Fred Thompson

Fred Thompson, Alan Keyes and Duncan Hunter’s names will not be removed from the Republican primary ballot in New York City, despite an effort by some Board of Elections commissioners in Albany on Friday, and despite the fact that the county boards may take them off.

As I reported then, the state Republican Board of Elections commissioners voted to remove those three candidates, but Democratic commissioners did not vote. When the city Board of Elections voted, they were split evenly along party lines. At the time, there was some question as to what would happen to the city ballots, or if the vote was even valid.

“Ballots are going out as is,” said city Board of Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vasquez. “According to Commissioner Kellner [co-chair of the state Board of Elections], they never met, so that in and of itself would make the action invalid."  read more »

From the AP:

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quit the Republican presidential race on Tuesday, after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.

"Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort," Thompson said in a statement.

It's true that Rudy Giuliani hasn't seriously contested any of the first five primary and caucus states (at least not since he dropped $2 million on television ads in New Hampshire) and that he has long touted Florida, which will vote on January 29, as his campaign's first true test.

Still, it's noteworthy just how awfully Rudy has fared in the lead-off contests. Last night, he finished with 2 percent of the vote in South Carolina, a state where he'd been running near the top of polls just a few months ago. And yesterday afternoon, he won just 1,910 votes in Nevada -- good for four percent.  read more »

Fred Thompson toyed with the media and won himself about 10 minutes of free and unfiltered national television airtime. The former Tennessee senator is on pace to finish a distant third or fourth place in South Carolina and his campaign hinted to the media that he might drop out on the spot (and possibly endorse old friend John McCain) when he addressed his supporters just before 8:00. But in an unusually chipper speech, Thompson made no reference to his poor showing or to his immediate future plans. “Stand strong!” he chanted to supporters at the end of his address.

Still, it’s impossible to imagine anyone taking Thompson seriously if he opts to press ahead. He bypassed all of the early primaries and caucuses (save for a half-hearted effort in Iowa) and had been promising to make a breakthrough in South Carolina, where he devoted most of his time and money. But he has finished in the middle of the pack. That pretty much ensures that he won’t be much of a factor in Florida, the next test, or on February 5, when about two dozen states will head to the polls.

Fred Thompson may not have said it tonight, but his campaign is probably over now.

On Jan. 3, the night of the Iowa caucuses, ABC political reporter Jake Tapper appeared on Nightline from Des Moines, where he reported live on Mike Huckabee’s surprise victory.

Afterward, he caught an overnight flight on the Hucka-plane to New Hampshire, where, around dawn, he filed a story for Good Morning America.

That evening, he was back in front of the cameras yet again, this time from Henniker, N.H., reporting on Mr. Huckabee for ABC World News With Charles Gibson.  read more »

Officially, victory in Michigan belongs to Mitt Romney. But for all practical purposes, tonight’s result is a win for every candidate in the race not named John McCain.

McCain came into Michigan in the same position Romney was two weeks ago. Back then, Romney was poised to score lead-off victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire, a one-two punch that would have sent the G.O.P.’s establishment masses—voters who have mixed feelings about all of the candidates and who have been content to wait for one to claim the mantle of inevitability—rushing into his camp, while marginalizing his opponents. But then Romney fell short in those states, and McCain inherited is spot as the would be-inevitable candidate.

The combination of Romney’s twin losses and McCain’s New Hampshire victory sent McCain’s poll numbers soaring, both in the next wave of primary states and in national polls. The Republican rank-and-file seemed to be signaling its willingness to rally behind him if he could maintain his momentum. That is why Michigan was so crucial to him: A win would have eliminated Romney and made follow-up McCain wins in South Carolina, Florida and in the big states on February 5 even more likely.

More after the jump.  read more »

It’s true that this year’s Republican presidential race is the most fluid on record. At varying points, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have all seemed to be plausible front-runners.

But by Tuesday night, after the results from what is only the third major contest of the nominating season are tallied, the race may be close to over—or it will be more jumbled than ever.  read more »

The Fox News debate is underway and Ron Paul is nowhere to be found.

The broadcast began without an explanation for his exclusion and comes after a week of stonewalling by Fox, which refused to answer questions from the news media, the Paul campaign and even the New Hampshire Republican Party, which withdrew its sponsorship of the debate yesterday when it became clear that Paul would be left out.  read more »

After playing his usual punching bag role in last night's Republican debate, Ron Paul found himself surrounded by his most devoted and fervent friends on Sunday afternoon.

The occasion was Paul's keynote address at the annual convention of the Free State Project, a group of libertarians who are essentially trying to colonize New Hampshire. The group's goal is to convince 20,000 people to move to the state within five years. Others have pledged to follow the initial settlers if the 20,000 threshold is met.

Paul, whose was preceded at the podium by the President of the John Birch Society, entered to a raucous standing ovation and spoke for about 45 minutes.  read more »

Twenty years ago, Bob Dole slipped up in a debate on the Saturday night before the New Hampshire primary -- he refused to sign a "no new taxes" pledge -- and saw the momentum from his Iowa triumph promptly fizzle out, handing a campaign-saving come-from-behind victory to George H.W. Bush.

Mitt Romney, whose once overwhelming New Hampshire support is collapsing in the wake of his poor Iowa showing, entered tonight's debate in dire need of a similar stumble by John McCain, whose resurgent candidacy could extinguish Romney's with a victory in three nights.

He didn't get it.  read more »

This morning, Rudy Giuliani addressed a conference of robotics enthusiasts at a competition called “For Inspiration & Recognition of Science and Technology.” ("A unique varsity sport of the mind,” reads the competition literature. “Designing and building a robot is a fascination real-world professional experience.”)

While Giuliani did receive a warm response, the attendees were ultimately there to see robots fight.

An hour or so later, Giuliani gave a speech at a packed house in Litchfield. But it was a house.

“Live Well Laugh Often Love Much” was written above the transom going into the living room where Giuliani spoke. Keys hung on the wall next to the closet. Appliances got in the way of people as they squeezed into the kitchen.

While his Republican rivals are filling school gyms and cafeterias, Rudy is playing it small, as befits his modest New Hampshire campaign.  read more »

Fox News is projecting Mike Huckabee as the Republican winner.

UPDATE: So does CNN.

UPDATE: Mitt Romney tells Chris Wallace he's "determined to keep battling forward.

UPDATE: Here's the AP story.

A new Zogby poll provides more vivid evidence of Barack Obama’s electability advantage over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

In head-to-head match-ups, Hillary loses to three Republicans: Rudy Giuliani bests her by four points, Mike Huckabee by five, and John McCain by seven. She leads Mitt Romney by two and Fred Thompson by seven.

Edwards loses to two of the Republicans: Giuliani edges him by a point, and McCain by four points. He beats Huckabee by six points, Romney by 12 and thrashes Thompon by 16.

Only Obama beats all five Republicans. His closest match-ups are against McCain, whom he beats by four points, and Huckabee, whom he leads by five. He tops Giuliani by nine, Thompson by 16 and Romney by 18 points.

The difference: Independent voters. Against Giuliani, Hillary wins independents by just one point. Obama’s margin? 25 points.  read more »

A round of brokered convention talk seems to have broken out, with pundits mulling the possibilities of a formless G.O.P. race – four candidates are bunched within six points of the lead in the newest national poll – in which a clear front-runner stubbornly refuses to emerge.

“I fear our intraparty fury will destroy all leaders and send us off to a brokered convention,” Tony Blankley wrote this week. And Adam Nagourney addressed the topic in the New York Times three days ago, outlining this no-clear-winner scenario:

In fact, it is entirely plausible that Mike Huckabee of Arkansas will win the caucuses (in Iowa); that John McCain of Arizona will win New Hampshire; that Mitt Romney of Massachusetts will win Michigan, Fred Thompson of Tennessee will win South Carolina and Rudolph Giuliani of New York will win Florida. In those circumstances, with no obvious front-runner, and with many of the candidates having adequate resources and varying bases of support, they could just divide the prize on Feb. 5 and move on to the next primary.

Here’s the problem with that scenario: It seems logical now, but it fails to account for the primacy of momentum in the winnowing process.

(Continued after the break) 

 read more »

Could John McCain pull it off in New Hampshire once again? The newest numbers suggest he at least has a shot at it – which is more than anyone expected a few months ago.

Right now, Mitt Romney still leads the G.O.P. pack with a healthy 34 percent. He remains the clear favorite in the state, where he has invested heavily in T.V. ads and personal time and where he retains some extra goodwill among (some) Republican voters from his stint as Governor of neighboring Massachusetts. (He also owns a summer house on Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro.)

But McCain is within striking distance, at 22 percent. More importantly, the new poll shows that, for the first time since the summer, he has broken free of the rest of the G.O.P. pack. He may now be positioned as the default non-Romney choice in the state.

(more after the break)  read more »

Oops! NBC reported this morning that Rep. Steve King, a key Iowa G.O.P. congressman, had endorsed Mitt Romney. Then a little while later, the network took it back, saying on its Web site that in fact Rep. King is backing Fred Thompson.

To NBC's credit, it didn't try to hide its error. Its site explains: "Team Romney is in the back of the room looking bewildered. They were all here, leading all the press to conclude that it was an endorsement for Romney."

You can see the progression of updates here.

Here's an interesting, insiderish theory from MediaBistro.com as to why Fox News may have turned on Fred Thompson, after appearing favorable toward the Law and Order star earlier this year.

Of course, this could have something to do with it, too.

Rudy Giuliani’s campaign manager claimed to the press that the former mayor can still claim the G.O.P. nomination even if he loses the first three big states on the primary calendar: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. So far, the ploy is a smashing success.  read more »

The most influential noncandidate in the Republican presidential primary is not Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich or any other supposed kingmaker. It is Hillary Clinton.  read more »

The notion that Mr. Thompson would overwhelm his G.O.P. foes and power his way to the nomination has long since been dismissed.  read more »

Last night in the New York Times building, before a crowd of over 300, five members of the Times political team -- assistant managing editor Rick Berke, chief political reporter Adam Nagourney, online political editor Kate Phillips, and reporters Patrick Healy and Jodi Kantor -- held a surprisingly frank conversation about the 2008 presidential campaign and the relationship between the reporters and the candidates.

At the beginning of the presentation, Mr. Nagourney discussed the recent endorsement of Rudy Giuliani by Pat Robertson as "freaky," "weird" and "a stunt." He also echoed a widespread criticism of Republican candidate Fred Thompson, saying "I really think he's just not that into it."

At one point, Times assistant managing editor Rick Berke asked reporter Patrick Healy, who covers Hillary Clinton, whether the New York senator has forgiven him for the notorious A1 exegesis of the Clinton marriage he wrote last year. "No," Mr. Healy replied.  read more »

Mr. Huckabee is a walking, talking advertisement for his opponents’ flaws.  read more »

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion (pictured above with Andrew McCarthy) will play himself in an episode of Law & Order, which was filming by the Bronx County Courthouse this morning.

In an emailed comment, his spokesman assured me that it's a temporary gig: "Contrary to popular demand the BP won’t be replacing Fred Thompson."

There's plenty of interesting data to mine in the new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll which shows Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani opening up wide leads over their respective rivals.

But the one thing that caught my eye above all else is the difference between Giuliani's performance among the religious right and among Republican Catholics. Conventional wisdom dictates that both groups would be offended by Giuliani's support of abortion and gay rights.

One of the few categories in which Rudy trails Fred Thompson is among religious-right voters, which reflects the deep suspicion of the former mayor evidenced at last weekend's Values Voter summit. (Thompson has 24 percent to Rudy's 23 percent, according to the poll.) But among Catholic voters included in the poll of Republican primary voters, Rudy is trouncing Thompson 35 percent to 10 percent.

Now, it has been amply documented that Rudy is not exactly the standard-bearer of Catholic doctrine, but the poll shows that fact to be largely irrelevant to lay Catholics, even conservative ones. And as it gets closer and closer to primary season, it's increasingly hard to explain away the support by saying that they aren't yet sufficiently familiar with his pro-choice positions.

'Sometimes God surprises you. He takes the ugly dude with the third wife and he says, Consider him.'—David Coester, attending Giuliani's speech at the Family Research Council summit.  read more »

Rudy Giuliani’s words were well received on numerous occasions in Sunday night’s Republican debate, but he won his biggest laughs of the evening when the subject turned to gay marriage.

Explaining his conditional opposition to a constitutional amendment that would define marriage, Mr. Giuliani called on his own experiences to establish his dedication to marriage as an institution.

“I did 210 weddings when I was mayor of New York City. So I have experience doing this. They were all men and women,” Mr. Giuliani pointed out. Then he paused and added: “I hope.”  read more »

With 2008 not looking so good for the party nominee, it’s worth asking which of the many Republican candidates might live to run again in 2012.  read more »

Suddenly, a Giuliani nomination roadmap is starting to make sense.  read more »

At the tail end of this afternoon’s Republican presidential debate, CNBC’s Maria “The Money Honey” Bartiromo asked Fred Thompson how his first appearance on-stage with the rest of the G.O.P. field had gone.

“I’ve enjoyed watching these fellas,” he finally managed, after stumbling for something sufficiently light-hearted to sat, “But I gotta admit: it was starting to get a little boring without me.”

Actually, Fred, it was much, much worse with you.  read more »

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani lead in the race for their parties' nominations for president among Florida voters and are dead even in a head-to-head match-up, according to a new poll out today by Quinnipiac.

Clinton leads her closest Democratic rival in the primary, Barack Obama, by 29 points. Giuliani leads his closest rival, Fred Thompson, by 11. Head-to-head, Clinton and Giuliani are both at 44 percent. In an August poll by Quinnipiac, Clinton edged out Giuliani 46 to 44 percent.

The pollsters suggest that Giuliani may be in trouble because 31 percent of Republican voters in Florida say their decision about whom to support may be affected if a candidate was "divorced more than once."

For the record, Giuliani's marital record goes like this: divorced once, got an annulment before that, and has been married three times.

As he listlessly confirmed to Jay Leno that he’s running for President on Wednesday, Fred Thompson provided the latest – and most egregious – example of a candidate staking a false claim to cross-party appeal.

“I won in Tennessee – if I can brag a little bit on myself politically – by 20 points in two races in a state that Bill Clinton carried twice,” he pointed out.  read more »

“I won in Tennessee—if I can brag a little bit on myself politically—by 20 points in two races in a state that Bill Clinton carried twice,” he told Jay Leno.  read more »

The debate in New Hampshire provided still more signs that the man to watch may actually be Mike Huckabee.  read more »

In this week's edition of Observer Comics, Bloomberg—The Blossom Kid!— attempts to undermine Fred Thompson's folksiness by urging a real district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, to enter the race.

The still-hypothetical Thompson candidacy is likely to prove a lot more vulnerable to attack than it seems on paper.  read more »

While Democrats take turns hammering Karl Rove today, former Rove associates are paying their respects to a man they invariably refer to as a genius.

Mark Corallo, who was Rove's spokesman for two years during the Fitzgerald investigation, and who is now a senior advisor to Fred Thompson, said that Rove is instantly the most sought-after campaign talent for the potential Republican nominees.

Whether he is available is another story.

"He's by far the best asset out there," said Corallo. "I don't know that he wants to do any of that, though. My guess is that it is 'been there, done that' for him."

Corallo also guessed that the Republican campaigns aren't going to be bombarding Rove with direct requests for help.

"Everybody is going to give him a break -- if he wants to get involved he'll let it be known," he said. "Nobody is going to refuse his call."

Thank God for the Ames Republican Presidential Straw Poll.

It’s probably not the healthiest expression of democracy – the right to vote costs 25 bucks, with campaigns typically gobbling up chunks of tickets and handing them out to participants who might not be anywhere near Iowa come next January’s caucuses – but it sure gets the job done. After the last competitive straw poll, in the summer of 1999, three candidates were forced from the race, reducing an unruly G.O.P. field to a more manageable size.  read more »

A Michael Bloomberg candidacy would help Democrats win the crucial battleground state of Ohio, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac.

In a three-way presidential race, Hillary Clinton would beat Rudy Giuliani in that state, 40 to 35 percent, with 10 percent of the vote going to Bloomberg.

Without Bloomberg in the race, Clinton would only beat Giuliani in Ohio by 44 to 42 percent, well within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error.

In another hypothetical three-way match, Barack Obama would beat Fred Thompson in Ohio 44 to 34 percent. Add Bloomberg into that scenario, and Obama wins 38 to 27, with Bloomberg getting 15 percent.

“These results indicate that a Bloomberg candidacy would make it easier for the Democrats to carry Ohio's crucial electoral votes,” said Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown.  read more »

Republican angst has created an opening for Fred Thompson.  read more »

In case anyone still doubts whether Fred Thompson is well into the planning stages of his entry into the race, one of his aides told me last night that he is probably going to announce as early as the first week of July. "Not on July 4th by the way," said the aide. "Fred is not that pretentious."

The Thompson spin, as iterated by the aide, is that "he would be the conservative with the best record."

"He has an ability to communicate our principles as conservatives," the aide said.

As for Thompson's late entrance, the aide said that it gave Thompson a freshness that the other candidates lacked.

"A lot of them have been positioning themselves for this run for years," said the aide.

 

Another installment of Observer Comics.  read more »

Five years ago, former Senator Fred Thompson seemed ready to say goodbye to White House dreams for g  read more »

Did someone forget to give the Republicans their medicine again?  read more »