Desperate for a white knight to come save the party from electoral ruin, the Republican establishment turned its lonely eyes to Fred Thompson. It was going to be awesome — he’d run a new kind of campaign that could start late because of the phenomenon — online and off — it would inspire.
And how’s that working out for the actor/senator/lobbyist? So far, not very well.
Fred Thompson plans to announce Tuesday that his committee to test the waters for a Republican presidential campaign raised slightly more than $3 million in June, substantially less than some backers had hoped, according to Republican sources.
Many Republicans had seen the “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee as a potential savior in a tough election cycle…. But many Republicans have turned queasy as Thompson has ousted part of his original brain trust and repeatedly delayed his official announcement, which is now planned for shortly after Labor Day, in the first two weeks of September.
Some are already saying a prospective Thompson run is a flop. “I just don’t see it anymore,” said a key Republican who had been extremely enthusiastic about a Thompson candidacy.
“That number is really underwhelming. There were indications it could be double that. They’ve been saying that people were waiting for Fred, and the money was going to pour in. He looks like he’s already losing momentum.”
Let’s also not lose sight of the context of these underwhelming numbers. Thompson’s campaign is floundering, badly, before it even begins.
Thompson isn’t just struggling to raise money, he’s also hemorrhaging staff, taking it easy for most of August, and struggling to explain confirmed rumors throughout the GOP establishment that his wife is calling the shots.
“It’s now become an open joke among people in the consultant community and political movers and shakers that the senator’s wife is really running the campaign,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster and strategist. “The spouse needs to be an integral part of the campaign but it is never a good thing when the spouse runs the campaign because the spouse is never objective.”
For that matter, when Thompson drags himself out onto the campaign trail, he doesn’t exactly wow audiences.
When Fred Thompson made his debut on the presidential stage … he left some Republicans thinking he needs more work before his nascent campaign matches the media hype it’s gotten in advance.
The former Tennessee senator with the baritone drawl showed up Thursday in New Hampshire, the site of the first primary voting, and gave a speech that lasted only nine minutes, skipping over hot-button issues such as Iraq and immigration to invoke platitudes about freedom and strength. […]
“It was short,” said Richard Heitmiller of Nashua. “He’s got a nice voice. But there was nothing there.”
So, any other saviors waiting in the GOP’s wings? Cheney? Newt? Jeb?