First Returns from South Carolina

It's probably too early to tell if this is the start of a trend, but I offer it For What It's Worth:

Four votes for Fred Thompson from a family of evangelicals, which is interesting because, when I spoke to these same folks two weeks ago, none of them were Thompson supporters. In fact, they were barely aware of his candidacy. One was a Giuliani supporter and the others were looking fondly upon Huckabee, but hadn't made a decision.

Proving...? Nothing, of course. But this is a storyline I've been hearing from South Carolina all week: "Values voters" drifting away from Huckabee. This might explain why he decided to play the Robert E. Lee card in the final days of the campaign. Can't get the religion vote? Go for the rednecks.

Fifty-One Fred Quotes

A contributor at RedState has compiled fifty-one comments from both leading conservatives and everyday bloggers about Fred.

It's well worth a read.

Are ya listening, South Carolina?

With Fred On The Campaign Trail

Erick Erickson is with Fred in South Carolina, and provides an interesting and enlightening report:

Traveling through snowy South Carolina with Fred Thompson, I’m struck by the sense that finally, the man has arrived. The candidate so many conservatives were excited by early in 2007 is finally walking the land.

The Fred Thompson in South Carolina this week is the one America saw knock into Mike Huckabee as a pro-life liberal with “blame America first” beliefs whose economic policies would destroy the economy. And the crowds love it.

Though barely mentioned in the national media, Senator Fred Thompson has been on a barn storming tour crisscrossing South Carolina for more than a week. In a unique approach, he is not just going to major media markets, but to rural areas of South Carolina. On my first day on the trail with Senator Thompson, he drew a crowd of 180 people to a small Mennonite restaurant in Abbeville, South Carolina — population 26,000 with a median income of $15,370. He capped off the day at the Orangeburg-Calhoun County Technical College in Orangeburg, South Carolina with over 200 people braving a rare snow shower to hear him. The day before I joined him on the campaign trail, Senator Thompson’s campaign saw large capacity auditoriums overflowing with people standing outside the buildings waiting to get in.

It's really no wonder that Fred doesn't get much coverage from the leftymedia... they always ignore the conservative candidate as much as they can. We tend to forget that because in the last few election cycles the GOP candidate has also already been a high government official--President or Vice President--and thus a lot harder for the leftymedia to ignore. This time, however, with neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Cheney in the race, they feel safe in ignoring the true conservatives and focusing on the RINOs, namely McCain and The Huckster.

Don't, I say again, DO NOT let the lack of coverage make you think Fred is dead. He's out there, the leftymedia are just showing their true colors by not reporting on him.

Fred can win... he has just as good a shot as any of the others right now, and with The Huckster imploding, it's entirely possible that Fred could pick up a large block of the Christian Evangelical vote--I really can't see them going to Romney, Giuliani, or McCain in large numbers. Fred is also heading into the area of the country where his style really shines--just read the article linked in the title. If he can pick up a lot of support there, he can increase his visibility and make a real run for it.

I've said it before and I will say it again... this one is far from over.

New Fred Ad for SC

Now this is what I call Fred at his best... explaining things clearly, but in 60 seconds.



According to NRO's Corner, this will start running tomorrow in every media market in South Carolina. And I expect that it will help Fred to victory.

Fred Catches Fire

Ya gotta know that Fred's had a stupendous night when the editors and contributors to an online publication that endorsed Romney say with no dissension that Fred won tonight's SC debate.

I guess when Fred says he's "all in," he means it.

UPDATE: Okay, we have some dissension in the ranks of that online publication. There's one Ron Paul supporter who, of course, claims that Paul won the debate. This illustrates, again, the alternate reality that Paulites inhabit.

Graham In The Crosshairs

Consider this a public service announcement. If you, like I, had your fill of Lindsey Graham during the illegal immigrant amnesty debacle, then you might be looking for any news about his reelection fortunes in the upcoming South Carolina Senate race in 2008.

I've been looking around and compiling some links on the blogs and websites that have sprung up to document Lindsey's transgressions and rally support to recruit a primary challenger. They're looking for a way to get Lindsey out of office. They're mad.

There are a handful I've come across that seem to be fairly active and in depth. This one: Lindsey Graham.info seems to be the best of the lot. And the guy appears to have been on the dump Graham bandwagon for a while. This was an interesting bit of info:

There has been much speculation about a potential challenger to Senator Lindsey Graham. One thing seems certain, any challenge must come in the Republican primary. When asked about a potential challenger in the general election, former SC Democrat Party chair Joe Erwin said he doubted any Democrat would run, saying, “We already have our best Democrat up there in Lindsey.” That’s a pretty devastating comment coming from a Democrat.

If any readers are interested, I'm posting the links of the Graham sites I've rounded up -

LindseyGraham.info DumpLindsey.org BootLindsey

ToastGraham DumpLindseyGraham

Lindsey Graham at Source Watch Congresspedia