Tom Collamore, the former Altria exec who had been running Fred Thompson’s campaign, has resigned and will be replaced by Randy Enwright. Enwright would serve as the day-to-day manager while Spencer Abraham would take more of a campaign chairman capacity.
Collamore will stay on as a “senior adviser” to the effort, but with a diminished role. Accounts vary as to what exactly happened, but Collamore was reportedly unhappy with the level of involvement of Thompson’s wife, Jeri.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0707/Collamore_out_as_Thompson_manager.html Jonathan Martin 7-24-2007
J.T. Mastranadi was hired just a week and a half ago to be the campaign’s director of research. He resigned this morning. Mastranadi was “fed up” with the “lack of structure” and was unclear about his role in the coming campaign…
The flubbing of his announcement date, his decision to stay out of the race until September, the rumors that he has raised less than $3 million in June, and now facing resignations and frustrations from within his own campaign before it even starts does not indicate any signs of upward trajectory for the Thompson campaign.
http://race42008.com/2007/07/25/tension-and-another-resignation-at-team-thompson/ MattC 7-25-2007
2 Comments
July 26, 2007 at 7:24 am
This adds to the perception that Thompson is just not “all in” for the presidential race. He may be squandering an unbelievable opportunity (though I don’t think he would ultimately fare well in a general election anyway against Clinton, Obama or even Edwards). Thompson, for all there is to like about him, has several severe problems. First, there is a real question regarding how conservative he is (i.e. his statements supporting abortion while running for the Senate, and even support of McCain-Feingold). Second, while he produces some great red-meat sound bites for the base, he tends to have foot-in-mouth disease, which will quickly harm his efforts in the YouTube/Cable News environment. Third, as the article above alludes to, he does not seem to be a very good manager or administrator. Fourth, he seems indecisive, which ironically undermines one of his greatest perceived strengths. Like Romney, I keep wanting to like this guy, but personality alone is not enough.
August 1, 2007 at 10:56 am
I agree 100% with Mr. Pug. Everytime I listen to Fred Thompson talk I fall asleep and/or feel like stabbing myself. He seems nice enough but his tv acting is a lot different then his real life persona. He is all things to all people right now because nobody knows what he stands for and they just all want to like him. In the long run, I hope it is the candidate with more moderate appeal, in Romney, who wins the race. When comparing Romney’s experience/credentials to candidate’s from both sides of the aisles, it is laughavle to think that anyone could like anyone else. He is the best qualified, strongest speaker, and most Presidential appeal with not a spot of scandal on him..A real family man.
I would like Obama except we can see that he will take us to an absured version of communism with his mandatory sex-ed for kindergarteners because he says “It’s the right thing to do”. Also his economic/healthcare/foreign relations policies are out of touch with reality and naive.