Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Mike Allen at The Politico reports on the unconventional presidential campaign that former Sen. Fred Thompson is planning.

Thompson, his wife and advisers in Washington and Tennessee also are drawing up plans for a new style of campaign that would rely heavily on technology and his celebrity status to avoid some of the slogging through the snow in Iowa and New Hampshire that is normally required of White House hopefuls.

The advisers say Thompson, who plays District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's "Law & Order," is researching ways to use technology - including the Web, videoconferences and teleconferences - to harness the enthusiasm for his candidacy among grass-roots bloggers and activists. The campaign also would rely on large events, such as those that have in part supplanted country-store campaigning for some in the Democratic field.

Originally, the idea of a late-start campaign for Thompson looked like something of a lark, but the phantom candidacy is accelerating. "The question is: Can he do it the way he wants to do it?" said another person helping plan the potential campaign. "With each passing day, he realizes that the answer is yes."

In a campaign cycle in which the supposed "front-runners" started very early, it just might be the late-entry who wins this thing - and shows you don't have to run for president frantically and non-stop for two years to win it. Ever heard of the tortoise and the hare?

Tennessee blogger Jay Bush comments:

While the other Republican presidential candidates have been getting beaten up by the press and each other, Thompson has let the buzz about his potential campaign continue to build and build. As a result, Thompson has garnered quite a following among grassroots conservatives on the Web, and if he can turn that enthusiasm into an army of grassroots volunteers and contributors, he will really shake this race up and do what Howard Dean failed to with his coalition of grassroots Democrats and left-wing bloggers in the '04 Democratic primary -- win!

Thompson is, without a doubt, winning the blog primary. The question is whether blogs have any power to put a candidate over the top for real? The record isn't good. In '04 Howard Dean's Web presence and an army of out-of-state grassroots volunteers failed to translate into votes on the ground in the Iowa caucus and Dean's campaign imploded from there.

True. But Thompson and his team have the advantage of being able to learn from Dean's failure.