Brian, one of my regular readers, e-mails in a few questions…

The interesting question is whether Rush can move the needle a bit for Thompson. I know you’ve said that only a handful of people can move GOP votes through an endorsement. Is Rush one of them (even though this, technically, isn’t an endorsement)?

I would think so. I think a big question is whether Team Fred goes beyond issuing a press release quoting part of Rush’s comments, and really tries to get this message out to any Republican primary voter who likes Rush but may not have heard those specific comments, through, say, television advertising. And this may depend on whether Rush would mind that, or feel that it insinuated an outright endorsement where he didn’t make one.

Fox has Frank Luntz do a focus group after each debate. He was on Fox and Friends Thursday morning and Hannity & Colmes Thursday night. While reporters and bloggers were stating that either McCain or Huckabee were the big winners, Luntz’s focus group had Thompson and Romney as the winners. In fact, Luntz said that several of Thompson’s comments hit the top of his meter and stayed there (he highlighted one clip on immigration and another on spending), while Romney’s fight with Giuliani over immigration gave Romney high marks. Luntz said that several participants were McCain supporters or leaners when they went in, and none were when they went out. Giuliani also lost support, while Thompson and Romney both picked up supporters.
How far are political professionals and commentators (I’m including bloggers here, too) separated from the base voters this year?

(I gotta admit, I don’t understand how you can walk in to this week’s debate being a McCain supporter, and walk out of that debate not liking him. What, you thought he supported waterboarding?)

This anecode reminded me of this piece I wrote earlier this year, as Bill Richardson’s poll numbers were rising to respectable levels, even while he was a disaster in the debates, and was being all but openly mocked by the campaign press. (All he was missing was a stain on his tie and his fly unzipped.) I speculated that Richardson’s climb demonstrated that good, funny ads can move poll numbers in a way that day-to-day campaign coverage doesn’t.

Thompson’s numbers have slid most places lately, which worsens the buzz. Thompson only went up on the air recently in Iowa; there he’s at 10 percent, 11 percent, 14 percent recently. If he’s going to get a boost from his ads, either it hasn’t happened yet or it was pretty mild.