September 07, 2007
Thompson's Roll Out: High Expectations, Low Energy
Fred Thompson seemed a bit more like an actor than a candidate 9/6 in Des Moines.
His good ol' boy persona certainly seemed genuine enough, but his speech had the cadence of a dramatic monologue, not a rallying cry for undecided voters. There were large gaps of not-so-dramatic silence between a few of his main points. And instead of building the crowd's energy to a roar throughout the speech, he seemed to inadvertantly lull them into a patriotic stupor. The crowd still cheered at the end, but not quite as loudly as on the way in.
Nonetheless, most voters seemed impressed with his style and only a little disappointed by the lack of specifics. Folks who left the Polk Co. Convention Complex impressed by the campaign's big rollout event excused his speech for its lack of depth. They said it's hard to get to the core of a complicated issue in a 30-minute speech.
Most of the roughly 250 people in the crowd had to fend off reporters curious about their reactions to the speech. By the number of supposedly off-the-cuff interviews going on in the hallway after the senator had left the stage, one might think that there were almost as many members of the media at Thompson's big day as there were supporters. But the answers that seemed most common among respondents either addressed the candidate's impressive speaking skills or his initial lack of depth.
Which begs the question: with many of the other WH GOPers moving past the land of large policy platitudes and towards voter-friendly particulars, will Thompson have to roll out some specific initiatives earlier than planned to keep fickle primary voters interested?
After the speech, Thompson boarded his campaign's customized coach bus with his wife Jeri, his four-year-old daughter Hayden, his ten-month-old son Sammy and 15 to 20 of his closest advisors. The outside of the campaign's bus is adorned with a giant picture of Thompson and the three words that promise to be the focal point of his campaign: Security, Prosperity and Unity.
These words were at the center of his speech, and according to campaign manager Bill Lacy, they were also at the center of a call he made to supporters on his way to his next stop in Council Bluffs, IA.
Before arriving at the event, Thompson's entourage stopped over at August Beresheim House to participate in a conference call that was broadcast to more that 200 house parties in 40 states. The total number of people who participated in the house party event is unknowable, according to campaign spokesman Todd Harris, but the message was the same.
On the bus between stops Lacy and the campaign's political director Randy Enwright briefed the press on the direction they have mapped out for the campaign since being hired just one month ago.
"We're really trying to get out and run a nontraditional campaign," Lacy said, in reference to Thompson's decision to officially announce his candidacy on NBC's "The Tonight Show" rather than at an event in Iowa or his home state of TN. Lacy went on to say that the campaign's strategy is to focus on what the campaign sees as the most powerful areas of the GOP.
"There's kind of been a shift in power within the Republican Party," Lacy said. "What's happened is by allocating bonus delegates to those states that were won by President Bush in 2004, the balance of power has really undergone a subtle shift more towards the south and more towards the heartland."
So Lacy and Enwright said they have planned a big homecoming for Thompson after his current five-day tour through IA, NH and SC to show the rest of the country that Fred has a lot of support in TN and throughout the south.
When asked how much money it would take to become a frontrunner in what has quickly become the most expensive presidential campaign in history, Lacy said that the Thompson camp plans to do things a bit differently.
"I've been here 29 days and I don't have a definitive answer on that," Lacy said, "but I will tell you it is going to be definitively less for this candidate and this camp than for everyone else. We're going to run lean and mean" [ADAM AIGNER-TREWORGY].
Posted at 07:06 AM
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