Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race. I was watching Fox News last night and Mort Kondracke was speculating about where Fred’s voters might go after an anticipated withdrawal of their candidate. Kondracke was of the opinion that his votes would mostly go to Mitt Romney, with some going to Huckabee. Until I heard him say that, I assumed that Thompson’s votes would go to John McCain, as I see them as essentially political brothers. But Kondracke is probably right, in that the national narrative/impression is that Thompson is an orthodox conservative, while McCain is not. I actually see both Thompson and McCain as unorthodox Republicans in the same general mold of Lindsay Graham. Nevertheless, I think most of the people that were supporting Thompson were supporting him because he fit the bill on the social/fiscal/national security troika in a way that none of the other candidates could convincingly pull off. With Thompson out of the way, Mitt Romney most nearly fulfills the requirements of the troika (albeit, with some fairly severe credibility problems on the social arm).
Therefore, Kondracke convinced me that I was wrong and he is right (a rare occurrence). Thompson’s withdrawal should help Romney in Florida, and Huckabee might see a slight boost as well.
