Bill Lacy on the FDT Campaign

Bill Lacy (Fred's campaign manager) was interviewed by Jennifer Rubin at Human Events about different aspects of the campaign. There are a couple of items that I wanted to bring up:

First is what the campaign thinks about where it is in the election:

Lacy contends that Thompson is “exactly where he wants to be” He says that Thompson still registers in second place in some national polls. However, Lacy places great emphasis on Thompson’s ability to use paid TV ads to his advantage. He notes that Thompson has just gone on the air in Iowa and next week will be up in South Carolina. Lacy argues that “a dollar worth of Fred on the air is worth 2 or 3 dollars of any of the others.”

What I find interesting is that they don't really think that they have really started the actual push. By the way, this is why the National Day of Fred Giving is important! We need to help the campaign get maximum airtime throughout December and January in preparation for these early primaries.

Second, is the nomination strategy:

Lacy explained that GOP strongholds in the South, non-industrial Midwest( e.g. Iowa) and interior West (e.g. Idaho, Colorado) are reflected in the GOP delegate apportionment and represent as many as 328 delegates, or a quarter of the total. Lacy says that is “where we do best.” He acknowledges that South Carolina is “really critical” and Thompson’s task before that is to do well enough in places like Iowa, Wyoming, and New Hampshire so that voters still believe “Fred is competitive’ by the time South Carolina rolls around. (He acknowledges that Thompson has “pretty much struggled in New Hampshire but thinks Thompson has “strength” in Iowa.) He terms this “building a strategic bridge to South Carolina.” If Thompson “survives the winnowing” process before South Carolina, Lacy likes his chances there and in Florida leading to Super Tuesday where a batch of Red states can be claimed.

Not only is Fred's strategy the South, but it includes a full primary season approach of getting the "non-industrial Midwest and interior West".

One last item from the interview that though was interesting was that Lacy said that they now have over 150,000 donors. Though the third quarter, Fred raised $11.5 million based on 70,000 donors ($164 per donor). Given the same rate, Fred should have a total raised of $24.5 million, $13 million so far in 5 weeks of the fourth quarter!

If we can do a good job of raising funds for Fred at the end of the month, I think we can help him get serious advertising time in the critical days before the early primaries.