Trailhead: A campaign blog.

BREAKING: Fred Thompson Visits New Hampshire

That shouldn’t be news. But it is, seeing as it was only his second time there.

Fred Thompson is sticking with his “Southern Strategy,” the Wall Street Journal reports today. In other words, he’s largely bypassing Iowa and New Hampshire in favor of early southern states like South Carolina and Florida instead of : 

It's not a conventional presidential strategy to play down Iowa and New Hampshire. Candidates who have tried skipping them generally haven't fared well. And Mr. Thompson said during his visit yesterday that he's planning on spending enough time and money in New Hampshire to at least make a respectable showing before the vote heads South.

Is he serious? It’s not just that Iowa and New Hampshire have been important in the past. They’ve been essential. In the last 28 years, the only presidential candidate to win his party’s nomination without winning one of those two states has been Bill Clinton. And, to borrow a put-down, Fred Thompson is no Bill Clinton. Sure, he’s faring better in South Carolina and Florida—second place behind Giuliani. But even Giuliani knows that’s not enough.

Giuliani, who initially planned to focus on the February 5 “Tsunami Tuesday,” has decided to go all in in the Granite State. You don’t want to risk going into Feb. 5 having already lost a handful of states—Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan being the riskiest. He has recently seen a jump in the polls there—although Romney still leads—and he plans to start airing TV ads as well. Without a victory, or at least a respectable showing, in NH, he would have trouble stopping Romney’s momentum.

Thompson has yet to face this fact. It’s one thing to recognize your limits in the early states. It’s another to pretend they don’t exist.