California Conservative

According to this David Brody article, Fred Thompson has picked up another high profile endorsement for South Carolina:

Judge Paul Pressler, one of the leaders of the Southern Baptist reformation, has endorsed Thompson. Concerning Huckabee, Pressler told the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, “I know of no conservative he appointed while he headed the Arkansas Baptist Convention.”

A story to watch is whether the Evangelical vote in South Carolina will sway the same way as Iowa. Read below from CNS News.com about that:

In an interview with Cybercast News Service, Mike DeVine, a former state Democratic Party official in South Carolina and a columnist for The Charlotte Observer, noted that the Republican Party there is markedly different from that in Iowa. “The GOP in South Carolina that I lost to a lot is mainstream conservatives,” he said. “They’re Reagan conservatives.. This includes evangelicals, they’re mostly Southern Baptists. A lot of military too, much different from Iowa.”

“I don’t think that Huckabee will do nearly as well” in South Carolina as he did in Iowa, said DeVine. “Some of his views are simply anathema to the conservative philosophy of the state. He’s shown some weaknesses. The people aren’t going to just vote for him because he’s a Baptist. They won’t be nearly as receptive to identity politics.”

This is a big get for the Thompson campaign. It’s easy to picture how Judge Pressler’s endorsement will help Sen. Thompson more than Lindsey Graham’s support will help Sen. McCain.

Another thing that must be factored into this equation is that Huckabee’s positions are now being exposed. The more his liberal positions get exposed, the more we should expect his support in South Carolina to slip.

It’s still early to tell how things will play in South Carolina but Pressler’s endorsement, coupled with the NRLC’s mailing on Fred’s behalf, certainly enables Fred to campaign from a position of strength.

UPDATE: Here’s the YouTube of Paul Pressler endorsing Fred:

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, South Carolina, NRLC, Mailing, Paul Pressler, Endorsements, Mike Huckabee, John McCainLindsey Graham, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.