There’s no question Fred Thompson was an innovative in his narcoleptic presidential campaign. But there’s one thing that I don’t think I’ve seen much mention of and I’ve been asking around the office to see if anyone had ever seen anything like it.
Fred didn’t hold a press conference or go on a show or even put out a youtube video announcing his departure from the race. He just sent out a half-dozen line press release. I’m out. Bye. Thanks. A few more words, but not many.
I think the TPM audience probably has in their collective heads every bit of political trivia available. So here’s the question, can anyone remember a major presidential candidate not holding some sort of public event to announce he or she was out? Not a press conference, TV appearance, not anything?
Late Update: TPM Reader HW has a theory …
He intended to drop out on Saturday night, and his staff even notified the networks he would, but then somehow he goofed in the process of giving his speech and didn’t realize that he didn’t withdraw. Having missed the moment, it was somehow less embarrassing to just withdraw as an afterthought without a word than to admit to anyone that he botched his withdrawal speech so bad that he didn’t actually withdraw.
Just a hypothesis.
