Word from one of the Thompson Associates…
Whatever decision is made after South Carolina, the deciding factor on whether to continue and fight on or call it a race won’t be money, the Associate says. Fundraising for the past several weeks has been solid, and they have enough to continue past South Carolina, although this Associate didn’t know how many states they could afford to run ads in on Super Duper Tuesday.
This Associate acknowledges that the polls haven’t uniformly shown Thompson bumping up dramatically, but he feels the campaign has a good organization in South Carolina, that has been in place and working hard for a while.
Perhaps the most optimistic note from the Associate was that the Thompson campaign now has a clear rationale – he’s the candidate of consistent conservative principle; by contrast, any of the other four would leave a large chunk of the conservative base disappointed, grumbling, or even outraged.
“If you operate on the assumption that those people voting in a primary are more politically engaged, more active, and dedicated to the Republican party and the conservative movement – the notion that Mike Huckabee is conservative, the notion that he is somebody who can win the nomination, the notion that he is somebody who can win the presidency — all of those have been greatly diminished as voters get to know him.”