In June I bought into the hype surrounding the former Tennessee Senator. Having surveyed the field of GOP candidates and found that Rudy Giuliani (shudder) was at the leading contender, I was willing to support almost any conservative that could knock the Mayor from his perch atop the polls. Thompson appeared to be poised to do just that so I started Blogs for Fred in anticipation of the political equivalent of an IPO--an official announcement of his candidacy.

The site was launched the first week of July but the candidate was nowhere to be found. That was the first sign that something was wrong. Nevertheless, I remained optimistic, believing that Thompson needed the extra time since he was preparing to run a "different kind of campaign."

Eventually, he did get in the race. And the campaign is definitely "different." In fact, it's almost like Thompson isn't campaigning at all. Defending his campaign work schedule on Monday he said, "I'm going to do it the way I want to do it." That's precisely the problem, doing it "Fred's Way" means not doing much at all.

I've been frustrated with his campaign even before it launched and have grown increasingly tired of having to justify to myself why Thompson deserves my vote. I won't waste time elaborating all the reasons for my decision, but they are many. Still, I hung on until this past weekend. After seeing his sloppy, lackluster, uninspiring speech at the Washington Briefing I realized I couldn’t do it anymore.