Thompson: The shadow candidates announces he’s about to come out

By Tom Baxter
Editor
Southern Political Report

(8/31/07) Even the pre-announcement of the announcement had a certain seat-of-the-pants air about it.

At first reporters were alerted to stand by for a Thursday afternoon conference call, at which they would learn what former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson intended to do about running for president. But plans changed, and the conference call became, from most descriptions, a pep talk from Thompson’s brain trust to influential supporters around the country – a few hundred of the senator’s best friends, as it were – followed by a more formal statement to the media that the former Tennessee senator will announce next Thursday, Sept. 6, that he is, as he has so broadly hinted, a candidate for the Republican nomination.

Whatever. Well before the afternoon call it was clear Thompson had made the decision to go all in, putting to rest any speculation a lack of burning desire might dissuade him at the last moment.

In a fast-paced world, there’s no perfect time to announce for the presidency. After all this water-testing, the date Thompson has chosen will come in the September news cycle, between the dying embers of the Larry Craig story – no comfortable subject for any Senate Republican, past or present – and the combination surge report and 9/11 anniversary media overkill that we’ll be seeing week after next.

That’s an awfully tight spot within which to grab the spotlight, but then, this is a professional at getting the public’s attention during sweeps week.

According to Politico’s Jonathan Martin, Thompson political director Randy Enwright in Thursday’s call said Thompson’s situation was “the closest thing to the draft of a candidate in recent presidential campaign history.” It’s true that across the South, you already see Thompson bumper stickers here and there, but that’s assigning Ross Perot to ancient history rather quickly, and getting a bit loose with the word, “draft.”
It may have been called a “testing the waters” phase, but the current television star aned former lobbyist hasn’t needed any petitions from the voters to whet his taste for a presidential bid.

The long delay in his announcement – he said back in April he’d have his mind made up by May – has nothing to do with personal reluctance and a lot to do with the turmoil in his revolving door staff. Never has a campaign organization gotten so many knocks before it became, in fact, a campaign.

We’re told the Thompson campaign has been spending this week working on message, worried over his somewhat dull and disorganized manner in recent appearances, like a speech to a national gathering of state legislators in which he read from a prepared speech and bombed.

His best shot – and he knows it – is to communicate quickly in places where his starring role in “Law and Order” counts more than whether he’s made it to the local Rotary Club luncheon. That points straight to Florida, and early reports are that after an initial stomp
through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Thompson will devote a second round of campaigning to the Sunshine State, returning for a rally in his hometown of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., Sept. 15.

So long as he has not been a candidate, any imperfections in his message and turmoil in his staff has had no affect whatever on his performances in the polls, which has been better than all his rivals, save for Rudy Giuliani. Let’s see what the public thinks after the “testing the waters” candidate launches his boat next week.