Is Fred Thompson the GOP's Wesley Clark - a seemingly attractive candidate who will fade? No, says Dave Weigel at the Reason blog, he's the GOP's Barack Obama. Weigel:
The Thompson movement isn't much like the Clark movement. Republicans like Thompson because they hate their other candidates. Democrats liked Clark because they wanted to compete with the GOP on national security issues without actually working out stances on the Iraq War and the "war on terror." They approached the problem by... fetishizing candidates with military experience.
Thompson certainly isn't the GOP's Wesley Clark - he's about a million times better a campaigner, for starters - but he's also not the GOP's Barack Obama, except for the popularity part. Thompson's resume of life experience and government experience is significantly broader and deeper and, while Obama talks in vague platitudes, Thompson is a blunt tell-it-like-it-is speaker.
Clark was bad campaigner? Not so:
The General entered the race in mid September (4 short months before the first primary vote) without a personal fortune....and by January '04 had raised the most money for that important quarter (beating out Dean). This was done while he had to hire left-over campaign strategist (since there were 9 other campaigns going on), had no experience running before, had to develop position papers in record time (was not a life time politician with a ready made senate staff)...and was attacked relentlessly by both parties, as he was everyone's nightmare if he did well.
Simply stated, because he chose not to contest Iowa (due to too short a time and too little resources)....he missed the big media blitz that blew Kerry and Edwards onto the finish line.
Still less than a week prior to Iowa and left out of the whole media blitz, Clark was polling 2nd in New Hampshire, 4 points behind Howard Dean, and 1st in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota and 2nd in South Carolina.
Regardless of the media slams and the media ignores, Clark still managed to come in third in New Hampshire (after the two favorite New England sons, Kerry and Dean) and beat out John Edwards, who would become Kerry’s last standing opponent in the primaries and later be chosen as Kerry's Vice Presidential running mate.
And with all of Edwards' Free press fresh from his Iowa 2nd place win, Clark not only beat Edwards in New Hamsphire, he also outdid Edwards on the Mini Tuesday primaries by first winning Oklahoma (a win that showed Clark as the only primary winner besides Kerry who won what wasn’t his home state), and then winning second place in New Mexico, Arizona and North Dakota, all without any free publicity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Tuesday
Of course, Wes Clark didn’t get any media frenzy or camera's in his face for his Oklahoma win, as CNN refused to call it till the next day. Meanwhile the big story that did get much coverage was that Edwards had won South Carolina, his birth state.
By the time Virginia and Tennessee ocurred the next week, Edwards had already been proclaimed Kerry's only competition still standing....which wasn't really the case, but the media made it so!
~ much more at Rapid Fire - Silver Bullets
http://www.rapidfire-silverbullets.com/2006/12/wes_clark_did_hella_goodthe_20.html
Posted by: jen | May 31, 2007 11:18 PM | Permalink to Comment