Thompson Shaking Up Pre-Campaign Staff

Fred Thompson continues his non-campaign, but is clearly ramping up for a real campaign. After test driving his campaign staff for awhile, he's decided to make some changes:

Though he has not yet even declared he is running for president, Fred Thompson shook up his team Tuesday amid fears he was losing momentum and needed an injection of talent.

Top advisers to the “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee had soured on Tom Collamore, the operations chief for the Republican presidential campaign in waiting.

Collamore, a former executive at Altria (nee Philip Morris), was moved to an advisory role Tuesday, advisers said.

The day to day campaign will now be run by Randy Enwright, a Florida consultant who was the political director. And former Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.) will be the chairman, acting as the campaign’s ambassador to official Washington.

Thompson communications director Linda Rozett described the moves as "adding political muscle to the organization."

Rozett said Collamore "has done a good job putting together the structure for the testing the waters phase,” but others in the Thompson orbit suggest he was not up to overseeing a presidential run.

This is kind of interesting. By delaying his formal entry into the race, Thompson has been able to evaluate the talents and abilities of the people he had on board, and was able to make some key changes in the team before they actually hit the formal campaign. This should help eliminate some early stumbles which could be very damaging to a candidate who is getting into the race so late (at least as compared to his competition).

On the radio show yesterday I was asked what would happen should Thompson choose not to run. I don't think that's going to happen, but as I told the guys at KHND, if it did I think the GOP would suffer a massive deflation. A lot of people, especially among conservatives and evangelicals, are planning and hoping for a Thompson campaign, and if he opted out, I don't know where they'd go. By moving toward Thompson they've already rejected the other candidates currently in the field, and although Newt Gingrich seems to be waiting in the wings, I can't see him replacing Thompson.

I think it's time for Fred to get in the race, and hopefully do it on August 8th since that's the date I have in the Blogs For Fred "Guess the Date" contest. I want to win that t-shirt.