A Cautionary Tale for Fredheads

I've been excited about a Fred Thompson campaign, but have become less so in recent weeks as the non-campaign to date seems to suffer setback after setback. Today they lost their communications director, and latest in a long string of high level defections or firings from the operation.

Dean Barnett at HughHewitt.com, admittedly a Mitt Man, says what a lot of us are beginning to think:

Here’s my big concern about Fred: I’m very worried about entrusting the most complex CEO job in the world to someone or anyone who’s never run anything bigger than a six person law firm. Thompson has no executive experience, and it shows in the way he’s run his campaign. The indecision, the lack of direction, the organizational incoherence – these are hallmarks of a rookie CEO. Anyone who’s ever run anything knows what I’m talking about. You get better at it as you go along, and there’s a pretty steep learning curve.

Unfortunately for Fred, POTUS isn’t an entry level CEO position. Nor for that matter is running a campaign for the presidency. If you look at the campaigns that have run relatively smoothly to date, all of the principals have executive experience. Mitt Romney was a governor and ran numerous large companies. Rudy Giuliani ran the world’s most complex city. Mike Huckabee ran Arkansas. Hillary Clinton has been running the Clinton family’s vast criminal enterprise for decades. (I kid, I kid.)

The poorly run campaigns, on the other hand, all have a principal who has never run anything more complex than a Fantasy Football League. Barack Obama’s campaign has more money than Croesus, yet constantly struggles. John Edwards can’t get his personal life to square with his political message, nor can he get his yappy partner to stick a sock in it. And Fred…

Today yet another wheel came flying off the Thompson campaign bus as communications director Linda Rozett befell the axe. I’m pretty sure this is something like the 83rd high profile departure from the Thompson campaign in the last two months. When the Thompson “campaign” announced that its pioneers would raise $4 million overnight and then never actually reported on their progress, I told you that it was a sign that the people at Thompson HQ had no idea what they were doing. It took Mitt Romney 18 months to lay the groundwork to raise $6 million “overnight”. It was arrogant, lazy and stupid for the Thompson people to not only think they could re-write the rules, but publicly crow that they would do so.

There's more here. If Fred doesn't absolutely hit a home run in his first week of the "real" campaign (which should begin next week), he'd done. The anticipation and excitement will vanish in an instant and my "I Blog for Fred" coffee mug will be a sad reminder of what could have been. The bar has been set incredibly high, and without a sterling performance, the nomination will be Rudy's to lose (sorry Dean, but Mitt doesn't have a chance - he'll never overcome the Mormon thing).

As I've said before, I can live with Rudy as our nominee. While I would prefer a more socially conservative candidate, I'm a big picture guy. I want someone who can win in November, and if Fred can't get it together well enough to make that run, then Rudy will have to do and he could be a formidable candidate against Hillary Clinton.