Fred Thompson Quits Presidential Run – Officially
The speculation can end: Fred Thompson has announced the end of his campaign:
Senator Fred Thompson today issued the following statement about his campaign for President:
“Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.”
via email from Thompson campaign staff
UPDATE: Video reports from AP and MSNBC.
As Alice Roosevelt said upon receiving news of Calvin Coolidge’s death, how can they tell?
3 lines. Kinda sums up his whole campaign doesn’t it.
Honestly, it’s about damn time. Since his “official” entry, he’s done poorly at his campaign rallies, he’s done poorly in debates, and outside of his “tough talk” acting, he’s never going to be the next Reagan.
The way I see the rest of this leading is a Romney, McCain, Huckabee run for the nomination. Guiliani is dead in Florida and will pull out after that.
Guliani has a creep factor, who cares about how he handled 9/11. You need more than just crisis management skills. You need integrity and character.
This is the saddest day in the history of the republic. Freddie Thompson was the one person–through the sheer force of his intellect, charisma, and work-ethic–who could save this country.
Unfortunately, the liberals were effective at destroying his character and he decided to do what is best for his family. Flags should be flown at half-mast.
Wait, how were liberals responsible for the badness that was the Thompson campaign?
First thing ol’ Fred should do is look in the mirror. If he had ever acted like he really wanted to be President, maybe he would have had a shot.
Luckily, Rudy’s spectacular flame out will probably keep Fred from grabbing the mantel of worst campaign ever, but only by a hair.
Work ethic?
I’ll let “intellect” and “Charisma” pass as subjective but seriously… work ethic?
Yeah. Liberals destroyed his character. It had nothing at all to do with his halfassed campaigning or anemic fundraising at all. Damn those Liberals and there mysterious sabotaging of the republican nomination through… uh… through nefarious and byzantine schemes that are.. uh… too complex to detail. Damn them!
(it is sort of funny watching avowed conservatives watch the utter failure of conservativism to capture the minds of republican voters and see them struggle to blame the left)
That would be sort of fitting. It says “I’m sad but lazy” all at the same time.
I was an early-on FredHead but saw that he lacked the “fire in the belly” thing. Now there are no conservatives in the race.
I think I may sit out the Presidential race. If we have to have a leftist government, it might as well be Hillary. Then we can blame her for the mess we’ll soon be in.
In general I liked Mr. Thompson’s stance on various issues.
But he seemed to recapitulate the Hershey-Nestle debacle of the Fifties. Hershey decided that people knew the name and quality of their product, no need to advertise: Nestle advertised aggressively, and in a couple of years went from barely being in the market at all to near-par status. Hershey blew it, and so has Fred, not by being inferior but by being so sure of superiority as to not bother telling anyone why it might be so.
geez Tlaloc,
how long has it been now that Triumph has been posting his little sarcastic missives? Sometimes very clever – this one I thought was a touch too transparant to fool anyone. But I guess not, eh?
heh
There is nothing too stupid as to not catch up *someone.* Today I am that someone.
In my defense, reality and fatuous sarcasm were both killed in a head on collision years ago. Trying to distinguish the one from the other at this point is impossible. 🙂
Headline should read… “Thompson, mission accomplished, heads for home!”