MELISSA BLOCK, host:
The Republican field of presidential candidates has shrunk to five now that former Senator Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race. But to many, it seemed that Thompson said farewell to his campaign on Saturday after he finished third in the South Carolina primary and delivered what sounded like a valedictory speech.
Mr. FRED THOMPSON (Republican; Former Tennessee Senator): You know, it's never been about me. It's never even been about you. It's been about our country and the future of our country. Of our country, about the future of our country and about our party's role in that future. And because of your efforts and because of our working together, our party is being required to look itself in the mirror, decide where it's going, decide who it is.
BLOCK: We're joined by Rich Galen who is senior adviser to the Thompson campaign. Thanks for coming in.
Mr. RICH GALEN (Former Senior Adviser to Fred Thompson's Campaign): How did I do on that job?
BLOCK: Not too bad, I guess. I don't know. You'd have to ask Senator Thompson. There are a lot of expectations when he entered the race in September. He was hailed as the genuine conservative, the heir to Ronald Reagan. What went wrong?
Mr. GALEN: Well, I think what happened, if you go back, the high point of the hype was probably earlier than that, May and June. He chose not to get in until September. There was just some structural things in the campaign that needed to get fixed. I think one of the issues with getting in in September in a cycle when people had been running essentially for a year in a half…
BLOCK: For a long time, yeah.
Mr. GALEN: …yeah - is that it was the equivalent of missing spring training and being unable to hit a major league slider or be able to execute a double play because you didn't have the time to kind of get your campaign up to speed and the kind of things that you do in the exhibition season.
BLOCK: But then even when he did get into the race, the line on Fred Thompson was he was running a lazy campaign. He kept a very light schedule. I wonder, as his adviser, did you worry about that? Did you felt there were times that his heart just really wasn't in this race?
Mr. GALEN: No, I never thought that at all. The campaign schedule was what it was. And a lot of the campaign schedule was - he was working, it just wasn't public events. For instance, the number of position papers that he had, that he put out that were fairly sophisticated in terms of their thinking - Social Security, tax reform, military, those sorts of things - required him to meet with advisers, to meet with people that were experts in these areas to come up with a position that weren't necessarily on the public schedule. But we weren't - the campaign wasn't nimble enough to be able to push back, and that - and it really stuck.
BLOCK: You know, Mike Huckabee now says he would have beaten John McCain in South Carolina if Fred Thompson weren't in that race.
Mr. GALEN: Yeah, but we would have beaten John McCain if he hadn't been in the race. There is that.
BLOCK: Well, we keep thinking if Fred Thompson had dropped out a week ago, Mike Huckabee would have won in South Carolina.
Mr. GALEN: So no. But I mean, the - in all of these things, the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves. So if Huckabee couldn't win in South Carolina, he doesn't need to look at us. He needs to look at himself.
BLOCK: Will Fred Thompson endorse one of the other Republican candidates?
Mr. GALEN: That will probably happen when there is a nominee or nominated for president.
BLOCK: Well, what about before then though?
Mr. GALEN: I think probably not at this point. He's…
BLOCK: Why not? He's been very close with John McCain in the Senate.
Mr. GALEN: Well, but you know, he was their opponent. So, I mean - he campaigned for John McCain in 2000, but times go on, times change. I don't think that Thompson believes that his endorsing anybody will have any effect. If - I mean, my position on this stuff is if you can't get somebody to vote for yourself, how are you going to get people to vote for somebody else?
BLOCK: Well, very briefly, whom - which candidate do you think stands to benefit most? Who will Thompson's supporters follow?
Mr. GALEN: I suspect that, for the most part, they'll go to Romney. People that wanted to vote for Huckabee already voted for Huckabee. A lot of the Thompson voters are not McCain fans. My e-mails would be evidence of that. And Giuliani is just not in the mainstream of Republicans. So I suspect that Mitt Romney, to the extent that anybody benefits, will be the beneficiary.
BLOCK: Okay. Rich Galen, thanks so much. Rich Galen, former senior adviser to the Fred Thompson presidential campaign.
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.