Thompson continues to dominate the online straw polls and won the Pajamas media poll for the second week, increasing his lead over last week by almost 10%:

The eleventh week saw a continued surge by Fred Thompson in the poll. Last week the former Tennessee senator – slash – prosecutor – slash – movie – and – television – star was first with 34.9% of the vote followed by Ron Paul at 29.00%. This week Thompson is at a whopping 43.5% with Paul falling back to 22.7% Previous winner Rudy Giuliani is in third at 10.2%.

The Hotline is convinced that he’s running because he’s blogging at Redstate.
The Wall Street Journal is wringing it’s hands because Thompson is losing money, time and endorsements by waiting to enter the race. Other candidates are snapping up the money men and key people needed to get the ground game going. I don’t think that they should be concerned, people like Welsh didn’t know that Thompson was going to enter the race and was lost already and those who haven’t committed will probably wait until he announces or commit to Thompson even though he isn’t in the race hoping to entice him in by showing him that they will support him.
Thompson no doubt effectively froze the field and now everyone is in a holding pattern until he enters and not everyone has been quick to endorse a candidate yet. Some jumped quickly into the various camps but nothing says that they have to stay there. And there is no reason why a donor can’t give money to Thompson after he’s donated to another candidate. And while the loss of Welsh is significant, there are others who may prove helpful as the Journal notes.
Thompson is generating a huge amount of free publicity and buzz. He continues to rise in the polls and he doesn’t even have to spend any money to do so. All that money that the other candidates have raised so far is probably close to being spent and yet he’s ahead of some of them in the polls. And the buzz doesn’t seem to be slowing down. I still see numerous articles every day speculating whether he will run or not.
Why enter the race when he can demonstrate that he’s the perfect advocate for conservatism on the Paul Harvey show or blogging at Redstate? Why not throw red meat to the base to gin up support for a run? And since he isn’t under pressure by consultants to tone it down, he can speak the language of his peoples (as Samantha likes to say). He’s been given a platform that’s cheap and effective, why give that up to run so early? It’s a brilliant move and it doesn’t cost him anything to do it.
BTW, the Journal notes the following:

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has been running second in polls, turns off some voters with his unswerving support for the Iraq war, and there still are some bruises in the party from his challenge to President Bush in the 2000 race.

Why in the world would Journal repeat the MSM’s meme on McCain. I would think they would be a little better informed about the current lack of support for McCain. They should realize that the base is solidly behind the war, just look at the support for Rudy and Romney who both wholeheartedly endorse the war in Iraq. They should know that the base doesn’t trust McCain because of the gang of fourteen and other conservative issues that he abandoned over the years in the Senate.