More on Thompson's cancelled NH trip
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007 4:56 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-TreworgyWhen
Thompson cancelled his planned visit to New Hampshire on Friday, he may have angered more than Granite State voters. On Friday morning, Thompson was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for the GOP mayor of Manchester, Frank Guinta, who has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.
The last time Thompson visited Manchester was September 9, when he also sat down with Guinta before going on a brief tour of local restaurants, and after the first stop on the tour the mayor described their visit together as "so far so good." "[Thompson's] demonstrating a certain level of leadership that I think is certainly required of the next president," Guinta said of his September meeting with Thompson. "I like that about him. That's, I think, the most important quality we're going to have in the next president."
Guinta seemed genuinely impressed with the visit, and voters who followed Thompson on his tour of Manchester whispered about whom Guinta would choose to endorse. But after being forced to cancel a planned fundraiser, James Pindell of The Boston Globe reported that Guinta was "disappointed" that Thompson couldn't make the trip, but said, "In presidential politics I understand that things can come up and schedules can change."
Despite being away from New Hampshire for more than a month, the Thompson camp claims that this is not a sign of a lack of commitment to the state -- but rather a scheduling problem. The campaign also said that tomorrow's cancelled visit will be rolled into an even bigger visit in the near future, but they have yet to announce a date.
Thompson, who is busy this week holding fundraisers of his own in Fort Worth and Tennessee, is pretty booked up for the next two weeks with scheduled appearances in New York, Washington, DC ,and a debate in Florida next weekend. That means that by the time he makes it back to New Hampshire -- a state he said he would be spending a lot of time in -- it could be more than six weeks between visits.
