Opinion: Does Fred Thompson know timing?

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It looks like Fred Thompson is doing so well in the polls by not running yet that he’s decided to not run for a while longer.

His campaign announcement, first rumored for July 1st, then July 4th and then mid-July, now won’t come until August, according to both Fox News and CNN. If that’s true, mid-August would make the most sense. That timing would enable Thompson, still organizing a campaign, to duck the expensive Aug. 11 Republican straw poll in Ames while almost immediately overshadowing the anticipated victory and momentum of Mitt Romney.

It would also save one month’s campaigning expenses and postpone the increased scrutiny by both media and opponents’ researchers. With expectations already so high among conservatives for a Thompson candidacy, he wouldn’t want to stumble out of the gate.

Such a move would fly in the face of tradition, however. In politics, August is widely believed to be a time when virtually no one outside the campaigns is listening to anything but the sounds of vacation. And no Republican who has skipped the Ames straw poll has ever gone on to win the Iowa caucus the following winter.

--Andrew Malcolm