Friday, July 27, 2007

Mary Matalin Sticking With Fred Thompson

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/07/mary_matalin_stays_put.html


Matalin Sticking With Fred Thompson

Rumors are flying about more senior level departures from the unofficial presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).

But The Fix can knock down one of the major ones: Mary Matalin, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and longtime Republican political operative, is staying put.

Reached in Croatia (are we good or what?), Matalin said she chats daily with the Thompson organization and remains 100 percent on board.

Our sense of the ongoing Thompson staff shuffle is that it is teetering on the brink of becoming just plain bad news. The sharks are circling and whispers about the too-prominent role of Thompson's wife -- Jeri -- are everywhere. With news of every departure, the story tilts away from Thompson's best interests.

The audience for this story remains largely confined within the Beltway for the moment, which is good for Thompson. But staff stirrings can lead to stories about disorganization, unhappiness and general disorder, and that is a narrative that does Thompson's "campaign" no good, especially as he prepares to launch his bid formally sometime in the next month or so.

Thompson's GOP "savior" image started taking on water in Washington over the last week or so and may take on some more before it's all over. But, in truth, the key to Thompson's appeal -- and chances at the Republican nomination -- are tied less to whether Washington likes him than to how his candidacy is received by social conservatives in early states like Iowa and South Carolina.

Thompson's candidacy is aimed at filling a perceived void among the current top tier when it comes to a voice for social conservatives. As long as these voters still see Fred as their guy, the chatter inside the Beltway is much ado about nothing. If, however, the story starts to bleed out into larger questions of whether he and his campaign are up to the task, it's much more problematic.

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