Word: thompson
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...pity for his aides and supporters is that Thompson has of late been living up to at least some of the expectations that surrounded his potential candidacy through the spring and summer. Surprising many skeptics, he has issued substantive policy proposals on reforming Social Security, dealing with immigration and enlarging the U.S. military. The proposals themselves have been uneven; as my colleague Mark Thompson has written, Senator Thompson's plans to expand the size of the Army to 775,000 troops and to mandate that the Pentagon's budget be set at 4.6% of GDP are both problematic...
...rationale behind Thompson's candidacy was simple, and sound: in a G.O.P. primary that glaringly lacked a conservative who was both true and viable, Thompson would enter late and immediately be embraced by all those Republicans who had been unhappy with their options. Then he would roll to the nomination...
...hasn't turned out as planned, primarily, say Republicans both inside and outside the Thompson operation, because he waited too long to get in the race - and then, once he did get in, ambled through his first month as an official candidate as if his heart wasn't in it. The result: In national polls that once had Thompson running even or better with front-runner Rudy Giuliani, Thompson now trails by double digits. More troubling for Thompson is the emergence of Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist minister and Arkansas governor who is now statistically tied for first with Mitt...
...that reason, the Thompson campaign has been on the attack lately on just about every topic that might resonate with conservatives, going after, among other things, "Huckabee's liberal immigration record," as one Thompson spokesman put it, and the fact that Huckabee raised taxes and increased spending as governor. Thompson has even raised questions about Huckabee's multiple run-ins with the Arkansas Ethics Commission during his 10-year stint as governor over issues ranging from how he paid himself with campaign cash in the early 1990s to his claim in 1998 that some $70,000 in furniture donated...
...Thompson's numbers in Iowa have actually inched up since he started broadcasting ads in the state; in the ABC/Washington Post Iowa poll, he ranks third with 16%, slightly ahead of Giuliani. And the campaign is hoping for a similar bump in South Carolina, the state Thompson almost certainly has to win to have any chance of becoming the nominee. "This thing is wide open, everyone's numbers are soft," says one Thompson aide optimistically. But then the aide ads, "I do think this Huckabee thing is real. If Huckabee wins Iowa, that changes things dramatically...