Thompson drops out: nation gives collective “Ehh.”

So I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race for the president. I can understand why this is such a big deal, given how much media attention he got prior to launching his candidacy, but considering the guy did so little damage he was generally lower than the margin of error in most polls I fail to really give a damn. I did find his little “farewell speech” rather appropriate, though.

“Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States,” he said. “I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.”

That’s the whole thing. Now I have to take a bit of exception to his use of the word “effort”. Considering the guy looked like he was about to fall asleep most of the time and his lack of interest in the race was famous enough to land it parody on SNL, I don’t think he can talk about “effort”.

Thompson’s involvement in the campaign, in many ways, illustrated the GOP leading up to the election. A whole lot of hype, but then once everything got laid out they realized that there was nothing to be excited about and quickly lost interest. Thompson was such a complete non-entity in the debates and primaries I quite honestly forgot he was there most of the time.

He did some politics in the 1970s, then laid low and apparently tried to cram it all into a few months. The guy did absolutely nothing in terms of affecting the campaign, but I have to admit, he did the most nothing in the shortest period of time out of anyone.

McCain in South Carolina. Also: what’s up with Rudy?

Checked my LA Times election results page and ran across the South Carolina totals, which I had neglected to keep on top of. I realize this is two days ago, but once again I feel like chiming in. First off, the totals:

McCain 147,283 33%
Huckabee 132,440 30%
Thompson 69,467 16%
Romney 67,132 15%
Paul 16,054 4%
Giuliani 9,494 2%

Okay, so Paul dropped down back into exactly where he was before and it looks like he’s not going to cause any upset. Which brings me to a funny story. A friend of mine in New York told me about a Ron Paul “rally” he saw, where a dozen people just marched around chanting the guy’s name. No point, just a dozen people marching. I’m willing to bet they marched for a few hours, then pointed at all the footprints and said “see? He’s the REVOLUTION.”

Anyway, Giuliani dropped down to sixth. The man cannot muster up better than about 2% in any of the primaries, and yet for some reason he’s still being taken seriously as a candidate. The voters keep saying over and over that they don’t want the guy, he’s arguably less popular than “none of the above”, but yet he keeps showing up on TV and treated as mainstream. It’s baffling.