When his rivals appeared in a New Hampshire debate last Wednesday, Fred Thompson was on the Jay Leno show. However, he is now officially running. Finally.
Some think his entry was too late. Others believe it is just the right time. But these are not questions for our panel to judge (As of yesterday, Thompson was already leading in one poll).
The panel is charged with the often quite challenging mission of guessing the future policies of a possible candidate. With Thompson, it's even more problematic (in this lengthy Time profile of him you'll find not even one clue), as he hasn't served in any position lately that required him to express an opinion or execute policies related to foreign affairs. As the one tasked with providing the panel with the relevant material, I can testify to the fact that his track record on all-things-Israel is quite thin.
Some background on Thompson and Israel can be found in my previous analysis of his candidacy. And there is this one article in the National Review, from which we drew our weekly question for the panel (from Labor Day until February 2008 we will try to have questions for the panel on a weekly rather than monthly basis). The group was asked to rate some of the remarks Thompson made in the course of the argument. The conclusions we received were quite remarkable.
The first comment was: "What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, N.Y.? I can tell you, our response would look nothing like Israel's restrained and pinpoint reactions to daily missile attacks from Gaza. We would use whatever means necessary to win the war."
The panel's average assessment of this remark on a 1-5 scale was 4.375, but this may be somewhat misleading. The truth is that 6 out of 8 panelists gave Thompson a 5 on this statement. The other two didn't like it at all, and this dragged his marks down somewhat. The interesting thing is that this pattern repeats itself, with very small variables, with all of the first four quotes we presented to the panel (the quotes and marks are all here). Six panelists gave Thompson a 5 or a 4 ? the two persistent dissenters give him a 2 or a 3.
Quote number 5 was different though, and the reason is clear. "If the world doesn't act to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, it must be prepared for the consequences of Israel defending itself," Thompson wrote.
Is this good for Israel? On the one hand, Thompson doesn't show any sign of wanting to restrain Israel, but on the other hand, he practically says it will be Israel dealing with Iran - alone. No wonder that the panel is not as enthusiastic about the statement (actually, I thought it would be even more so).
And what can I say about these two dissenters who don't like Thompson? They are also the two who rate Giuliani the lowest (still high, but lower than other panel members).
Gore, Gingrich, gone
It was not an easy decision, but this month we eliminated both Al Gore and Newt Gingrich from our list of candidates.
They were both quite popular with the panel - Gingrich up until the last survey, Gore started higher but didn't fare as we progressed with the ranking. They are attractive for the purposes of our survey as they are well known and have stature and experience - and because the possibility that they would join the race at a later date was always part of the political guessing game. That's why we left them on the list until now.
However, this month we are dropping their names. And no, we don't have any inside information to indicate that they aren't running. Different political outlets have made different decisions as to the viability of such candidacies; some didn't think it was time to drop their names from the process, while others did. RealClearPolitics is still trucking the numbers for Gore, and Gallup has included Gingrich in some polls and analysis. But at the Washington Post, Dan Balz was asking last Sunday "Is it too late for Al Gore or Newt Gingrich to get into the race?" His answer was simple: "In a word, yes. Not that they couldn't jump in. But the prospects do not look bright for either".
We've decided to go with the latter assessment. We want the readers to be able to see as clear a field as possible, and the panel to rank real candidates, not mirages. So this month, with Gingrich gone from the list, you can see who the panel's real second choice is (Bloomberg, followed this week by McCain, Clinton and Thompson). With Gore gone, you can see the most preferred Democrat after Hillary Clinton (Richardson). And if Gingrich and Gore eventually decide to run, we'll bring them back.
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