Was The Politico Wrong on Thompson?

RUSH: The Politico — this is the bunch that said Elizabeth Edwards press conference, because of cancer, would lead to her husband John Edwards dropping out of the presidential race, and then he went to the press conference and, ‘No, I’m not dropping out. She’s not dropping, either. We’re going to campaign together.’ The Politico corrected the mistake. They now have Fred Thompson ‘planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico. … A testing-the-waters committee is to be formed June 4 so Thompson can start raising money, and staffers will go on the payroll in early June.’ They were even going to have that red pickup truck that he used to run for the Senate in Tennessee on display in Iowa, but not so fast, ladies and gentlemen.

Our buddy Jim Geraghty at National Review Online in his blog called ‘The Hillary Spot’ says that he just talked to a Thompson source this morning that he calls Thompson Associate 3, and the first word was that ‘there will not be a presidential announcement from Fred Thompson on July 4th. There was some discussion of a June 4 beginning of fundraising; that’s the date checks will be collected. I suspect that’s where there was some confusion. The forthcoming announcement will be that Thompson is ‘testing the waters.” So we’re a little conflicted here. The Politico says he’s running and going to announce on July 4th, but some of his own associates are telling National Review Online and Jim Geraghty that is not the case.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s start on the phones in Washington, DC. Bob, I wonder what subject people are going to bring up today. Bob, how are you sir?

CALLER: Great to talk to you.

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: I’ve got several subjects to talk about, but of course Fred Thompson is right on the docket right now and of course as a lot of people know he backed the McCain-Feingold, pushed it through the Senate so we’re stuck with campaign finance deform, but he was also in charge in the Senate of investigating Red China owning the Clintons, and I didn’t see any results from that, whereas in the House with Chris Cox, I saw the Cox report which resulted in Clinton either bombing Iraq —

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Cut to the chase. What are you saying here?

CALLER: I’m saying that I don’t like Fred Thompson, he’s not what a lot of people perceive beyond TV.

RUSH: You know, that’s not what interests me about this whole Thompson thing.

CALLER: Well, if you’re interested in the taxes, you were just talking about the taxes, and, you know, there’s the flat tax, but even more importantly, the national sales tax is pushed through by Tom Tancredo closing the borders and —

RUSH: Wait a second. Wait, wait just a second. Who are you supporting? Who is your choice in the Republican field?

CALLER: Well, as a Libertarian I never voted Republican, but I would vote for Tom Tancredo. He’s got the taxes —

RUSH: All right, H.R., we got a spam campaign going on out there. The Politico runs the Thompson thing today, and so all of the Tancredo and Ron Paul people are going to be out on a warpath today. Keep a sharp eye on that. The fascinating thing about Fred Thompson candidate, whether it happens or not is that so many people are waiting in bated breath for it, which is an indication — and I think the same thing exists on the Democrat side. A lot of Democrats are out there just (panting), panting away hoping that Algore gets in. Do you realize that right now, 70%, 65% of Democrats in polls are not excited about Mrs. Clinton. She’s 35%, something like that, in these preference polls? So the Democrats are not happy with their field. The Republicans, I mean if Fred Thompson, you know, tickling everybody with what he might do can cause a lot of people to get (panting) all excited, it tells me that there’s not a clear front-runner yet. Well, we know that. It’s worse than that. There’s just not a whole lot of excitement about any one of the front-runners either, I think in either party, which is why I have restrained myself in throwing my hat in the ring because you know, I have the power to pick the Republican nominee. They all know it, everybody knows it, it’s the elephant in the room. I finally admitted to this power mere weeks ago, and it’s just not time, folks. It certainly isn’t time to do so.