“Iowa is where it’s at right now,” former senator Fred Thompson (R., Tenn.) told Bob Schieffer Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We’ve had a real good several days. I think we’re going to be ready at the right time and in the right way.”
“Is Iowa it for you?” Schieffer asked.
“Yeah, we need to do well in Iowa,” Thompson replied. “There’s no question about it.”
Just over one month ago, Thompson pollster John McLaughlin told National Review Online that Thompson’s Iowa ad buys would yield dividends by early December. He attributed his candidate’s poor performance at that point to the fact that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was practically buying the state. “What you’re missing here in all this is that Romney is running television,” McLaughlin said. “No one has been competing with him.”
It is now Dec. 17, and someone is, in fact, competing with Romney and beating him in Iowa Republican-primary polls. But it is not Fred Thompson — it’s former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Fred is flat or down from a month ago. The Thompson campaign declined the opportunity to answer several questions for this story — one of them was whether he has a new plan to win there.
Echoing the candidate himself Sunday, one Thompson adviser told NRO that Fred was still very much in the race: “I don’t know that he needs to have a different plan.” Thompson does have an ambitious schedule in his swing through Iowa this month, with four to five events each day this week, and plans to stay in Iowa through the caucus with a short break for Christmas. He has also shown some late signs of life — his fantastic debate performance last week, for example. But he has failed to gain any ground in the states where he needs to. As with teams that fall behind in the NFL playoff race, he “no longer controls his own destiny.” He has been reduced to waiting for the “Hucka-Bust” and gambling that he will be the beneficiary.
The very notion would have seemed absurd when Thompson first entered the race. Conservatives eagerly welcomed an alternative to the three frontrunners: the one they disagreed with (Rudy Giuliani), the one they disliked (John McCain), and the one they distrusted (Mitt Romney). By late summer, Thompson’s name was on the lips of every conservative in Washington. He was the potential savior who could swoop in and fill the political vacuum, in the process providing the GOP with a viable nominee for the general election.
But Huckabee’s success to date is the clearest sign that Thompson may have missed his opportunity. Huckabee has passed Romney in Iowa, but his gain has not all or even mostly come at Romney’s expense. Comparing each individual firm’s polls for the last month (Rasmussen, ARG, Zogby, and Strategic Vision all had polls about a month apart), it appears that Romney has lost somewhere between five and seven points in Iowa. Huckabee has gained between 16 and 23 points, seizing a substantial number of undecided voters and some early Giuliani backers.
Those were supposed to be Thompson’s people — Republicans waiting for a “real conservative” to enter the race.
As NR’s editors noted recently, Thompson’s campaign has come out with some of the most stunningly brilliant, specific, and feasible policy positions of any candidate. Yet his campaign has been a disappointment. Why is this? His anguished supporters and still-friendly former staff offer an explanation to counter what they see as a spurious charge of laziness.
“His attitude is, if I am the candidate meant to become president, then I will be — and if not, then there’s nothing I can do to change it,” says one former campaign official. “He’s not lazy — but if he doesn’t see the point in doing something, he won’t do it.”
In other words, Fred is the candidate of fate: He is what he is, and America will either take him or leave him. This attitude appropriately accompanied his rise in the polls before he had even entered the race — he once seemed on the verge of winning by acclamation. It has not worked so well since he got in.
An adviser to the campaign disagreed with this characterization — or rather, framed it as one of Thompson’s positive qualities: “He’s not going to blow smoke up your skirt,” the adviser said. “How can you not like a guy who refuses to raise his hand (as Thompson did in yesterday’s debate)? On some level, I think that’s what appealing about him. People see him for who he is. His view is, I’m not going to tell them what they want to hear, I’m going to tell them what they need to hear.”
Yet most commentators would argue that he hasn’t done nearly enough “telling.” According to Thompson supporters close to the campaign, last week communications staff wanted him to chastise Democrats for selling out CIA covert operatives over the waterboarding tapes story — the same Democrats had just lionized a desk-bound CIA analyst, Valerie Plame, for partisan political reasons. This missed opportunity is one among many.
In the fundraising category, the campaign will not file a report until late January, but the untimely loss of both Founder’s Day chairman Philip Martin and National Finance Chairman Tom Bell earlier this fall cannot have helped. One source friendly to the campaign says that the campaign has sent its staff a symbolic message by ceasing to purchase disposable coffee cups at its headquarters. There is already talk of job cuts or pay cuts in Thompson circles, upon which the campaign declined to comment.
How much enthusiasm is there behind Fred’s late effort? Last Monday, Thompson held a conference call with donors, open to about 200 of his biggest fundraising bundlers and original supporters. (Former Sen. George Allen was also on the call.) Thompson introduced his campaign’s new National Finance Chairman, former Ambassador Joe Rodgers. At the end, all callers were given an opportunity to question the candidate. Only one caller — from Tennessee — opted to do so.
“It was stunning,” said one participant. “In previous calls, people have been falling all over themselves to get into the queue to ask questions.”
There may have been few people on the call. There was also little interest in the Rogers news — it has managed to go unreported in the media for an entire week now.
Thompson’s prospects have worsened in other states besides Iowa. In Florida, where Thompson once seemed the one most likely to upset Rudy Giuliani, he is in fourth or fifth place, depending on the poll. In New Hampshire, he trails even Texas Rep. Ron Paul, and badly. In South Carolina, he trails both Romney and Huckabee (the latest CNN poll has him in a statistical tie for second place behind Huckabee).
“He’s slipped a little, but he’s got ample time to turn it around,” said South Carolina State Rep. Mike Thompson (no relation), a Thompson backer.
There is more than a month before South Carolina’s primary. But as Thompson implied in his conversation with Schieffer, he may not even be in the race a month from now without a strong performance in Iowa. He has just 16 days left before that contest (including Christmas), and a whole lot of work to do. It’s unclear if there will be a Huckabust he can benefit from or if the Thompson strategy will prove to be a bust.
– David Freddoso is an NRO staff reporter.