Despite Being An Awful Candidate, Thompson Is Surging Again

As incredible as it sounds, Fred Thompson is again surging amony many GOP voters and is now within one point of threatening the national lead of Rudolph Giuliani, who is now barely ahead. If anything, this proves that Republican Party conservatives are beginning to gravitate to Thompson despite his late entry into the race and his avoidance of every single Republican debate so far. NEWSWEEK even described this lazy style of Thompson as "Lazy Like A Fox" in this week's issue.

For Rudolph Giuliani, it may also prove that so few moderates now exist in his party that it may be difficult to capture the nomination when the conservatives rally around a single candidate like Thompson.

But it also proves a type of deep shallowness among some voters in the Republican Party, when a flimsy candidate like Thompson who has so far not bothered to put up any real effort could be rewarded with the party nomination. While it still seems likely that Thompson's real lack of effort will fall short to win the GOP nomination, it sill should send shudders up the Giuliani campaign that his position in the party is so weak that he barely has a good grasp on a true frontrunner status.

At one time moderate conservatives such as Dwight Eisenhower or Richard Nixon could win the GOP nomination. But since the election of Ronald Reagan, the party seems to have drifted farther to the right, where a tradional centist like Giuliani finds it more difficult to win than ever. Many conservatives even refer to such candidates as a RINO(Republican in name only) to describe such party moderates to represent their distain.