He is:
The latest staff member to depart is Mark Corallo, a senior strategist and spokesman who was one of the first people to join Thompson's campaign. Corallo resigned yesterday, hours before Thompson formally declared his candidacy in a video posted on his Web site just after midnight, a campaign official said.
Corallo's resignation follows the departure of at least three other members of Thompson's communications staff, acting campaign manager Tom Collamore and several other aides in recent months. Thompson last month brought in Bill Lacy, a White House political director under President Ronald Reagan, to run the campaign, causing friction among some of the earlier hires.
``There appears to be something dysfunctional inside the Thompson campaign,'' said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. ``He has been hemorrhaging staff pretty consistently without any explanation.''
Now, I don't generally follow personnel gossip too closely, but Fred's pre-campain has been shedding more than a blue-tick hound in a Tennessee summer. The explanation that the shuffling was a natural part of the gearing-up process will only hold if it stops now. We shall see.
On the bright side of Fred, Allah has Fred's warm reception at his first Iowa event.
Update: An on-the-ground report from Iowa that reports less enthusiasm, but it's a good run-down on the event.