Well, Republicans decided that style was a lot more important than substance. They didn't vote on principles. They voted on appearances.

And now we have John McCain. Congrats.

Did they? I thought McCain was the least stylish of the bunch.

Thompson is awesome but the truth is that no matter how important television and internet become, face to face politics is what wins elections. Turned out he sucked at that. Too bad.

McCain was the only one left after the others had been knocked out.

Did he really suck at it so bad? The knock I recall was not that he was bad a face to face politics (in fact, he was rather good at it) but that he didn't do enough of it. Republicans knocked him not for how he related to people but because he didn't run around like a headless chicken. They wanted more "fire in the belly", whatever the heck that is, and completely forgot that even attempting a run for President is evidence of a rpetty good amoubt of belly-fire.

Romney got knocked out not because his policies were bad. They were a lot better than McCain's on most things. However, he's the only candidate who had to actually make a speech defending his religious beliefs and he never shook that off.

"Senator Obama would do well to stop apologizing to the rest of the world for America's attempts to protect itself during the time of war," Thompson said.

Senator Thompson would do well to stop publicly saying things that Dick Wolf hasn't scripted for him - Senator Obama

Thompson had the chance to campaign differently. His web team (including me) gave him the tools to try different things. There were a few moments that made it look promising. There was the online announcement as well as the surprisingly popular speech to Iowans right before the caucuses. Why he didn't buy into what he could have done, I don't know.

For what it's worth Thompson did start enjoying campaigning. Unfortunately it wasn't until the South Carolina primary when most conservatives wrote him off.

Thompson being too late out of the gate probably did the most damage. But considering Huckabee was an early contender and until his NRA "joke" had a shot at Veep, and of course the fact that they finally chose McCain, I can't really say that Thompson would've won even if he hadn't made any campaigning mistakes.