The former Tennessee senator and actor Fred Thompson has withdrawn from the 2008 presidential race, and leading candidates are lining up to try on the big shoes of the only candidate who once played the president in Hollywood. More than half of Thompson’s support came from Christian evangelicals. Where will those voters go? Both Romney and Huckabee are laying claim to that support. Does McCain have a chance at picking up that support?
The trick in figuring out the Thompson race and subsequent exit is determining which camp of the Republican Party his supporters came from. Was it from the conservative Christians, commonly termed “evangelical Christians” or more traditional business-oriented Republicans? Or both? The talking heads have yet to come up with a clear answer to that question, though some are guessing, but polling data seems to show that about half of Thompson’s support came from evangelical Christians.
Thompson’s exit from the race has resulted in political commentators and journalists speculating that Thompson’s withdrawal will help former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Others predict that it will help former Arkansas Governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee.
Underlying this debate is the conventional wisdom that Huckabee owns the traditional conservative Christian vote. Romney wants to get his share of support from that wing of the traditional Republican coalition and hopes he can get it from Thompson supporters. But much has been made of the fact that Huckabee got on cable news and said that votes for Thompson in South Carolina would have gone to him if Thompson was not in the race:
In an interview on MSNBC, candidate Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said he might have beaten McCain in South Carolina had Thompson already bowed out.
“The votes that he took essentially were votes that I would have most likely had,” Huckabee told the network.
The New York Times was more open about bringing up the subject of the “evangelical Christian” vote in the next big GOP primary — Florida. There is little evidence that Huckabee’s support or appeal goes beyond that of the evangelical Christian wing of the GOP, but that doesn’t mean journalists aren’t noticing its influence:
Mr. Huckabee has moved to scale back his own campaign after his South Carolina showing, and has backed away from plans to campaign heavily in Florida. Assuming Mr. Huckabee does not concentrate on Florida, Mr. Thompson’s withdrawal could therefore be a boon for Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has aggressively sought to pull Florida conservatives to his side.
Mr. Romney quickly issued a warm statement praising Mr. Thompson, signaling what his campaign said would be an effort to recruit Thompson supporters as the Republican candidates concentrate almost their resources in Florida in preparation for the primary next Tuesday. Evangelical Christians make up 25 percent of the vote here. …
Lately, Mr. Thompson casts himself as a country boy who would bring truth to Washington (in fact, he resides across the Potomac River from the capital, in McLean, Va). And in South Carolina, he talked more and more of his Christian faith, attacking same-sex marriage and abortion. But there, too, he found himself boxed in, as Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, had already laid a deeper claim to evangelical Christian voters.
The fact is that Thompson is more aligned with the supporters of Senator John McCain for many reasons. He supported McCain’s 2000 presidential bid (he was one of the only GOP Senators to do so). He aligns himself with McCain’s independent streak, supported campaign finance reform and is most likely to endorse McCain if he endorses anyone.
So why are all the candidates clamoring to be the heir of Thomson’s supporters and what qualifications are they putting forward as evidence of that claim? Some polling data collected by The Washington Post’s BTN blog shows that “half of his supporters in Iowa called themselves evangelical or born-again Christians, as did 60 percent in South Carolina.”
Journalists should watch carefully to see where this large chunk of Thompson’s support falls because it could help determine whether the Ronald Reagan coalition will hold together for yet another presidential campaign. If Thompson was supposed to be the next Ronald Reagan (for reasons other than being a former actor), perhaps McCain is the one that can bridge the two camps of the Republican Party and create a big tent once again. Moreover, how ironic would that be if it were McCain that was able to bring conservative Christians and the Rockefeller Republicans together once again?
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January 24, 2008, at 11:28 am
about half of Thompson’s support came from evangelical Christians.
I’m reminded here of the famous cliche about statistics. Fred Thompson dropped out because he didn’t have much overall support; the fact that half the small number of primary voters who supported him may be evangelical Christians doesn’t seem to hold much portent for the future of the Republic.
January 24, 2008, at 11:29 am
Our motivation for voting for McCain in the fall wouldn’t have anything to do with McCain or even a Republican win but our fear of another 4 to 8 years of the Clintons. We may even get some cross over votes as well
BTW, my dislike for McCain is only slightly less than my dislike for Clinton so I haven’t ruled out a third party vote yet.
January 24, 2008, at 11:33 am
It’s only one data point, but a supporter of Thompson sent me an email a couple of weeks ago that I took to be approved by Thompson’s campaign:
I’m not sure to what degree this sentiment was common amongst Thompson’s supporters, but I do find it interesting in the light of this blog posting.
January 24, 2008, at 11:45 am
As a Thompson supporter and (probably according to pollsters) and evangelical Christian:
I didn’t see Fred’s attractiveness in terms of being an evangelical (I liked that early on he was unwilling to discuss personal faith in detail) or in purely economic terms. He just came across as the only fully conservative candidate with a shot at the nomination. His comments about the Reagan coalition resonated with me: I don’t see Huckabee, Romney, McCain, or Giuliani as sincerely grasping all three legs (social/defense/economic) of Reagan conservatism.
Again - this is just me personally - but I don’t see Thompson supporters going McCain or Huckabee. I’m not happy with either one for various reasons (McCain/Feingold, etc). I actually see Romney as the compromise choice (who leaves me cold but I don’t actively dislike).
January 24, 2008, at 1:12 pm
As a long time member of Thompson blogs and sites I can promise you very few ‘Fredheads’ will be going to Huckabee! And why should they? Huck’s made it very clear how he feels about Fred and Rollins has been down right nasty towards Fred. Huckabee’s push polling of Fred in SC doesn’t help him either. And please no one respond to me about how Huckabee couldn’t do anything because of McCain-Feingold, which is just code for it’s Fred’s own fault he is being smeared and there is nothing we could do my hands were tied, hmmm sounds like to me an answer worthy of Poncus Pilot himself, ‘do as you will I wash my hands of it.’
No Huck and his minions have burned that bridge.
I can tell you that from the blogs and the postings I have seen that Mitt has the lion’s share of support, but it’s a very reluctant support I assure you.
January 24, 2008, at 1:21 pm
I have a TEXANS FOR THOMPSON bumpersticker on my car, and usually get to Church every Sunday (kids were sick last week)so I guess I fall into this group.
I’m going to vote for McCain. I’m not a huge fan of McCain because I don’t like his enviornmentalist “Global Warming” streak. As a long time supporter of Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden, (not to mention being a big fan of Hugh Akston’s Hamburgers) I find his support for the greenies more than a little off putting. The very fact he is taking these people seriously to be a worrysome sign regarding both his intelectual capacity and scientific/economic background.
That being said, he is solid pro-life (although he seems to have gone off the rails on stem cell research that destroys human beings) and that counts for a lot. He has both Jack Kemp and Joe Lieberman behind him, and I admire both of them. He won’t pull a Kissenger (ala Clinton/Bush II) and try to get a Peace Prize by forcing Israel into a suicidal course of disarmament. Mainly though I support him because he is the only Republican with something close to a sane position on illegal immigration, and I trust him. (I have no idea why every political consultant in Washington assumes that just because I go to church and have an NRA baseball cap, I must therefore want to ship boxcars full of illegal aliens to a camps in Nebraska that have “Work will make you free” over the gate. I support amnesty.)
I don’t trust McCain to do what I would like, but I trust him to be John McCain and do what (for better or ill) John McCain would do. He is honest, and therefore a known quantity. I respect that and can deal with that.
Romney reminds me to much of Bush I (“read my lips, no new taxes…”) and Bush II (“Harriet Miers “). Both promised me the world, but once they got elected neither one respected me in the morning. They told the Conservative movement everything it wanted to hear, and then promptly lost our phone numbers and governed more like Nixon than Reagan. True they were better than the Democratic alternative, but I think it will be better for the Conservative movement to have someone who does not always tell us what we want to hear, but that we can deal honestly with, than someone who does tell us everything we want to hear, only to have them turn out to be lies.
January 24, 2008, at 3:34 pm
Have you or your readers commented on the fact that polls from Nevada indicated that Romney got almost 100% of the Mormon vote there? (I don’t know for sure but I would guess the same would apply elsewhere.) It seems that Mormons are voting as more of a bloc than evangelicals are.
January 24, 2008, at 7:58 pm
As a New Hampshirite, I can say “I saw this one coming.” Thompson didn’t have the ol’ fire in the belly and he pretty much blew off New Hampshire voters, and we returned the favor.
He had a great chance to appeal to conservatives here and in Iowa, but failed to ramp up his campaign in time. Friends across the nation were telling me how disapointed they were in his performance, because they wanted to support him but he made if very hard to do so, purely on logistics and strategy. He simply couldn’t win by being late and running on a shoestring.
As to the main point - where do his supporters go? - they are speaking here for themselves. I find it hard, though, to see them going for McCain en masse, because McCain has been a media darling, and has pretty much waffled on the social issues of our time in the past few years.
Calling major evangelicals “agents of intolerance” (regardless of your personal feelings for them) bragging to the San Fransisco paper that he would NOT repeal Roe v. Wade, saying he believed it was her daughter’s CHOICE whether to have an abortion and he wouldn’t talk her out of it, adopting the aforementioned man-made Global Warming rhetoric, talking about not wanting to return to “dangerous illegal abortions” should give any social conservative pause, even though he’s singing new songs this time on abortion, for the most part.
This is a ‘Senate Cloakroom Candidate’ who wants to be loved by Kennedy, Feingold and Chaffee as well as the MSM’s editorial boards and liberal pundits more than the Conservative base. He runs as a as a “maverick” (i.e. moving away from conservatism and trashing the GOP) and I expect that now that he’s winning a few primaries and has started looking like a frontrunner, the conservative base will treat him like the Democrats did with Howard Dean in 2004 - they will have HUGE “buyers remorse” and flood to Romney in droves.
Romney has the enviable position of being the only conservative who is left in the race.
January 24, 2008, at 11:00 pm
Mitt has his own problems as far as I am concern. I can see the flip-flops now at the Dem’s convention and they be right and what a feeling of revenge it will be. Second thing of all the candidates Mitt stabed Fred in the back the most, his push-polling in Iowa and of course the ‘phony Fred’ site. Yes, yes he appologized, but it was a “I’m sorry but sorrier I got caught,” type apology. Neither Mitt or McCain are have the gentleman that Fred is if they were neither would have to be so rude and nasty in their efforts to win. Both make it so very hard not to vote NOTA!
January 24, 2008, at 11:57 pm
Christian evangelicals? As opposed to Muslim or Sikh evangelicals? :^)
Seriously, I’ve come to expect that from mainstream journalists who don’t know much about Evangelicals, and have seen it used more frequently over the last couple years, but I’m a little surprised to see it used here.
January 25, 2008, at 4:00 am
I pretty much agree with metapundit. Very few GOP candidates have attempted (seriously) to appeal to all three wings of the Reagan coalition — social, economic and foreign policy conservatives. Thompson was supported by many who were looking for that, but his lack of enthusiasm was telling.
Huckabee is an economic populist and a foreign policy question mark. Rudi is almost the mirror image — a social liberal, foreign policy hawk and a big city mayor who claims to be a tight spender (of Washington money). McCain has spent the last 8 years attacking the Republican party so much of the party inteligencia views him as a disaster for the ticket.
Romney seems destined to get the “hold your nose” conservative vote. He’s suspect for many of his stances in Massachusetts, but his record is more ambiguous (hopeful) than either Huckabee (who’s attacking Wall Street and business in general) or McCain (whose immigration plan enraged most party faithful). Like Romney, Rudi’s been saying the right things despite his record, but his campaign is almost over.
IMHO the nomination is McCain vs. Romney, and will not be decided until after Super Duper Tuesday.
January 25, 2008, at 9:41 am
As an ardent Fredhead, I have a few observations:
1) The idiotic way that primaries are run is forcing candidates into embarassing and manic behavior for the edification of early primary states. Iowa and New Hampshire voters are wanting the candidates to personally beg for votes and give backrubs. Crazy. Thompson was trying to buck that goofy system and I am so sorry that it failed. Eisenhower didn’t have to demean himself - why do we demand it of today’s candidates? Are so we addicted to reality TV that we now expect this kind of embarassing playacting from our presidents, too? No wonder our presidents are said to get no respect abroad; they have to shuck their dignity to get elected.
2) Especially in primary season, the 24/7 media has begun to afffect the outcome by controlling who is going to get coverage early on. Primary voters are more likely than voters after the conventions to be paying attention to political chatter on TV. And until the national campaign the general population is not seeing campaign ads so TV pundits and reporters have more sway during primaries. These TV folks are deciding who has a chance or whose campaign bus is the most fun and their beliefs and attitudes show. Early on “Campaign” Carl Cameron on FOX decided he didn’t like Fred much and it was very evident in his reports which frequently bordered on sneering. It got so bad that all of a sudden one day he started speaking a bit more respectfully of Fred - it had to have been a reprimand from upper levels. The positive comments by pundits after he left almost seem to be about a different person than the guy they trashed and mocked a few weeks ago.
3) Media campaign coverage has become almost totally “horse race” analysis. Especially early on, why not just report on where the candidates stand and let the voters make their own decisions? Who gave TV the job of weeding out candidates? I can’t tell you how many times people would ask who my candidate was and I would say Fred and say why. Uniformly, even before Iowa, folks would parrot what they heard on TV - he has no chance to win, he’s lazy, he doesn’t have fire in the belly - even if they agreed with all his positions and admired him. I would reply that he is my candidate because of his positions and I’ll let the voters sort it out - it’s too soon to drop a candidate because of pundit predictions. To no avail. Pundits and horse race reporting are skewing the process - even FOX is making self-fulfilling prophecies. Crazy.
4) Fred’s votes are going to go to all kinds of candidates because he drew from a wide range of Republicans. Of course he got a lot of Evangelical votes in Iowa and S Carolina - there are tons of Evangelicals in both states. Doh!
January 25, 2008, at 10:26 am
Asking voters for their votes, rather than simply spending $20 million on misleading attack ads on TV, is not “crazy.” The part of the campaign we’re about to enter - in which millions of voters will have no personal contact with candidates except these TV ads and scripted debates - is what’s crazy, IMO.
For the record, the early states have earned their place in the presidential races. 500,000 people voted in the NH Primary. That’s from a state of 1.2 million. Candidates like Fred who are afraid to actually meet and hear questions from real, educated voters scare me, and should scare the country as a whole.
Fred got no respect because he didn’t earn it - either from the naturally sympathetic parts of the media or from the Christian conservative base.
As for being lazy, he said it many times himself and did little to dispel the notion with his lackluster campaign style.
At the end of his campaign, I believe he was simply hanging on just to take Christian votes away from Huckabee and Romney on behalf of his buddy McCain.
January 25, 2008, at 1:01 pm
From National Review On-Line this morning.
I would like to see a return to the parties actually choosing their candidates. This circus is warping the whole process. I say that as a long-time party activist who remembers the days before primaries spun out of control. Not even requiring declaration of party affiliation, much less actual active membership, to vote in primaries is idiotic.
I don’t think we benefit from New Hampshirites expecting to meet candidates at least twice at small venues - especially since many of the voters are bussed in. It’s a joke. Neither New Hampshire or Iowa are representative of the country. It would make more sense to allow Missouri to be early - it really reflects the country and rarely fails to vote for the eventual winner.
January 25, 2008, at 2:23 pm
My friend Ed C. had Fred analyzed six months ago. He said Fred will never make it because Fred has to run against himself. Everyone has had years of seeing Fred on Law and Order, looking decisive and young with TV makeup and lighting and multiple takes. Then when they see him live in natural lighting, without a script at the end of a long campaign day, he will look old, tired and slow.
If I ever run for office, I am getting Ed for a consultant; I never heard an analysis more dead-on target from any of the talking heads.
January 25, 2008, at 8:39 pm
Oh, gosh, don’t say we’re “Too White” please. Or I’ll have to ask why Washington DC has a voice, because they’re’ not representative either (nor is California, for that matter, which is 45% white at this point.)
Ridiculous racial objections aside, I have to actually agree with the first part of Julia’s post (14). I would have no trouble with the parties simply choosing the best candidate they saw fit and asking the voters to pass judgement on them. The primary process (after Iowa and New Hampshire) has gotten ridiculously expensive, aloof and focused on soundbites and “gotchas” that can destroy campaigns. Oh, yes, and the “horse race” too.
The primary process also gives us the candidate with the most media kudos (McCain) or the most favorable coverage (Huckabee) and while the Fredheads blame the media for this phenomenon, too, Fred’s “fire-in-belly” problem was evident even in person (Sorry, Julia, but I heard him speak twice in NH!)
January 25, 2008, at 10:31 pm
I’m still puzzled as to exactly why Fred dropped out.
I know the media hates Fred, but the day the media chooses our president, we’re screwed.
January 26, 2008, at 4:22 am
Stephen A:
I wasn’t thinking of racial composition. I was thinking more of balance of urban and rural, Republican and Democrat, average education level, mix of professionals and blue collar, etc.
Missouri is much more of a bell-weather state. Also, it has Kansas City in the West on the Missouri River which used to be the terminus of cattle drives from Abilene and Wichita, and on the East is St Louis on the Mississippi, with ties to Chicago and Memphis, which has a curious mix of Southern and Northern traits. And I’m from Illinois, so my opinion here is not a parochial bias.
On the other hand, Iowa is overwhelmingly rural and New Hampshire is, well - it’s New England. It’s beautiful - I’ve been there - but it’s really, really East Coast, New England.
But, I’m with you. Let the parties pick the candidates and they can then present them to the voters. Bring back the smoke-filled rooms. Lots of people think we had better candidates when they didn’t have to run the gauntlet we have now that starts years before the general election. The Europeans think we are crazy.
January 26, 2008, at 5:38 pm
A bunch of Fred supporters I’ve been talking with lately have been asking me about Ron Paul, since he — in their words — is the only real conservative left in the race.
Everyone at my church knows I’m a Paul supporter, so no doubt that affects which people will talk to me about it either way, but the number of Fred supporters leaning that direction in my social circle has surprised even me.
January 26, 2008, at 7:12 pm
I keep seeing all these post by Paul supporters about how FredHeads are coming to Paul in droves, yet as a long time FredHead I know no Fred supporter going to Paul. i am not saying it can’t or doesn’t happen, but I think maybe they are overstating a bit. I love the ones that pose as FredHeads saying, “I was a FredHead, now I am for Paul!” and then whe you talk to them they are like Fred who?
January 27, 2008, at 12:17 am
Ron Paul has run in several states now and if the Fredheads - or any other group of conservatives - were actually going to flood towards him it would have happened long before now. It ain’t happening.
Someone who is so off the GOP charts on the war, not to mention the LaRouche-like economic snake oil this guy’s selling, isn’t going anywhere in the GOP or in modern politics.
He’s been getting that 2-3% who will believe any outlandish conspiracy theory and that’s an accurate count of them.
If this was 1896, he might get the nomination of the Populist Party. Then again, probably not.
January 29, 2008, at 9:41 pm
Ouch. Nice, Stephen and Jack.
*I* on the other hand keep hearing about how weird and creepy us Paul supporters are, and yet I’m pretty much the most normal guy you’ll ever meet.
Anyway, I didn’t bash your candidate(s) with vague pot-shots, but apparently you felt it necessary to do so to mine. I’m not even sure — Stephen — why you think RP’s ideas are so crazy? If it weren’t for the disagreement on the war issue, his economic policies put him pretty much in-line with traditional GOP values and make him the most conservative candidate running.
Of course, according to Stephen, I’ll believe any outlandish conspiracy theory… so don’t listen to my opinion on the matter.