Posted by: McQ on Saturday, January 19, 2008 On the evening of the New Hampshire primary I watched an interview with Fred Thompson, already in South Carolina, where he called SC his "firewall" and admitted he had to do well there or he was pretty much done. Of course "doing well" is open to interpretation, but most feel that requires a first or strong second in the vote. At the moment, he's virtually tied for 3rd with Mitt Romney, but well behind both McCain and Huckabee. Unless the pollsters are again remarkably wrong, well, it doesn't look good for Fred. But stranger things have happened. The reason this is the firewall state for him, is it is a state he should win, has spent the time (and money) necessary to win - 10 straight days in the state. If he can't pull a win or place where it is expected, it is reasonable to conclude that it isn't going to happen elsewhere either. If Thompson should fail to garner the votes necessary to take first or second, and drops out of the race, the postmortem will be interesting. He is, by far, the most conservative of the group. In fact, if you look at some Pew Research data, those he's running against are, for the most part moderates with Huckabee essentially being a re-run of George W. Bush and the rest being to the left of Huckabee. If Huckabee is the strongest "conservative" in the race, conservatives have a problem. To illustrate that point, look at this chart:
Huckabee only takes 20% of the moderate/liberal wing while pulling down the majority of the Evangelical conservatives. That's really a nice way of saying "social cons". McCain takes a good number of them as well. The "other cons", who are, of course, the fiscal conservatives, go to Romney, followed closely, again, by McCain. So for whatever reason, McCain has managed to appeal to either the majority or a close minority in each of the three categories. And why that is so would mostly depend on what each of those categories see is the top issue of the campaign. But I think part of it has come from "defining conservatism down". For instance: By comparison, 50% of Republicans say John McCain is conservative, and roughly two-thirds describe both Mitt Romney (68%) and Mike Huckabee (65%) as conservative.I, frankly, view none of them as classic conservatives. If there is a classic conservative in the race, it is Fred Thompson. And he's languishing in "also ran" land. In fact, despite the numbers you see above, McCain, Huckabee and Romney do not chart out at all as conservatives. Check this chart out:
"All voters" are slightly right of center, but as you can see, none of the candidates grade out as "conservative". Instead, Romney and Huckabee get the closest, but what they're actually closest too is what Republicans are suffering through right now - George W. Bush's "compassionate Conservatism" - a total misnomer. But the leading Republican candidate, if he's anything, is a moderate (the charting of Clinton and Obama are interesting as well - you can plan on seeing this chart in the future in other discussions). While Thompson doesn't show up on the chart, I don't think it is a stretch to say he'd be to the right of George W. Bush. And it seems voters are either not interested in candidates over there, or they're not interested in Fred Thompson, or both. And then there's another factor to throw in there - electability. Look at the shift there:
That's a remarkable change. And it is driven by moderate to liberal Republicans. Unfortunately, Thompson's numbers took a dive, another factor in why he's in the "also ran" column even though he's looked and sounded better and better over the weeks. Anyway, something for you to digest as the primary returns come in tonight. I'm sure we'll revisit all of this at another time and try to make more sense out of it. Your comments and theories are welcome. Oh, and is it "Fred Day" in SC? Well, I actually hope so. It might refocus voters on the important things in the campaign, instead of putting some guy who talks tough but has a record of giving in and attacking liberty in the top spot because he is perceived as having the best chance of winning. Shades of John Kerry. |
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