A catalog of Thompson blunders

Dick Morris has a long list of blunders made by the Fred Thompson campaign since it has officially kicked into gear, including questionable clientèle he represented as a lobbyist, issues on which he did not know enough about to comment on (drilling in the Everglades, Terri Shiavo), misstatements, staffing and fund-raising problems... I first suspected that the campaign didn't have its act together in July after the report of Thompson's pro-choice lobbying work made the news. What was striking to me was not the allegation, but the lack of any response from the campaign. At first the campaign said he did not do that work, and then it came out that it was absolutely true that he did, and then there was silence from the campaign. Successful campaigns have damage-control messages for stories like that. But instead three days later the conclusion seemed to be that Thompson was not going to be the candidate he was cracked up to be.

Morris's conclusion: "Thompson seems to lack the interest, energy, will, ability and stamina to compete at this level. Hillary is probably the next president anyway." That's certainly the way things look today. There will be no change in Iraq policy until after the presidential primaries are over, and by that time it'll be too late and the GOP will be holding the bag on Iraq. It's impossible that '08 won't be like '06 with Iraq being the dominating issue. It will be interesting, though, if a Republican candidate realizes that it's no use to win the nomination if you can't win the general election, and jumps ship earlier. But that'll only happen if there's primary votes to be won by doing so.