Draft Thompson panel off and running!

Its official - we now have a Draft Thompson federally registered organization!

Get out the checkbook if you can afford it - and as always have the courtesy to read the whole thing at the originating site. (Bumped for overnight viewing, original post 3/21 10:18 MDT)


Washintgon -- The "Draft Fred Thompson" for president committee is legally formed, accepting donations and seeking volunteers and VIPs for its bandwagon, Treasurer Dean Rice said.

...

Rice, who works in Knoxville and ran Thompson's East Tennessee field office for nearly four years when he was a senator, was a Southern coordinator for Elizabeth Dole's 2000 presidential campaign. He also worked for Duncan in his Knoxville field office for nearly four years before joining a government relations company.

Rice said he hopes that the www.fred08.com Web site will help attract enough Thompson supporters and public attention to convince Thompson to run. Thompson's nationally televised appearance March 11 on Fox News helped stoke the Thompson buzz among Republicans in some parts of the country.

The draft campaign is accepting donations up to $2,300 per person to build up its Web site and pay for ads or promotional material to drive many folks to check out the Thompson Web site and consider backing him.

...

Rice said the draft committee, legally formed with a filing at the Federal Election Commission, cannot be coordinated or connected with Thompson. So, Rice said he didn't talk to Thompson about forming the committee.

Courtesy of Richard Powell in the Knoxville News


Addendum:

Thompson's draft effort is also being supported by Reps. Gresham Barrett (R-SC), Jeff Miller (R-FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Wamp said. (Wamp is Rep Zach Wamp, R-Tenn)


Addendum Courtesy of ABC News)

Will primary timing problems hurt Thompson candidacy?

This may be a reason FDT needs to go sooner rahter than later - Giulianai and Romeny are starting to get to the point where they will starve everyone else for funding, now that the big primaries look to be all in a lump. No time to build momentum like Reagan did. This is worrisome for an outsider candidate.

The move to February 5 would not be so pernicious if California alone were doing so. But most of the large states are accelerating their primaries as well. So we will have a super-duper primary and, bang, the nominee will have been chosen right then and there. Whom does super-duper primary help? In the case of the GOP it helps Rudolph W. (Rudy) Giuliani, assuming he can keep the poll numbers he now has. Rudy is the big-money candidate. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), Senator Charles T. (Chuck) Hagel (R-NE), Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AK), Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Thomas G. (Tom )Tancredo (R-CO) will have absolutely no chance under this system. On the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), Senators Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) and Joseph P. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) and former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) also will be relegated to has-beens under this new system because Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has the money. In fact, it is doubtful that Governor Ronald W. Reagan (R-CA) could have come back from his earlier defeats, as he did in 1976 in North Carolina. He would require a huge sum of money to win on this super-duper primary system. And since Reagan was defeated in New

Hampshire by incumbent President Gerald R. Ford (R-MI), he would not have been able to raise in a few days the huge amount of money required of a defeated candidate.

GOP USA - Paul Weyrich 20 Mar 07