Although there were doubts among some Thompson advisers, many of whom wanted their candidate to run a more traditional campaign, one event early in the process seemed to reinforce their new media strategy. When left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore attacked Thompson for smoking Cuban cigars, the candidate shot a 37-second video response. Thompson, chomping on a cigar, came back forcefully and ended his mini-lecture by suggesting that Moore seek mental help. Within minutes of its posting, the video had been linked on the Drudge Report and it spread across the web at a speed that surprised even Thompson's most pro-Internet advisers.

The success of the short video--and the favorable reaction it received from conservatives--reinforced Thompson's own inclination to run this different kind of campaign. Thompson had always had his own timeline in mind and his early success in generating buzz for his unconventional candidacy did nothing to encourage him to expedite the process. Advisers who were encouraging him to move quickly were tuned

So why did Thompson fail? Two reasons, mainly. First, he was going to be the new straight-talker, a candidate who was going to tell the truth even when that truth was unpleasant. We would always know what he was thinking because he would always tell us. That was the theory, anyway, and once he was a candidate Thompson was admirably straightforward, even when being that way hurt him politically. But from the beginning, Thompson played coy about his candidacy. As his advisers said privately that he had made up his mind and would run, Thompson's string of public pronouncements seemed like a six-month political striptease. As a result, he badly undercut one of the main rationales for his candidacy.

Second, Thompson's new way of running for the president proved to be wishful thinking. It turns out, for better and for worse, that presidential candidates need to do the kinds of retail politicking that Thompson found so annoying. (Thompson's wife, Jeri, by contrast, seemed to enjoy it and was very good at it.) His first real sustained campaign trip came in mid-December, some three weeks before the Iowa caucuses. It featured occasional meet-and-greets, some local talk radio, a healthy dose of national conservative media appearances, and a 17-minute closing video that attracted nowhere near the attention of his Michael Moore smackdown.

Will Thompson endorse? Others have pointed out that Thompson was one of four senator to support John McCain in 2000. And when I asked him last spring about McCain, Thompson said he was sure they would remain friends even after a hard-fought campaign.

"If we do this, we'll remain friends. We'll be friends after this. But this is, John will be the first to agree that things that we're talking about here today are more important than those considerations. We don't have to sacrifice our friendship to do this. If he's the kind of guy that he is and I'm the kind of guy that I ought to be, strange as it sounds in this whole world nowadays, we don't have to sacrifice our friendship to do it and we won't."

The reality turned out to be more complicated. Several important Thompson advisers hold McCain sympathizers responsible for circulating rumors before Iowa that Thompson would drop out and endorse McCain after that contest. They believe that news reports based on those claims had the effect of suppressing Thompson's vote in Iowa and cost him dearly.

Did it? That seems unlikely, but could the possibility that it did be enough to keep Thompson from endorsing his old friend?

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.