As speculated on in this previous post, “Fred Thompson and the Political Game Called Intrade”, Fred Thompson has now been surpassed by Ron Paul, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee on Intrade. Here are the latest numbers:
(Although Thompson is listed above McCain and Huckabee, their last trade numbers are above his.)
This continues the dramatic trend discussed in that previous post.
So what’s happened? …
Part of it is the strength of the other candidates – all of them – in particular Ron Paul (extremely strong fundraising and energized supporters), John McCain (recovery from the immigration bill he backed and an improving picture of Iraq in some people’s eyes), and Mike Huckabee (strong showing at the Family Values conference, more media coverage), but also the continuing strength of Giuliani and Romney. Some of it, however, is simply a campaign moving from hype to the sometimes bumpy campaign trail. To see this, look at these Pollster.com graphs, first the national numbers and the next ones from several of the strategic early primaries states:
The increase in poll trends occurred before Thompson had declared his candidacy. Come the middle of the year, Thompson was starting to engage in public events (with miscues), but with his actual campaign announcement being put further and further back, people were grumbling that he had missed the right time to fully jump in.
I don’t know whether Sen. Thompson will find his footing in the primaries campaign and reverse these trends. One thing for sure is that the primaries campaign is a test of executive and managerial abilities – we will soon find out if Thompson has them.
(You can try your hand at Thompson’s campaign in this game.)