Not So Many Friends of Fred?

You might recall that when Fred Thompson launched his website on June 6th, immediately after the Republican debate, there was a lot of excitement of his initial fundraising numbers.

The following quote was attributed to the NY Sun:

According to the Thompson campaign, these are the results of the first 48 hours since they launched imwithfred.com and announced it on “Hannity & Colmes” after the GOP debate:

In 48 hours since the Web site launch (with no paid advertising, or pre-oorganized push by donor operation):
29,463 registered supporters

$352,323.00 in donations

3,360 contributors

Or: $7,340 an hour. If they could keep that up for a month (just as an admittedly silly mathematical exercise), they’d have $5.3 million by early July.

As late as July 11, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post was writing why Tennessee was such a good fundraising state.

Towards the middle of July, though, indications began to surface that Thompson would hold off as long as possible to report his financial numbers.

On July 25, First Read reported that Thompson would only file $3 million received in June and July, far less than the $5 million or so hoped for:

Sources close to the presumptive campaign tell NBC News that Fred Thompson’s fundraising is down “markedly.” One claimed it has “slowed down big-time.” The pace is described as a consequence of the delayed announcement to enter the race.

“The Friends of Fred, Inc.” will report to the IRS its revenue by July 31st. Sources reveal to NBC News that number will be in the range of about $3 million. Five million dollars had been the talked-about June goal. Sources describe an early burst of donations in June and say the summer fundraising has fallen off. While additional fundraisers are planned, sources say the scheduling of fundraisers was “frozen” for a time while the team was going through some internal strains.

First Read also reported in that post the Sept. 4 announce date for Thompson, the day before the Republican debate in New Hampshire. That’s a fairly risky scenario: most candidates do not announce just before an event like that. A mediocre performance would take a lot of the announcement wind out of the sails, and a good performance would not get those excited to see him in the race any more excited. Point being, he has a lot to lose in that scenario and very little to gain.

Especially now with lackluster fundraising numbers, candidates and newspapers targeting him at every chance, and a reputation (well earned or not, I can’t say) of being lazy, it’s hard to see exactly what staying out of the race will do for Thompson, other than continue to let him get his house in order and hire more staff (if they don’t quit too soon).

And all of this without getting into the Jeri Thompson controversy and the campaign’s recent staffing problems.

If Thompson is this late and unorganized, how will he be able to mobilize caucus goers in Iowa or get out the vote in New Hampshire, and if he loses those two states to Mitt Romney, will he have enough money to run a national campaign? I’m in no way counting him out, but it’s still to be seen if Thompson will be anything more than a paper tiger.

[Photo Credits: Origami-instructions.com and flickr user Churchouse Creative]

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