It should come as no surprise that Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination. His supporters had been urging him to run since the middle of last year, when lukewarm support for other potential Republican candidates seemed to leave room for a ‘Reagan conservative’ like Thompson to energize the party. But when he finally declared his candidacy in September of 2007, his lackluster performance at campaign events and bland policy positions left his audiences dreary.
Thompson’s fundraising suffered from the outset. Since his campaign’s late start last fall, he has raised only $12.8 million, placing him …read more

On the 2nd, I tossed some numbers at you, about Mike Huckabee’s campaign: his budget was just over $2 million, compared to Mitt Romney’s over $60 million. Personally, I thought that the money was really going to be a deciding factor.
But, as everyone of CNN’s political analysts managed to say during last night’s coverage, you really can’t buy an election.
What factors let Mike Huckabee win without running money through the campaign machine?
A big one seems to be simple word-of-mouth. Public relations specialists love WOM campaigns: basically customers (or voters) sell themselves the product (or candidate). Huckabee got his message out …read more