Consider us gobsmacked. With less than a week to go before Super Tuesday, the primary date shared by a whopping 24 states, two candidates are bowing out of the presidential race today.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who we chowed down with (so to speak) in Philadelphia, is set to endorse the man he was beating in November's polls, Senator John McCain. The Arizona Senator is now the Republican front runner. "You don't always win, but you can always try to do it right," Giuliani told supporters last night. Fred Thompson, who never really got the bus running in Iowa, has also ended his bid for president.
On the Democratic side, former senator and 2004 vice-presidential candidate John Edwards is expected to withdraw this afternoon after placing second in Iowa and third everywhere else. (Including, in a stinging rejoinder, in his native state of South Carolina, which Barack Obama won). With his exit and those of Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic field will be narrowed down to two. To the best of our knowledge, it's the first time all this happened in January.
We pity the campaign workers whose last acts in the bullpen will be to cancel all those Super Tuesday travel arrangements.
'Twas the day after Christmas, all through the Midwest
Each candidate snuggled in his war-room nest
Except for Fred Thompson. Poor Fred and his bus
Went plowing through snowdrifts, campaigning for us.
With less than a week before the primary
Fred's not doing hot and it's getting quite scary.
Was it because we don't like "Law and Order"?
Or was it because his platform was disordered?
Yet to Creston, Urbandale, Chariton he'll go
His fitness as president he hopes to show.
If you see his gold bus, give a honk or a wave.
He's not quitting yet, and that's pretty brave.
Thompson vows his support will get finer.
After Iowa find him in South Carolina.
Reagan did it. Schwarzenegger did it. Jesse "The Body" Ventura even did it. Now, Law & Order star and former Senator Fred Thompson hopes to parlay his Hollywood celebrity--and uncanny likeness to Kelsey Grammer--to the presidency.
Thompson officially announced his candidacy last week on The Tonight Show, perhaps not the best way to add gravitas to one's campaign. And his competitors were quick to criticize his laid-back attitude to joining the race when Thompson played hooky at the first Republican debate in Manchester, New Hampshire.
To show he's in it to win it, Thompson is riding around Iowa this week on his Friends of Fred tour bus. Recently, he laid out his platform to a group of followers in Sioux City, Iowa. So far, it's yes to Iraq, no to abortion, no to gay marriage, and no to a national health care plan. What about Cuba?
"Law and Order" fans rejoice! The series has now spawned three spinoffs and a presidential candidate. Former senator and fictional district attorney Fred Thompson officially announced his candidacy on Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show," aspiring to a role he has played in twodifferent made-for-TV movies.
While the rest of the Republican field convened in Durham, New Hampshire for the fifth presidential debate, Thompson was hanging in California, a state he probably won't carry even if he wins the SAG member bloc. The other candidates took advantage of his absence to crack some lame jokes, according to Newsweek, while Rudy Giuliani complimented Senator John McCain and they both went after Mitt Romney.
Track all the travel on our Candidates Travel Map, which will not ask you for money after you check it out.
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by egw
