…not really the worse.
Any doubts former Sen. Fred Thompson isn’t getting into the race have probably flown out the window based on the news this morning that Rep. Marsha Blackburn has jumped off the Mitt Romney Bandwagon and endorsed Thompson. Given that Blackburn is friends with Thompson and from the same state, the endorsement isn’t a surprise. But the timing is. Thompson isn’t announced yet. This leads us to believe that Blackburn must know something other folks don’t. Otherwise, why so publicly go out on a limb and embarrass the Romney camp? According to Romney insiders, Blackburn was slated to help run the “Women for Romney” operation and was in line to be a key national surrogate for the campaign down south. This isn’t a huge blow to that campaign by any stretch. But it is an interesting little twist to a race that is getting more interesting by the hour.
Marsha Blackburn was not really the most prominent member of the campaign, but prominent none the less. It’s good get for Thompson, but her role should be one Team Mitt can replace without a problem.
[Update]
According to a very strong source in the campaign, “She was getting a lot of state party pressure…She wants to run on a state-wide basis some day” I guess there is a lot of pressure and a lot of people to please in these sorts of things. Best of luck to Marsha!
May 25th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Now there’s someone I dont know…if I dont know her, she is insignificant.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I can confirm that she was getting a ton of pressure in state. Lots of people were questioning her,, since Thompson had campaigned for her back when she ran for house, so a lot of people took it as a slap in the face. To her credit, when she took the job with Romney, Thompson wasn’t a factor in the race yet. Rumor is that she wants to run for Governor in 2010, but she’ll probably be up against Frist or Wamp, so I don’t know. The TN state GOP is very powerful, and you don’t want to upset them, especially when you got Baker involved.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
You’re right, not surprising considering the circumstances. I had no clue who she was or that she was with Romney, but I’m sure Tennesseeans probably know who she is, and that may have made things awkward for her at home when FT came up at the dinner table. It could be more about managing her image at home, rather than anything indicative of the timing of FT’s entry into the race. IOW, the pressure from home may have been more of a culprit to her leaving now than any suprises from the FT camp on the timing of FT’s entry into the race.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
She is giving a conditional backing of a close personal friend. It’s hardly news, she could be making this statement to release pressure on herself when she knows Thompson won’t enter the race.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
bjalder26: That makes zero sense. She burned her bridges to play a major role in Romney’s campaign. She wouldn’t do this unless she KNEW Fred was running.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
bjalder: What are you talking about? Hardly news, she was the co-chair. She might not have done a great job for Romney, I don’t know, but its news.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
We’ll be hearing a lot of stories like this over the campaign.
I’m not going to pay them much heed.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Bjalder26 (in #4), does anyone still think Fred Thompson won’t run? An aide to the Senator told Ryan Sager of The New York Sun at last night’s Connecticut Republican Party event where Thompson spoke that it was basically a done deal.
May 25th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
bjadler26, we do have a contributor or two here who has an access to Fred’s inside sources, and he has pretty much confirmed that Fred is going to jump in. It is only until Fred could be cleared of all of his media obligations before he could do so. He has some contracts on a radio show, the tv show, (and according to this contributor), a movie, too. So yes, some of us may want to see him jump in sooner, but he is bounded legally.
May 25th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Thompson’s a candidate. What’s driving the wait for an announcement isn’t indecision about whether to run but PR and marketing and legal concerns.
May 25th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
FDT looks terrible from the pictures of last night and not someone that looks energetic enough to run for President. No wonder he wants to do You Tube instead of out shaking hands. He looks older than McCain and McCain is older. He will look really bad in the debates with the more energetic candidates and his southern drawl is not going to play well. Besides who cares about Libby which seems to be his number one topic. I don’t see him gaining but losing as he gets in the race and people are disappointed when they meet and see him. He never was an energetic campaiger in TN or an energetic Senator so how does anyone think that he would be a good President which is a lot of pressure and takes a huge amount of time?
May 25th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Romney skirts solution to immigration issue
http://palmbeachpost.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Romney+skirts+solution+to+immigration+issue&expire=&urlID=22464141&fb=Y&url=http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2007/05/25/a5a_ROMNEY_0525.html&partnerID=491
LAKELAND Mitt Romney offered a mixed message on illegal immigrants Thursday, saying he supports allowing them to apply to become permanent residents but opposes current legislation that would allow them to do just that.
While Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said he would “not deny” illegal immigrants the “opportunity to apply for permanent residency or citizenship,” he would not say how he would change the proposed legislation to make such application acceptable.
Asked at a news conference in Lakeland how he would specifically change the language, Romney said, “I’m not, here, going to describe language of a piece of legislation. I’m not a legislator, at least not currently, so I’m not going to give you legislative language.”
May 25th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Buckeyefan I kinda feel the same way. Maybe I’m nit picky but I hate his answers about “if that door opens maybe yada yada…” President of the United States is not one of those jobs where the door just opens…you have to want to do it, have the desire and energy to do. Her politics suck, but I love the Estrich article a few weeks ago about this. She basically stated that he is surrounded by people who want him to be president more than he does…especially the wife…I get the impression she cares more about being first lady than he does about being the president…just my impressions.
May 25th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
I’ve gotta agree. Any candidate that needs to be “drafted” shouldn’t be in consideration for a life-consuming campaign. If he’s not willing to dedicate his life and passion to it, and it’s perfectly acceptable that a person would not, he should step aside and let someone else take control.
Assuming that someone without such a burning passion could win, do we really need another President Taft?
May 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Wow, I could not disagree more with some of the posters in this thread.
I would much prefer that a candidate be drafted to run for president out of grassroots support than have what we have gotten lately – rich, bored, Ivy League elitists, many of whom are from politically renowned families, who have nothing better to do and wake up one morning looking in the mirror and seeing a president and their future – which will get you a Kennedy and a Bush (and almost an Al Gore); or narrow-minded, obsessed individuals who have ordered their entire lives to work out of the Oval Office – which will get you a Richard Nixon and a Bill Clinton (and almost a John Kerry).
The smoke-filled backrooms that provided candidates like Abraham Lincoln worked better, it seems to me, than the self-centered and self-selected methodology we have applied lately. Ronald Reagan never contemplated a political career until a gubernatorial campaign was thrust on him – and that worked out pretty well for most of us.
My biggest fear is the candidate who will not be fulfilled unless they become president, because once elected they will prioritize self-interest rather than principle and the greatest good for the country.
May 27th, 2007 at 5:35 am
Republius, who in the current race fits your description of a:
‘rich, bored, Ivy League elitists, many of whom are from politically renowned families, who have nothing better to do and wake up one morning looking in the mirror and seeing a president and their future’
I don’t think that applies to Giuliani, McCain, Romney or anyone else for that matter.
And why should being wealthy (read: successful in something other than being a politician), or having been to a good University disqualify you from being a good President?
Maybe Reagan didn’t contemplate being Governor until he was encouraged to run – but he sure as hell had a burning desire to be President once he was Governor.
I like Fred!, but I’d like him a lot more if I knew he was hungry for it.