Thompson Quits Presidential Race (err… Tommy…)

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza is reporting Tommy Thompson has quit the presidential race. Rather unsurprising, since he said that if he didn’t finish well in the Iowa straw poll he wasn’t going to bother running any further .  He finished sixth.  He is leaving, will have no impact whatsoever on the race, in reality.  His leaving the race is simply recognition of that reality.

Frankly, one wonders if name recognition wasn’t part of the problem; Noting the recent mixup in the press between statements of Fred Thompson and Tommy Thompson, Dale Franks qips:

Oh…uh…wait a sec…Ah.  It’s Tommy Thompson.

Carry on.

Meanwhile, Captain Ed says:

So long, Tommy, we barely knew you

It’s true, we didn’t. Then again, not many CARED, either.

Ed says that Thompson looked positively painful on the stump.  Err, Tommy, that is.

I met several political reporters and pundits in Madison earlier this year, and one told me that Tommy gets stage fright and freezes in appearances like the presidential debates. That doesn’t mean Tommy would make a bad leader — by all accounts, he was a good Governor — but it does make him unelectable in a presidential general election.

There are things about Thompson’s politics that I didn’t like.  So, I am just as happy that he is no longer in the race. He seems a likable sort, but he seems too centrist for my taste.  But I must say, the captain has a point.  I spent a lot of years behind a microphone, a lot of that dealing with nonprofessionals in interview situations.That experience taught me that intelligence, has nothing to do with the degree of affliction of Mike fright.

Some of the smartest people I know would freeze up tighter than a diesel engine on Buffalo winter morning, when the microphone gets placed, and those lights go on. Often the phrase “deer in the headlights” is applicable.  On the other hand, the people that I to this day consider some of the biggest blinking idiots I’ve ever run across in my lifetime, could handle being in that spotlight with no trouble it all. That experience is also why I never jumped on the president for his on Mike gaffes. After a while, you learn to read through the delivery ability, or the lack of it.

And the connection to the president, here, makes a point that perhaps Ed should have gotten into a little bit deeper; the affliction doesn’t make one unelectable, necessarily; That comes as a matter of degree.  I agree with the captain, however that the degree with which Mr. Thompson suffers from that brain freeze when the Mike goes on, does tend to make him unelectable, in the general election. the man must have had some serious training going into his gubernatorial election, or he had a complete idiot running from the party opposite.

And certainly, it will be pointed out by many, including me, that such is an affliction that his namesake does not suffer with.

Afterthought and aside: You know, maybe I ought to get into this topic a little bit deeper.  How much can we detect by one’s style of delivery behind the microphone?

I’m not going to get into all of this tonight, because I’m on my way to bed. But as an example, one person in the presidential race who has yet to impress me with their prowess behind the microphone is Hillary Clinton.  She invariably comes off as overly formal and overly stiff, regardless of the venue.  She strikes me as someone who is measuring her words carefully, for fear of being trapped in them later.

That topic does interest me.  So much of the public voters decided by the ability, that it would be foolish not to make some observations about the delivery ability behind the microphone, of the various candidates.