For the better part of a year, the leftist media has tried to sell Republicans that their only choices for 2008 were Liberal Rudy Giuiliani, Liberal Mitt Romney or Moderate John McCain.
For a brief spell, Conservatives toyed with Fred Thompson until it seemed ol' Fred fell asleep. at that point, Mike Huckabee began a meteoric rise into the national polls. Now, John McCain is back up top and Huckabee has fallen to third in Michigan and is on the cusp of falling to third in South Carolina after a 5 point plunge in a week. Meanwhile, Thompson, the only other candidate with significant movement this past week, is up 4 points.
Huckabee's rise was a direct result of Thompson's fall and now, it is vice versa.
Are Huck and Fred waging a war to be the anti- Mcromliani candidate. If so, who will win this battle and can he go on to be the next nominee?
Today's Michigan primary, and Saturday's contests in Nevada and South Carolina could go a long way to settling that.
If I were advising Fred Thompson, I don't know that I could devise a better strategy than what he seems to be doing. Right now, McCain and Romney are clearly 1 and 2. Huckabee is a clear third and Thompson a solid 4th.
Thompson's strategy seems to be to play long and pick off opponents one at a time. Conventional wisdom has been that he must finish 1st or (at worst) 2nd in South Carolina.
Let me just throw an oddball finish at you. Let's just say, the SC finish is McCain 25, Romney 18, Thompson 17, Huck 12. Let's then assume that Romney and McCain were 1 and 2 in Michigan as well. In this scenario, I'd advise fred to stay in and set all of his fire on Romney.
Political Nascar.
You reeled in Giuiliani and passed him.
You reeled in Huck and passed him.
You reel in Romney and pass him.
Then you set your sights on Mac.
Even if Thompson is playing long, a loss to Huck in SC means he is finished and 2nd, or even 1st, is a whole lot better than 3rd. Yet, I am not sure playing long is a bad strategy. In the end, Conservatives want Fred up front.
They just don't know if he can get there.
~Sonlit |