After Corbu

Intelligent piece comparing the Clark ‘04 and Thompson ‘08 candidacies by Publius at ObWi. An excerpt:

The Clark and Thompson campaigns have eerily similar pre-histories. Because the party elites and rank-and-file weren’t very happy with the slate of candidates, Clark and Thompson’s names got floated for months. Party members didn’t know much about them, so they projected their desires on to the idea of them — and expectations ran high. Rather than seizing this opportunity early on, both candidates played footsie for months and months but hesitated to jump in. And then, finally, they did.

By pointing out the deficiencies of the Clark and Thompson campaigns which doomed/doom both, Publius also provides a good justification for the expanded length of the primary season: it makes our candidates better, both personally and in terms of their organization.  Those are much more tangible advantages than being the newest flavor at primary time after a late launch.

I’m going to go ahead and predict that the honeymoon ends quickly, another ‘messiah’ is recruited (Newt’s available…), and Thompson drops out before the primaries.  Then, Law + Order decided to have him lose his DA election, and replaces him with a liberal, just to twist the knife a bit more.