Campaigns and Elections American Style by James A Thurber

Author:James A Thurber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Westview Press

Stars That Failed to Twinkle

Two Republican candidates who were touted by the media as “stars,” Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, had huge internal campaign debates over how and when to announce. Giuliani never did. He just started campaigning. Thompson postponed his announcement several times and when he finally took a page out of the McCain and Schwar zenegger playbooks and went on late night TV to do it, was widely panned as too boring and too late.

Thompson campaign manager Bill Lacy has said16 that the politician turned actor suffered from his real-life personality, which never lit up the screen the way his character, Arthur Branch, did on Law and Order . Thompson continued a string of boring public appearances that were well attended and covered by the media, with the thrust being how dreadful they were. The New York Times ran a picture of Thompson speaking while a supporter did not even try to stifle a huge yawn to describe the Thompson campaign. This didn’t do much to counteract the press narrative that Thompson lacked “fire in the belly.”

As for Giuliani, he did an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live in February 2007 that seemingly served as his announcement. This MSNBC account of his “announcement” sums up his problem:It was difficult to determine whether the CNN appearance qualified as an official announcement of his candidacy. During a news conference Saturday after a speech in Sacramento, Calif., Giuliani was asked, “Are you in this for good?” “Yes, I am committed,” he said. “This is something I believe I can bring something to, from the experiences that I’ve had.” When asked a follow-up question about when he would make a formal announcement, he responded, “Well, formally announce? I don’t know. If you go back to my speech, I think I may have. I’m not sure.” He then alluded to making an announcement in multiple locations “so we get more attention” but provided no details.17

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