The first of many postmortems (for other candidates) to come:
I think the central lesson to be gleaned from the Thompson campaign is “trust your instincts.” When Thompson first teased us with running, his message was all about channeling conservative grassroots frustration. About listening to the grassroots who had been sold down the river on immigration and other issues, and taking dead aim at the enemies of conservatism, starting with Michael Moore and moving down the line. The great hope was that by deploying his sunny Hollywood persona with a dollop of conservative populism he would transcend the Giuliani/Romney/McCain lesser-of-evils fight. He promised us a different type of campaign that would use the Internet to end-run the liberal media.
This electrified the activist class and earned him virtually instantaneous frontrunner status. So what happens next? Everyone associated with the strategy that made Thompson the frontrunner is either fired or resigns, and is replaced by largely by conventional Washington insiders.
Though Thompson insiders warn it wasn’t that cut-and-dried, and that the original team did indeed have its share of greenhorns and duds, the point is that the original instinct was still the right one. The Fred Thompson from the Michael Moore video was the real deal, and post-September, he never showed up.