After First Debate, Thompson Disappears From Campaign Trail, Cancels Event in New Hampshire

[NNN0LHI]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3728741

Mitt Romney was in Michigan, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada and then went back to Michigan. Rudy Giuliani visited Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Alabama, Washington and New Hampshire. John McCain went from Michigan to Iowa to New Hampshire.

But where was Fred, as in Fred Thompson?

Besides participating in his first presidential debate in Michigan last Tuesday, Thompson was missing from the campaign trail. The former Tennessee senator and star of NBC's "Law & Order" was scheduled to be in New Hampshire this weekend, but canceled.

New Hampshire voters noticed.

"He's a late entry. That will probably hurt him," said Geri Gormley, of Bow, who visited with McCain but remains uncommitted. "We're grass roots. Candidates come up and pick our brains, one on one. We had (Barack) Obama's staff come to our door today. That's good strategy."

[Bitwit1234]

1. Maybe he made a deal with rove

He agreed to run and continue the reprehensible policy bush and cheney started. And they promised they would steal the presidency for him like they did for bush.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I can understand why he disappears from public view--when people

actually see him in person, his poll numbers drop. His campaign should just make a hologram of him, with pre-recorded sound bites, and play that to audiences--preserve the illusion of his being Presidential. That's all that most GOP voters are looking for anyway.

[countingbluecars]

7. Speaking of pre-recorded sound bites,

Just last night I got a polling call from the Thompson campaign in Virginia. A live caller asked me to listen to a one minute recorded message from Fred. So I did. In a nice down-home drawl Fred asked if I was tired of business as usual in Washington and then told how he was planning on changing things. Then the live pollster came on and asked me which of several items I was most concerned about. Missing from the list-the Iraq War, the environment, and health care. I asked her why? She thanked me and hung up.

[TwilightGardener]

8. LOL! You mean guns and gay marriage and tax cuts aren't at the top

of your worries list? Why did you baffle her with such obscure topics?

[napi21]

3. Maybe he's back begging for his job on L&O?

Honestly, I can't believe he performed so poorly in that debate! He is a 2 term Senator, was on TV many times during the hearings he chaired right before he left the Senate, has already been through at least 2 State elections, yet he looked like a rookie with a bad case of stage fright!

[TornadoTN]

4. Fred thinks that the L&O vote will carry him to victory

Why politic or do anything substantive? This is the most pathetic campaign I've seen in a long time. Too bad there are some idiots out there that will vote for "Arthur Branch" anyway.

[TlalocW]

5. Gee, that whole being extremely lazy rumor

Just ain't a rumor.

TlalocW

[Demit]

6. I still think he's a control experiment for the GOP.

How far can a candidate go—how many votes will he get—with having no platform, no knowledge of current events, who never goes on the stump? He's a freaking virtual candidate. He practically doesn't exist. And, so far, he has been getting support anyway—in money, from the press, from potential voters like Geri Gormley who still won't rule him out. I think the GOP wants to identify, for future exploitation in political campaigns, the exact percentage of automaton support they can count on.

[TwilightGardener]

9. Yesterday, I asked a man I work with, a GOPer who hates Chimpy and the war, who

he plans to vote for. He replied, "the actor guy, I guess". I asked him why, and he said, "I liked him on TV and movies--always thought he seemed like a good guy." This is an intelligent individual, by the way. Fucking scary.

[Demit]

12. This is what we've been prepped for: the president is only a picture on your screen.

In a sense, I'm afraid, it's true, in that whoever attains that exalted position has to answer to the powerful entities who got him there. But—as in 2000 when we were persuaded to vote for the 'fun, friendly guy' who would be great to have a beer with—we are being coached to give our vote to a person based on a persona, what he looks like in two dimensions. We might as well have a hologram, as somebody stated upthread.

I don't know how this coworker otherwise shows that he's worthy of being called intelligent, I'll take your word for it, but yes that is scary. There is a big wide blind spot in the part of his brain that houses his intelligence.

[TwilightGardener]

14. I actually think my coworker is very representative of the average

GOP voter. Even the better-educated ones don't demand anything more than likeability, a Presidential appearance and an air of authority from their candidates. I've often wondered why Democrats demand that their candidates be brainy policy wonks, with a thorough grasp of the issues and a slate of well-thought-out plans and ideas, and GOPers seem to instinctively seek out the opposite.

My conclusion is that unlike Dems, who are conditioned to respond to people's changing needs in a changing world, the GOP/conservative platform is based on simple principles that don't change much--as long as the candidates pretend to bow to the usual Gods of wealth, war, the Christian Right, small government and guns (something that McCain failed to do convincingly, and thus he's out of the game), then they're acceptable, and all that remains is to sort out the candidates' images to determine the most alpha-male among them who's still beer-worthy. The GOP only needs a figurehead--the party itself is on autopilot most of the time, with most pols toeing the line on major issues--no need for analysis. The "R" by their names is their guarantee of purity. Fred is a perfect representative of this system--Rudy is more of a challenge to it, as is Ron Paul. Unfortunately, the GOP's laziness and superficiality in selecting a candidate is right in step with much of the uninformed voting public's tendency to the same. If Gore and Kerry had been more "alpha male" and personally likeable, they would have been winners, because that's what America is conditioned to value more than anything else. Rove knew this. Hillary will probably win, because she's the most "alpha-male" of both parties right now, and she can also be likeable.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

10. Fred's dead (metophorically, of course)

I see it as a Rudy-Mitt race, with Rudy eventually slipping, and Mitt picking up enough ground over Rudy to grab the nomination.

Just my two cents.

[KG]

11. he needed a really, really, long nap.

[KharmaTrain]

13. Freddie The Reluctant Candidate

Deep down you can see this dude doesn't want the job. It's "hard work"...compared to the big bucks and partying he was doing on K Street and in Hollywood. He's doing this cause others are putting him up to it...that he's the "great white hope" in this election. He's the NOTA candidate...the one that was supposed to rally the lost (and he still might) in the Repugnican wilderness who were looking for a figurehead...a Raygun...who could talk the talk. As the lesser puppies run out of money and time, then Freddy picks up support as he becomes the "stop Rudy" or Mittens candidate.

His candidacy gets "stronger" as the party continues to scism and he becomes one of the few alternatives to the fundies and "social conservatives". Fred's a placeholder...why he's not running an enthusiastic campaign right now...he doesn't have to. He's waiting for the other candidates to drop.