For The Superstitious Among You…
…who subscribe to the ‘bad news comes in threes’ theory, here’s something to chew on: three quite accomplished people in vastly different fields, dead within 24 hours of each other: Tom Snyder, Bill Walsh, and Ingmar Bergman…
I sincerely hope and pray that bad news does not come in fours, in this case, as we also get the news that Chief Justice John Roberts has been hospitalized after a seizure, though follow-up reports suggest that there is no cause for great alarm at this point…
Finally, is $3 million in fundraising a good or bad thing for Fred Thompson? The Politico says bad:
Fred Thompson plans to announce Tuesday that his committee to test the waters for a Republican presidential campaign raised slightly more than $3 million in June, substantially less than some backers had hoped, according to Republican sources.Thompson plans to make the disclosure in a filing with the Internal Revenue Service, as he continues to operate his prospective campaign as a political organization that does not require disclosure to the Federal Election Commission.Many Republicans had seen the “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee as a potential savior in a tough election cycle. He attracted support from such top-shelf party figures as Mary Matalin, Liz Cheney, George P. Bush and other GOP stalwarts who saw him as a potential Hillary Clinton slayer.But many Republicans have turned queasy as Thompson has ousted part of his original brain trust and repeatedly delayed his official announcement, which is now planned for shortly after Labor Day, in the first two weeks of September.Some are already saying a prospective Thompson run is a flop. “I just don’t see it anymore,” said a key Republican who had been extremely enthusiastic about a Thompson candidacy.“That number is really underwhelming. There were indications it could be double that. They’ve been saying that people were waiting for Fred, and the money was going to pour in. He looks like he’s already losing momentum.”
Thompson campaign insiders, however, point out that he is not a candidate at this time, but is in the ‘exploratory committee’ stage, and that, by those standards, three million dollars in roughly a month is a more than adequate sum (especially given FEC rules that forbid ‘excessive’ fundraising during the exploratory phase).
Translation: inconclusive…wait until he declares (but Fred, don’t wait too long – it’s already late summer!)…
I think it’s a bit tiresome to read political types confidently spouting off predictions that they have to be intelligent enough to know will never come true (“And that’s how we’re going to wind up with Al Gore facing Newt Gingrich in the 2008 race…”), but lately I’ve been finding myself equally tired with people who seem so eager to write campaign obituaries. It started with the McCain talk, and now we’re seeing it with Thompson. It’s like there’s a prize if you get to be the first cool kid to claim to see the end.
My guess is McCain won’t get the nomination, and I have my doubts about Thompson too, but goodness, it seems to me pundits used to wait until the heart stopped beating before declaring a campaign dead. Now they do it at the first sign of sniffles.