You always want to meet expectations. Time and again I see it with stocks. Company is doing well, they make good products, have a nice market share, everyone is talking about how great they are doing, they give a big prediction about how well they will do in the next quarter. Then the end of the quarter comes and they don’t meet expectations, company’s stock tanks. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done, doesn’t matter what they will do, it just matters they didn’t meet their goal.

Meanwhile another company that has bad products, bad market share, bad press, bad everything makes a low prediction, they do better than expected, their stock rises. This is the expectations game and it works the same in politics.

So you can read two things from Fred Thompson’s lower than predicted numbers. You can either say, “wow, he said $5 million and he only raised three, this guy stinks & his campaign is over.” You could also spin it as the Thompson campaign is and say, “$3.5 million in a month or so, wow now that’s amazing! Not what we said but pretty darn good.”

I am easily on the side of the first inference. That is because I am a cynic, I see the glass half empty, even when it’s full! My reasoning is even if you don’t drink from it evaporation will guarantee it is half empty sooner or later.

Anyway you’ve probably noticed everyone else is looking at those numbers with cynicism as well. They don’t necessarily have to though.

Consider what the other Republicans are making, including John McCain, $3.5 million isn’t that bad for a non-campaign. This guy hasn’t even announced yet and he is beating the pants off the lower tier and it only cost him half a million dollars + to get it. Which if you look at McCain’s burn rate, that isn’t too bad.

Meanwhile it has been a tuff year for all Republicans. Even if Thompson is the next savior of the Republican Party, hype alone won’t get money out of the pockets of interests that are sullied on the GOP. Thompson isn’t officially running yet, maybe when he is that cash will start flowing in. Who knows? The sky could fall, I could ride a bike, the world could rotate in the opposite direction.

Thompson’s pre-campaign made a bold and rather stupid prediction that did not come true. That is why his stock has begun to sink. Add to that the reports of campaign leaves and allegations his wife is too involved and you only add to the bad forecast.

Look at it the other way though. Better these problems occur now in the pre-campaign so he has time to make adjustments. See, I can be sunny and happy too!

Also at the end of the day we haven’t learned so much about Thompson yet as we may have about Republican donors, mainly that this cycle they don’t seem to exist. This might not be just a matter of not having the right candidate; this might just be the case. There is no guarantee that Republicans will or should raise an equal amount of money as Democrats. Democrats didn’t always and I am sure there will come a time when they won’t again. This could be it and that isn’t so much about Thompson as George W. Bush and the direction the country wants to go.

In the end we will see whether this is just cynicism and bad predicting or meaningful. Either way the lesson here is do not make stupid predictions because your stock will always fall when you don’t meet them.