As expected, Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. He did it a day later than I thought he would. He never really seemed to be in the race, to me — there were sure a lot of Fred Heads around the Internets but the candidate himself did not seem to be doing the sorts of things that candidates do. In terms of policy, he didn’t seem to bring anything to the table that wasn’t already there from the other candidates; he had ideological credentials as solid as anyone else’s. He had both good sound bites and some thoughtful policy papers but also seemed to want to step away from campaigning to do things like take naps. In one sense, I think he was trying to do a different kind of campaign — but this cycle has seen that the way national politics is being practiced successfully is to do it more and early, not less and late. Well, Fred Heads, it’s over now. Thompson has not endorsed any of his five rivals, so his delegates are now functionally released. I’ve removed him from the delegate counter.
