Is It Too Late for the Late Show?
Thompson Sees Delayed Entry as a Plus, but Obstacles Remain

By Anne E. Kornblut and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 18, 2007

DES MOINES, Aug. 17 -- Mobbed by voters at the Iowa State Fair, some of them carrying homemade signs encouraging him to run, Fred D. Thompson on Friday showed off the advantages he would enjoy as a celebrity latecomer to the 2008 Republican presidential campaign.

"A lot of people say it's late and all that, but I look at my history books and see where people announced in September, October, November," said the former Tennessee senator, who did not seem concerned that making his candidacy official sometime after Labor Day, as he is expected to do, might be late in the game.

"I wasn't there when they made those rules, so I'm not abiding by them," he said. "We've got plenty of time."

But Thompson's TV-star bravado could not disguise the fact that with nearly four months left until voting begins in the Iowa caucuses, he is facing major organizational hurdles in his plan. He has none of the machinery in place to win the first contest, a labor-intensive process that typically favors candidates with strong campaign structures. He has one full-time Iowa staff member; other Republicans have opened up multiple offices around the state.

Even on this trip, Thompson was only in town overnight, barely long enough to introduce himself to key party players.

Thompson, 64, acknowledged that there are questions about whether anyone could build the needed infrastructure in such a short span of time. In an interview on the fairgrounds, he said that his ability to connect with voters will decide his success or failure, despite the large organizational advantages that his rivals, chiefly former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, have had time to build.

"I don't know how much catch-up it is," Thompson said. "It's not a matter of that, as much as it is relating to the people. And if I do that, it doesn't really matter what anybody else has done."

Thompson has tried to turn his late entry into an advantage, asserting that he will run a nontraditional campaign -- and, in some respects, he is already doing just that. He skipped the Republican straw poll this month in Ames (and came in a distant seventh, well behind Romney, who came in first). During Thompson's whirlwind tour of the fair Friday, he wore Gucci loafers and rode a golf cart. That set him apart from other candidates visiting this week, such as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who took his two young daughters on rides and sat down to tuck into a pork chop.

Thompson has said he will tap into new technologies to communicate with voters. But his campaign has also promised to participate in traditional campaign events, such as the Iowa fair. The balancing act seems to be working: In the latest CNN poll, Thompson is second, behind only Giuliani. In a Washington Post poll of Iowa Republican voters, Thompson is virtually tied with Giuliani for second, behind Romney.

At the fair, he was the fourth star-powered candidate to appear in three days, and he drew at least as large a gathering as Giuliani had two days earlier. Without mentioning President Bush by name, Thompson called for taking the country in a new direction, deploring the bitter partisanship of Washington and declaring that "the government can't any longer do some basic things that the government was supposed to do."

Leaving little doubt that he intends to appeal to his party's conservative base, Thompson said: "I am unabashedly pro-life. I am pro-Second Amendment. And I don't apologize for the United States of America. This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America."

Thompson's entry into the race in the first week of September has been widely anticipated, with expectations for his performance running exceptionally high. Republican strategists said the announcement speech will be an important marker that either propels him to the front of the field or leaves him at the periphery.

"If he gives a good speech, if it's well received in the media, if there's a lot of buzz, he's off to the races," said Alex Vogel, a Republican consultant who was a top aide to former senator Bill Frist (Tenn.).

But the timing of the announcement is now tricky, said several Republicans who have held senior posts on presidential campaigns. They said Thompson must announce before mid-September, when Gen. David H. Petraeus presents his assessment of the Iraq war to Congress.

"The secret to one of these announcements is to dominate the terms of the debate for five or six days," said Scott Reed, who managed Sen. Robert J. Dole's campaign in 1996. "He needs to properly introduce himself."

Aides to Thompson have been debating for weeks the best timing for the announcement. There was talk about holding a rally in Nashville the day after Labor Day, but one source said the campaign is concerned about being able to generate a large crowd that day.

The next day, Fox News is hosting a debate in New Hampshire. So far, Thompson has not committed to participating. The campaign could launch on the Saturday after Labor Day, giving Thompson a week to travel the country before discussion of the Iraq report begins.

Once he announces, Thompson and his team will have to compete with the well-established, highly organized operations set up by Romney and Giuliani. They have built sophisticated organizations with growing staffs in many of the early-voting states.

By contrast, Thompson has been constrained legally by his "testing the waters" status. His rivals have a significant head start over him, and his headquarters staff has already been through one reorganization. His travel schedule has been leisurely, compared with the others.

Reed said that Thompson needs to confront three main concerns about him: that he can't compete in the important primary states; that he's not a solid conservative; and that he is too lazy for a presidential run. "The pictures, the message, and the mechanics need to be in place for him to mount a serious effort for the nomination," Reed said. "If he's really going to super-charge this campaign, he's going to have to have some bold ideas."

"Most, if not all, of the top activists and operatives are gone, so they're going to have to run a personality- and issues-based campaign," said John Weaver, until recently a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). That approach, Weaver said, "is going to require some innovative campaign tactics and a lot of energy from the candidate."

Shear reported from Washington.