Thompson calls in to Laura Ingraham
Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2007 2:49 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
While spending a few days in Alabama with his family celebrating his son Sammy’s first birthday,
Thompson took time to call in to the conservative Laura Ingraham Show -- to talk about the GOP presidential race,
Giuliani's lead in the national polls, and Rudy's record on illegal immigration.
“You’ve got various categories of people out there, so-called big shots, but you’ve got an awful lot of people out there, much greater numbers, who are just average folks,” Thompson said. “It seems to me, like in terms of the traditional GOP fundraisers, still quite a few of them are on the sidelines. I haven’t noticed a real rush to anybody, including Rudy. And as far as the national polls are concerned, I haven’t seen that he’s picking up much.”
A few days after rolling out his own anti-illegal immigration proposal, Thompson also kept up his criticisms of Giuliani on his support of illegal immigration while mayor of New York. “He said if you come here and work hard, and you happen in undocumented status, you’re one of the people that we want in this city, you’re somebody that we want to protect,” Thompson said. “So that pretty much gives you his thoughts on it. I don’t think he’s moved away from it to tell you the truth. He teamed up, apparently with MoveOn.org, under George Soros to oppose the anti-immigration forces, so-called, so I’m not sure what he would say about the future."
“You can often tell about the future, concerning someone’s policies, based on what they’ve done in the past, and he will equate New York and the rest of the country in many respects in terms of his qualifications, but I don’t know if in this respect he’ll just say, ‘Oh this is just one city, and this is just good for one city, and I thought then then, but I think this now,’ kind of like Mitt’s health-care plan.”
When Ingraham pointed out that Rudy was the only candidate left out of former White House aide Dan Bartlett’s critical comments about the GOP presidential candidates, Thompson shrugged off the importance of the White House’s support, if that’s what Bartlett’s comments meant. “That’s one group. Obviously, the truth is that’s a pretty big [group], if it is a group,” Thompson said. “But who are those people, the president himself or Dan himself personally? Or what? Who knows? It’s a big country full of a lot of people and White House support, if that’s what it turns out to be, that’d be significant to some people but this day and time I don’t know how significant. You just got to kind of pin your ears back and go forward.”
Going forward, according to Thompson, means “picking up the pace a bit” in Iowa and using that state’s caucuses as a launching pad. And instead of making excuses for why he hasn’t spent as much time in the Hawkeye State as some of his opponents have, Thompson pointed to his standing in the polls and used an example of an Iowa turnaround that has become a staple of his stump speech: John Kerry versus Howard Dean.
“You know, for the ranking that I have there compared to the time that I've had to spend there, you know, it’s really kind of remarkable,” Thompson said. “Everything’s a snap shot today. I’ve learned from Senate races that you’ve got to be able to project ahead and see how things are going to develop, especially in a place like Iowa [that] changes on a dime, can change on a dime. It changed for Howard Dean out there just in a matter of hours or days before their last race.”
Despite good reviews about his performance at the debate last weekend, apparently Thompson didn’t put the laziness issue to rest because as a final question Ingraham asked him about his laid-back campaign style. “I’m not rabid,” Thompson said. “I don’t jump up and down when I talk. I make my point, I move on, and I win elections.”
