Selected comments from Bill Lacy, Fred Thompson’s campaign manager, in a just-completed conference call with bloggers.

Lacy: Fred is in a real strong position. We’re consistently second in national polls. We’ve seen an uptick in some of those polls. We’re exactly where we need to be; now we need to translate that into support into the early states.

Financially, we’re very happy with our first official filing. We’re trying to enforce financial discipline, and save our dollars for when voters are ready to focus in on a campaign. We will have the money to be competitive.

There’s a disconnect between the mainstream media and what the voters are seeing in Fred on the stump.

The Des Moines Register shows us moving up in Iowa.

Regarding today’s debate, Fred could roll up points like the Packers or the Cowboys against a high school team and he wouldn’t get the credit from the mainstream media.

In a nine way debate it’s tough for any one individual to be dominant. We need a good, solid performance out of Fred tonight…

He’s going to emphasize he’s an authentic conservative with small town values. This debate is expected to focus on economic issues, and we think that’s an arena he’s particularly strong on. We have an excellent candidate who’s really motivated.

Q: Determining issue in this campaign?

Lacy: Good question. Fred would have to answer himself. It’s not any one specific issue, it’s more about leadership. Fred believes in going a more conservative direction, in the Goldwater-Reagan mold. If it had to be one, I think it might be government reform, which Fred has a particularly strong record in.

Q: Prepared for a night debate?

We have incorporated some evening preparation. We’ve done a few mock debates. We haven’t tried to have all eight candidates represented in our mock debates.*

One of the things we found out about him in 1994 is that this guy used to be a really successful trial lawyer. He knows how to prepare himself. He spent a lot of time sifting through papers and materials. In 1994, this worked extremely well for him.

[*Because, you know, it’s really tough to find a good Tom Tancredo impersonator.]

Brody: Are you going to go after rivals?

It’s incumbent upon us to define him first… We did kind of introduce last week the theme of, ‘where were you during 1994?’ That provides a little bit of contrast right out of the box.

Erick Erickson: Reaction to Chris Matthews as a moderator?

We all have our personal opinions about that, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Not much need trying to exert much energy trying to figure that out. He’s shown that he can be biased, but you see that in a number of individuals. We have to work within that.

Q: Fundraising?

Fred only became a candidate after Labor Day. We only had twenty-five, twenty-six days, and money came in about $200,000 per day. Once he got past any doubts that he would run, that stepped up the pace in our fundraising. A little over $5 million came in that short period of time.

Eighty thousand contributors is an astounding number. At the grassroots level, people are taking Fred’s campaign very seriously, and are intensely interested. Good fundraising is great, but careful spending is even more critical.

Q: Fred voted against ethanol subsidies in Senate, but said in Iowa he would support them.

Lacy: I don’t profess to be a policy guy. I’ve been here nine weeks, and we’re still straightening out some of the operational aspects.

I believe he said he supported ethanol, but I don’t believe he said he supported subsidies. Otherwise that’s outside my expertise. I’ll get back to you.

Q: Evangelical support?

We’re hearing a lot of continuing support for Fred. Richard Land has been very vocal. Gary Bauer has been very helpful. We will continue to make our case to the evangelicals and Christian right. He has a set of principles and beliefs, and he sticks to his guns. You may not agree with him 100 percent of the time, but it’s a principled stand.

Q: Importance of South Carolina?

South Carolina is a critical primary. 19th of January, if I’m not mistaken. Our organizational efforts are going well.

I don’t put a lot of faith in polls this far out. We’ve been in this race for about a month. We have a lot of work to do in moving our candidate around in these key states. The folks who said there wasn’t enough time, they were flat out wrong – he’s proved them wrong so far.

I think what we’ve got to build a strategic bridge into South Carolina. We need to show enough competitiveness in those states before. It’s a winnowing process. Usually you’ll see people winnowed out early on. Elizabeth Dole and Quayle were winnowed out by money at about this time in the cycle. Right now you’ve got everybody hanging in. What we’ve got to do is get into South Carolina being seen by the voters as a competitive candidate.

On when Fred would unveil some detailed policy proposals, Lacy said, “it’s early in the cycle for us; it’s late in the cycle for the other candidates for the media.”

My question: You mentioned the difficulty of standing out on a stage with eight other candidates. When should these debates get narrowed down to the candidates who are above two percent?

Something like that would make a lot of sense. I’m not sure what the threshold ought to be, but it is difficult for any candidate to make an impression when you’ve got nine guys on the stage. A threshold would be fine. I don’t think even think that’s the biggest problem. We want to be involved with as many debates as possible, but there are so many out there. You literally can’t do all of them. People get criticized for doing some and not others. It would be nice once we get through this process, for somebody to look and instill a little order… right now, having this many debates is not in the candidates’ or party’s best interest.

Frank J: Pleased with Darrell Hammond’s impression of Fred on Saturday Night Live? He may be doing it for the next eight years.

I missed that. I understand it was pretty funny. A Democratic friend who saw it said it wasn’t too harsh. Hammond does a pretty good job with all of them. Hammond does a good Chris Matthews impression. If he could be there for your debate prep, he would get you ready.

Q on Sunday shows: We’ll do them eventually.

On the late start: I would have loved to have had another three months to plan, but so far, things are going extraordinarily well.