Everything old is new again. George Allen, once a chattering class false frontrunner himself for the GOP nomination, is set to endorse Fred Thompson. I doubt the media will be able to resist going the ironic route as they cover this. One gaffe-happy-stumble-bum endorses another. The Thompson High Command would claim otherwise: Allen vets Fred as the conservative choice, blah, blah, blah. Since timing is everything in creating a press narrative, I do wonder why Fred’s campaign is announcing Allen now. It would have been much better to play the George Allen card after tomorrow’s GOP debate. If Fred does well in the debate, the Allen endorsement would be covered as a surge of momentum for Big Fred. If Thompson bombs, the Allen announcement would be a useful smoke bomb to cover an escape from bad debate press. Announcing Allen now will lose him in the much bigger debate stories starting the day after tomorrow. This debate looms very big for Fred. He has to do very well and if he does well it’ll be a potential turning point for his campaign. A middling performance, and his campaign will feel great pain. On the Democratic side, the media has rediscovered the tight Iowa caucus race after a brief bout of national poll delirium last week. Riddle yourself this: In most caucus polling Edwards and Richardson hold about 30 percent of the current vote between them. Should they decline in the last two weeks as the Clinton versus Obama race goes red hot, how will the Edwards/Richardson vote break? Toward HRC or Obama? I think Obama. Or, if Obama collapsed and Edwards starts gaining, where does the Obama vote go? To Hillary? I doubt it. Short her.
