In more bad news for those of us who would again like a conservative President somewhat in the mold of Ronald Reagan, Fred Thompson announced his withdrawal from the race. In a brief statement on his website, Thompson wrote:
Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.
A withdrawal of few words. But it leaves a gaping hole in the field as the two most mainstream conservative candidates remaining have dropped out in the last week.
I’ve been asked who I would endorse for President, since my first choice dropped out over the weekend, and I was leaning toward Thompson. Well, scratch that. Unfortunately, I’m not nearly as excited about any of the other candidates with the exception of the hold-my-nose-and-vote-for-him-in-November John McCain. I’m excited in the wrong way about him, as to me he’d almost be as bad as Hillary.
So I’ll have to go back to the drawing board I suppose. There’s more information out there about the candidates than I had when I made my initial decision so it gives me a chance to read up and study on them again before February 12 – that is, if none of the others drop out.
It’s sort of a sad commentary on the election process that states representing just 7% of the population have decided but several in the original field have already been whittled away. This makes for a renewed call for a small number of regional primaries, rather than the way we have it now.
Crossposted on Red Maryland.
Late edit: Lee Cary at American Thinker has an excellent postmortem.
