Comments on: New Name For RNC Chair: Fred Thompson

By: Seven

Seven — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:04:59 +0000

Oh and as for Fred Thompson, I think he has some good strengths to offer. He’d be a recognizable and likeable leader, and, as you rightly point out, he’s a very smart and policy-oriented leader.

The problem with him is that the RNC Chair needs to be about organization, first and foremost. I have no reason to believe Thompson is particularly skilled at organizing and building infrastructure. Perhaps he is, but if his presidential campaign is any indication, he would not excel in that area. He absolutely squandered a remarkable amount of undeserved goodwill, because Republicans were projecting onto him all kinds of positive hopes unfulfilled by the existing field. That tremendous failure, combined with his well-deserved reputation for laziness (as evidenced by his poor campaign efforts), suggest Thompson is not up for the job.

Perhaps the compromise here is to repeat the Martinez-Duncan type of split chairmanship, with Thompson as the public face of the RNC and an experienced groundgame expert as the infrastructure/organizational leader. That possibility is attractive in some ways, but I wonder about the wisdom of splitting up the leadership and possible creating room for divergent leadership visions. After all, the Martinez-Duncan arrangement didn’t last. However, that could be attributable to conflicts on Martinez’s part regarding his Senate duties and his image in Florida, obviously a swing state.

Verdict: No to Thompson. Any consideration of him for RNC Chair, however, should be for a split role with a more qualified and energetic leader presiding over infrasture/organization.

By: Seven

Seven — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:57:42 +0000

Connscript, I absolutely agree with your comment on Ken Mehlman, and it’s an idea that has not received sufficient, if any, attention. Mehlman was a fantastic chairman who had the bad luck to preside over an unavoidably bad election cycle. His resignation was a noble move, but no one could fairly attribute it to shortcomings on his part. There’s no reason to waste his talent just because he ran the RNC at the wrong time.

By the way, he also had the bad fortune of having Elizabeth Dole run the Republican Senate Campaign during that election cycle. Although I’m not sure if that was something that the RNC would have a role in, selecting her that is. If he does have responsibility for that choice, that would definitely deflate my opinion of him.

By: Jack Burton

Jack Burton — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:04:31 +0000

I hadn’t thought of this, but it would be a great idea from my point of view. You say he “hardly has the ‘fire in the belly’” but his RNC speech was fantastic. He is a big picture guy who is a clear communicator and has a much broader appeal (if only by virtue of his time as an actor) than any other candidate.

I don’t see a big future for Huckabee’s presidential hopes, but I really like the guy and think he could do a good job as party chairman.

If McCain loses, I expect that Romney will start jockeying for a position that can keep him in the public light as 2012 approaches. You can imagine Romney as the savior of the economy as this financial crisis stretches throughout the next few years.

And, of course, I really like Michael Steele, although I’d like to see him move towards either a Senate seat or the MD governorship in 2012 after O’Malley is done ruining the state.