Follow up on Thompson Campaign team Shake Up
25 July 2007Here is some more detailed info on the story brought to you earlier…
F. Thompson shakes up pre-launch campaign
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen, Politico.com
Though he has not yet even declared he is running for president, Fred Thompson shook up his team Tuesday amid fears he was losing momentum and needed an injection of talent.
Top advisers to the “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee had soured on Tom Collamore, the operations chief for the Republican presidential campaign in waiting.
Collamore, a former executive at Altria (nee Philip Morris), was moved to an advisory role Tuesday, advisers said.
The day to day campaign will now be run by Randy Enwright, a Florida consultant who was the political director. And former Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.) will be the chairman, acting as the campaign’s ambassador to official Washington.
Thompson communications director Linda Rozett described the moves as “adding political muscle to the organization.”
Rozett said Collamore “has done a good job putting together the structure for the testing the waters phase,” but others in the Thompson orbit suggest he was not up to overseeing a presidential run.
Thompson “needed more political people involved,” said one source close to the campaign.
“The people that collectively came together at the beginning got mired in the day to day mechanics of a campaign,” another Republican said. “Lately, it hasn’t been working as well as it did initially.”
A third Thompson associate intimated that there were growing pains involved in the water-testing phase and that a full blown campaign demanded an experienced operative.
Straight Talk-style problems?
That there could be a shake-up in a campaign that has not even launched yet will inevitably lead to jokes — and perhaps comparisons to the floundering campaign of John McCain, once a close ally of Thompson.
But Tuesday’s move also underscores the more serious difficulties Thompson seems to be encountering as he moves closer to a decision.
His announcement date has been a moving target and his response to reports that he once lobbied for an abortion rights group was late and evasive.
The change atop his chain of command could provide even more fodder.
A favorite line of attack among Democrats and would-be Republican rivals has been to seize on Thompson’s lobbyist background.
DNC releases routinely call him “Lobbyist Fred Thompson.” Now he’s bringing another lobbyist on board.
Enwright, a key adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has been registered as an executive-branch lobbyist in Tallahassee. His clients there included telephone giant AT&T and Home Depot.
His corporate clients aside, Enwright is widely viewed as a catch for Thompson.
He has done stints as state party executive director in both Florida and Iowa and has close ties to the Bush network of campaign operatives, having served as an RNC liaison to the Sunshine State in recent years.
Ousted chief ‘too technocratic’
Abraham, who was President Bush’s first secretary of energy, was in the Senate from 1995 to 2001, overlapping with Thompson, who served from 1994 to 2003.
Abraham, who was heavily supported by the auto industry, now heads the Abraham Group, a consulting firm which is based in Washington and specializes in energy deals.
Republicans close to the campaign said Collamore, a senior official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, was fine at tasks like lining up offices, but was too technocratic and not sophisticated enough for show time.
The advisers said his announcement has been delayed to the latter part of August or early September so that he will be ready to roll out a top flight campaign and be prepared to answer questions from reporters and charges from opponents. He is spending a lot of time in policy briefings, friends say.
Several Republicans said Thompson needs to dive in sooner than that. “The momentum is slowed from the initial hype,” said one Republican sympathetic to Thompson.
“The luster is gone. It’s like the girlfriend who just isn’t fun anymore. It’s time for substance. People are ready to see him engage. He’s been in his own little universe.”
And some said he already has waited too long. “I don’t see it,” said one Republican operative who initially was excited about Thompson. “Now he’s not the exciting new candidate. He might as well be an old candidate.”
But Thompson advisers reply that the only people agitating for a quick entry are reporters and people who want jobs.
Beefing up operations
Thompson’s operation is in fact continuing to hire.
In addition to Enwright, they’ve brought on another veteran Florida operative, Andy Palmer, to run the campaign there.
They’re represented in Iowa by the well-regarded Andrew Dorr, who is putting together a caucus organization. Advisers say the campaign will hire more key primary state personnel before the official announcement.
Meanwhile, Thompson will remain visible before his announcement tour, with the possibility of a couple of appearances in August.
Thompson had a fund-raiser on Cape Code last weekend and will hold one in Baton Rouge, La., on Wednesday. On Thursday, he’ll appear at radio host Sean Hannity’s “Freedom Concert” in the in San Diego area. On Friday, Thompson travels to Philadelphia to speak to conservative state lawmakers at the 34th annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
A Thompson office is open in McLean, Va., and a headquarters has been selected in Nashville.
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on January 11th, 2008 at 7:50 am
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