The Shot!

[Tim Cameron] 

Yesterday ABC News broke the story that Fred Thompson had promised voters that he would support the Fair Tax, and would eventually sign the pledge. Today the Thompson campaign is saying that Thompson hasn’t promised to sign the pledge.

The Fair Tax organization then released a video of Fred Thompson speaking to a fair tax supporter in Texas. In the video Thompson is asked: “Senator, if the House and Senate pass the ‘Fair Tax’ bill would you sign it?” Thompson replies, “yeah, absolutely”. You can watch the video here.

I realize that Thompson might have only said that to satisfy the massive crowd of Fair Tax supporters who greeted him at the airport (a move any candidate should avoid making). But his communication department has butchered this situation. I don’t know if this was some confusion over the contents of video, but the Thompson campaign simply replied that the Fair Tax organization was “wrong” for claiming their candidate has promised to sign the pledge.

I don’t know what went wrong with communications department, but I do know something went wrong. Fair Tax is one of the most organized groups in the entire nation. Anybody who witnessed their rally before the Fox News Debate earlier this year can attest to that. His campaign just made a lot of people angry, because his campaign just made the Fair Tax people appear like they have no clue what they are talking about.

Now if this story was just one bump along the road, it probably wouldn’t be that bad. But this is part of a long string of negative stories about Thompson’s campaign.

Rick Klein at ABC’s the Note has a pretty concise summery of Thompson’s recent problems:

What an actor needs to learn about timing

Lessons learned in the two months that former senator Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., has been “testing the waters”: 1. Having a campaign shake-up does not require having a campaign (though having a meddlesome spouse helps). 2. Folksy observations do not answer questions about lobbying work on behalf of abortion-rights groups (and the flies called “opposition research” buzz really loudly come fall). 3. No one politician can possibly fix all the things that plague the GOP (even if that politician plays a problem-solver on TV). 4. Some actors look better in the middle distance than in tight shots.

As Thompson gets his first of many close-ups today with a federal financial filing, the question must be asked: Did Thompson miss his moment? If Thompson had jumped into the race in late spring, when the GOP was in full angst mode over its presidential field, his announcement would have itself provided a major lift. The storyline: a smooth-talking (conservative) giant-to-the-rescue — irresistible to the party faithful, and filling a discernable void in the field.

But with officials indicating that Thompson will barely top $3 million in money raised in June — far less than the goal the campaign let linger publicly — his fundraising announcement combines with staff turmoil to tell a muddier story. “The amount . . . was less than the $5 million that Mr. Thompson’s supporters had hoped for and has met with some disappointment inside his camp, which has also been buffeted in recent days by staff defections and high-level disagreements,” write The New York Times’ Susan Saulny and David Kirkpatrick. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/us/politics/31fred.html

And now it’s the Fair Tax story.

This certainly won’t doom Thompson’s chances, but it doesn’t help either. If Thompson had announced in the spring, many of this troubles would be non-existent. But he didn’t. I’m beginning to think that Thompson has the “shoulda, coulda, woulda” campaign of 2008. The problem is “close” and “almost” only count in horseshoes and hand grenades, and certainly don’t help you get the Republican nomination. I understand the reasoning behind not wanting to announce until after Labor Day, but Labor Day is still over a month away. The question now is how many more “bumps” along the road can Thompson take before he becomes the Wes Clark of this election cycle?      

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 3:33 pm and is filed under 2008 | Republicans, Presidential, The Chaser. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.