 30 percent in June. But 49 percent say they are not satisfied.

Giuliani, defying conventional wisdom, continues to show strength among groups not expected to be favorable towards his candidacy. He leads the field among conservatives, those who live in the South and West, evangelical Christians, and voters who think that a candidate's personal life should be a factor in deciding whom to support.

In all, 47 percent of Giuliani supporters say they strongly favor their candidate, while 45 percent say the like him as a choice, with reservations. Only 7 percent choose Giuliani because they dislike the other candidates.

When asked for their second choice among the candidates, 30 percent of Republican primary voters choose McCain, more than any other candidate. Romney is the second choice of 15 percent of primary voters, while just 8 percent say Thompson is their second choice.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,214 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone Aug. 8-12, 2007. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

Found this on the website today. Just a few more weeks until September...

http://www.imwithfred.com/NewsRoom/I...b-9cd898a9adf6

August 16, 2007
David S. Broder: Shaking up presidential race
Sacramento Bee, Opinion


When Fred Thompson makes his long-delayed entrance into the Republican presidential race, he will not tiptoe quietly.

Instead, he will try to shake up the establishment candidates of both parties by depicting a nation in peril from fiscal and security threats -- and prescribing tough cures he says others shrink from offering.

In a two-hour conversation over coffee at a restaurant near his Virginia headquarters, the former senator from Tennessee said that when he joins the battle next month, he "will take some risks that others are not willing to take, in terms of forcing a dialogue on our entitlement situation, our military situation and what it's going to cost" to assure the nation's future.

After spending most of the last few years on TV's "Law and Order," and starting a new family with two children under 4, the 65-year-old lawyer says he finds himself motivated for the first time to seek the White House.

"There's no reason for me to run just to be president," he said.

"I don't desire the emoluments of the office. I don't want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there -- different, more far-reaching ideas -- that is worth doing." Thompson, like many of the others running, has caught a strong whiff of the public disillusionment with both parties in Washington -- and the partisanship that has infected Congress, helping to speed his own departure from the Senate.

But he says he thinks that the public is looking for a different kind of leadership. "I think a president could go to the American people and say, 'Here's what we need to be doing. and I'm willing to go half-way.' Now you have to make them (the opposition) go half-way." The approach Thompson says he's contemplating is one that will step on many sensitive political toes. When he says "we're getting a free ride" fighting a necessary war in Iraq with an undersized military establishment, "wearing out our people and equipment," it sounds like a criticism of the president and the Pentagon.

When he says he would have opposed adding the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, "a $17 trillion add-on to a program that's going bankrupt," he is fighting the bipartisan judgment of the last Congress.

When he says the FBI is perhaps incapable of morphing itself into the smart domestic security agency the country needs, he is attacking another sacred cow.

Thompson repeatedly cites two texts as fueling his concern about the country's future. One is "Government at the Brink," a two-volume report he issued as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee at the start of the Bush administration in 2001 and handed to the new president's budget director as a checklist of urgent management problems in Washington.

The difficulties outlined in federal procurement, personnel, finances and information technology remain today, Thompson said, and increasingly "threaten national security." His second sourcebook contains the scary reports from Comptroller General David Walker, the head of the Governmental Accountability Office, on the long-term fiscal crisis spawned by the aging of the American population and the runaway costs of health care. Walker labels the current patterns of federal spending "unsustainable," and warns that unless action is taken soon to improve both sides of the government's fiscal ledger -- spending and revenues -- the next generation will suffer.

"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges." Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could assure a better future for their children.

But these issues -- national security and the fiscal crisis of an aging society with runaway heath care costs -- "are worth a portion of a man's life. If I can't get elected talking that way, I probably don't deserve to be elected."

Thompson says "I feel free to do it" his own way, and that freedom may just be enough to shake up the presidential race.

I do find it pretty freaking funny that many of you are clamoring for a lawyer to run for President . . . ;)

It's a wholly philosophical exercise, Sir! :D

To slay the beast, one must know the beast and when possible, live as the beast lives. -- Sun Tzu

You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect. -- Miyamoto Musashi