Fred Thompson Floundering In California

The following piece was produced by the Huffington Post's OffTheBus.

What do the brander of "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light," an Indian gaming consultant, a horsewoman known for the motorloaf tea sandwich, a bow-tied Yale-educated litigator, a best friend of Pat Boone, a Jewish philanthropist, a home-schooling astronomy buff, a Kern County rancher, an associate of Tim LaHaye, and GOP legislators in Sacramento who oppose Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common? These are the northern California co-chairs of Fred Thompson's presidential campaign and the elected officials in Sacramento who are endorsing him. "Thompson Finds California Support," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. What interests the Chronicle is that a GOP coterie of Schwarzenegger foes, led by state senator Tom McClintock, are backing Thompson. McClintock himself is Thompson's newly-minted California campaign chairman. What interests me is that Thompson's big backers are an odd assortment, even by the political standard of strange bedfellows.

Further scrutiny shows how thinly-stretched Thompson's support is in California. One of Thompson's northern California co-chairs would seem to be helping Giuliani as well, for she has given $4,050 to Giuliani in the last FEC reporting period. Four of Thompson's northern CA co-chairs live and work in southern CA; presumably, they are doing double duty. (Counting married couples as one entity, this is almost half the "northern" contingent.)

Thompson spent bits and pieces of two days last week in northern California announcing the Sacramento endorsements and attending three fundraisers. The fact that party planning (R.S.V.P.s, emails, etc.) was handled through an employee of the Pacific Fundraising Group, whose founder Michael Sowers is also newly-minted to Thompson, rather than through the Thompson campaign itself, reveals the cobbled-together, still-rough mechanics of this presidential campaign--at least on the West Coast.

Having spent a morning at two of the fundraisers (both small affairs) and Thompson's brief San Francisco press conference, I found myself waiting in line for my car at the Four Seasons Hotel with Tom McClintock. Likely assuming that I was a Thompson supporter, McClintock was eager to chat, confessing cheerily (as indeed he had done to Debra Saunders of the Chronicle, although Saunders had not reported it yet) that he had never met Fred Thompson until the day before, when he endorsed him and agreed to be his California campaign chairman. Likely in response to my flabbergasted expression, McClintock proceeded to justify himself, saying that he had done research on Fred Thompson. Well, so have I. And I, unlike Tom McClintock, am a native Tennessean, whose family has been in and out of Tennessee politics for over 200 years; therefore, I have a feeling for where Fred Thompson is coming from. But I don't know the man and wouldn't put my name next to his--for that reason alone--no matter what his politics. The fact that McClintock has--or more significantly that Thompson would ask a man he had never met to vouch for him--speaks volumes about the Fred Thompson campaign.

Comments

[WilliePilgrim]

The word should be "foundering" not "floundering". Foundering referrs to a vessel sinking while desperately trying to save itself by tossing out its water, flotsam and jetsam, y'know.. Floundering is a false cognate which presumable conjures up the image of flounder flopping around...which interesting but hardly the image the term intends to convey.

[VOTER]

The Walking Coma received support from cnn's Wolfie

and msnbc's Tweety Mathews during yesterday's broadcasts.

While mentioning the Coma's problems with his criminal pal, Phillip Martin, they, both, praised the Coma for acting so quickly. HUH?

Also, while stating Phillip's crimes are twenty some years old, WOLFIE AND TWEETY FAILED TO MENTION PHILLIP'S COMPANY IN TENNESSEE CURRENTLY OWES OVER $1 MILLION IN BACK TAXES.

So sweet of Wolfie and Tweety.

[FakeRudyGiuliani]

Fred has no chance of beating me. The aborto-facists don't like me, but they know that I'm the only one who can save this country from Hillary and the entire Democommiecrat Party.

Fake Rudy Giuliani
fakerudygiuliani.blogsport.com

[Lisette]

Fred Thompson? Is he still in the race?

[plages]

Clueless twit! Could be his little lady pushed him into this? By the way, the forum is on fire!

[RedRooster]

I've visited seniors in a retirement community who are more energetic and more electable than Fred Thompson.

[JimLarkin]

poor fred surrounds himself with former drug dealers like phil martin and congressman zach wamp (r)Tn and wonders why he gets off the campaign bus craving munchies

[Driver125]

It's like Fred's campaign was conceived by two coked-out Repub producers in Hollywood.... trouble being that nobody had the money to hire some writers to do a script.

[eugenegerard]

Floundering like a rhino in a mudhole.

[Bulbul]

He is still in the prsidential race ?

[baygirl]

We could do worse than Thompson, think HillBilly. I don't want to pay 60% of my income to the government if she gets elected.

Fred was good on Hannity last week and Russert yesterday. Don't count him out

[MBFLA]

Fred has turned out to be a great big non-event! Yawn!

[MJG2007]

Up until I saw a picture of Dead Fred, I thought the cave troll in Lord of the Rings was CGI instead of a live actor.

[rollingdivision]

Though not a big deal this will ultimately work out well. Thompson's campaign was going no where anyway and this will set it back a bit, reducing his chances. So this is good. A 25 year old felony guilty plea is really not a big deal for someone in this guys role.

[white mende man]

anyone remember when Ronald Reagan trunced Jimmy Carter and swept nearly every state for the GOP in 1980? well... (as reagan would say) 2008 is going to be sweet revenge for the Democratic Party. JMHO but the GOP is going to be DOA