Word: thompson
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Tennessee was Fred Thompson's turf until the Senator-turned actor abandoned his 2008 presidential hopes on January 22 with his name still on the ballot and early voting already underway. His departure has left the state's Republican primary race tightly split between John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, while Hillary Clinton, who has long enjoyed the loyalty of state Democrats, is expected to easily carry the Democratic primary on Super Tuesday, thanks in part to party faithful who remember her husband carrying the state in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections with favorite son Al Gore...
...third set of states on Feb 5: the heartland arc of Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee. If Huckabee won all of those (and they are almost all winner-take-all states), he would take home a surprisingly large 308 delegates. (This assumes Fred Thompson retires from the field between now and then, and Huckabee does poorly in California...
...Thompson's credit, that proposal and his detailed plans to overhaul Medicare and Medicaid, streamline government, expand free trade and reform the tax code were all meatier than anything his rivals bothered to produce. But Thompson was content to roll out his policies like basketballs and let other people pick them up and play with them. As TIME's Joe Klein wrote, Thompson seemed to be campaigning from a hammock, and his lack of urgency made him an easy target for late night hosts and Saturday Night Live skits...
...After a distant third-place finish in Iowa, Thompson took sixth in New Hampshire, garnering just 1% of the vote. In Michigan and Nevada he placed fifth, and in South Carolina, a state where he'd invested the bulk of his time and energy outside of Iowa, Thompson was a distant third with 16% of the vote. His non-concession-concession speech - in which many pundits wryly noted that Thompson never looked happier - left many scratching their heads, wondering if he was dropping out or pushing on. He, in fact, said only that he planned on taking a break...
...From here it's expected that Thompson will endorse his old colleague McCain. Indeed, he has already helped McCain: by staying in the race he drew Evangelical support from former Arkansas Mike Huckabee, helping McCain to a win in South Carolina. Though if McCain is envisioning all-night bus tours and tireless stumping from Thompson, he might be making the same mistake many Republicans did when Thompson got into the race: he may be expecting a little too much...