Thursday, July 26, 2007

FRED THOMPSON

Team Fred: Growing Pains? Or a Portrait of Chaos?

One of my Thompson people has heard that there may be more departures coming tomorrow, but this person is not sure. (Yes, I realize that doesn't clear up much; I'm telling you this to let you know that even some guys on the inside think some things still have to shake out.) My guess is that with Collamore stepping out of his leadership role, and Randy Enwright stepping into the new leadership role, we may see more comings and goings. The new guys are presumably going to want to bring on some of "their" people, and folks who had gotten on board earlier in the process might look around, see a bunch of unfamiliar faces, and decide it's somebody else's show.

Those looking for reasons to bury Thompson will see the recent moves as a sign of a campaign in chaos, with poor lines of authority, disagreement at the top, undefined roles and a lack of organization. Those looking for reasons to believe in Thompson will see the recent moves as growing pains, the sort of thing that happens when something goes from a lightly-staffed, small, casual, on-the-fly group around a candidate to a fully-staffed, much more formal, more organized nationwide campaign.

While I'm sure Team Thompson would have preferred to avoid all this, I lean towards the latter interpretation... for now. Let's see what happens when Fred announces, and where things stand a month or two from now. If we don't see any improvement in the autumn, then it will be time for the Fred-heads to hit the panic button.

07/26 07:39 PMShare