...And Here Comes the GOP's Messiah

Breaking today, Fred Thompson's finally getting into the presidential race. Before the band starts playing "Hallelujah" for the grand old party savior, commentators are going to spend the next week or so hashing through the question of whether or not Thompson's coyness over the last few months helped or hurt his campaign. My money's on the latter.

While plenty of folks may point to the fact that little known Arkansas Governor Clinton, like Thompson, jumped into the presidential race late in the game in '92, stark differences between those races and candidates exist. While Clinton didn't official jump into the '92 presidential race until October of '91, this years impending likely initial December Primary is much earlier than the '92's contest February start.. That gave Bill Clinton about 4.5 months worth of solid campaigning prior to the first contests to eat into Senator Tsongas' and the other Democratic candidates' bases. I'm guessing that after Thompson's September announcement, he'll probably have approximately 3 months of campaigning before the first caucuses convene in Iowa. That's a pretty big time hurdle for Thompson to jump.

Unfortunately for Mr. Law and Order, his polling averages in Iowa and New Hampshire still remains relatively low, with an 8% average in the granite state and 11.8% average in Iowa. Also, most polls I've been watching seem to have had Thompson peak out in June, with diminished polling results since then. While none of this is too conclusive, it's evidence of the fact that Thompson doesn't have a groundswell behind him. With Mitt Romney emerging as a leader in some of the early states, Thompson's probably got less than 100 days to develop a strong activist and financial base to take on the infrastructure Romney's been busy laying for months. Simply put, I think Thompson's missed his window to charm the sizable crowd he needs to take on the Republican pack.

And speaking of money, Thompson hasn't even been able to live up to his own $5 million fundraising goal, bringing in just $3.5 million of his own self-imposed goal earlier this summer:

Thompson also failed on the fundraising front to reach the $5 million goal his backers had set for the first month he sought to bring in cash, and he dramatically lags his top rivals in money. He reported a lackluster $3.5 million.

Those are tough nuts right there.

Finally, Thompson doesn't have the conservative credentials, or the super star status within his own party, to perform the type of miracle he needs to catapult himself to the front of the pack. While Thompson has positioned himself via talk radio and other formats as the "true conservative" for disaffected Republican voters, he's sure to meet plenty of resistance from his own party on these "credentials" during the primary race. Of course there's the infamous work Thompson performed for pro-choice groups in an attempt to make inroads against the "global gag" rule during H.W.Bush's administration which has left ideological purists on the right stark raving mad. However, I'm certain in the next few months more nuggets like this abortion tidbit will leak out from the former Senator's lobbyist years. Are these attacks enough to sink the Senator's campaign? NO, by far not - however, I do think they're enough to leave the Phil Burress' of the world scratching their chins when considering whether to get onboard Team Thompson. And with only 3 months to develop a movement, that's enough to stiffle significant momentum and clip this GOP savior's wings.