On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Fred Thompson and Senator John McCain, who endorses Mitt Romney, sat side-by-side. Each extolled the virtues of their respective candidates, prognosticated on the outcome and consequences of the upcoming Florida GOP primary, and talked about different topics of the day.

At one point, Fred Thompson referenced a New York Times article from that morning that outlined Mitt Romney’s recent attacks on his man Newt. In that context he also stated that Romney was getting biased support from Matt Drudge’s “Drudge Report” website in the form of positive coverage for Romney and negative for Gingrich, saying Romney has Drudge in his “back pocket”.

Recently, much hay has been made some supposed statements Newt Gingrich made in private, disparaging Ronald Reagan. And, that headline was played up big on Drudge.

Most GOP candidates go out of their way to speak glowingly of Reagan, who was an extremely popular president for them. To be seen as critical of Reagan in a GOP race would invite ostracism from the party faithful and old guard. And, Gingrich has been selling himself in Florida as a “Reagan conservative”.

Gingrich stumped in and won the recent South Carolina primary with the message that Romney was the GOP pick, regardless of what the people want. He presented himself as an anti-establishment Washington outsider who would challenge the GOP’s presumption.

The Drudge Report ran the story of Thompson’s accusations, and responded with links to three stories that had reported Newt in the lead in weeks prior.

But, they also soon top-lined these gems.

Fred Thompson’s Webmaster Doesn’t Know Dmoz

A Knoxville TV station reported the confusion at the Thompson camp over what Google has to say about the candidate’s I’m With Fred site:

Type the phrase “Friends of Fred Thompson” into Google, and the first link returned by the search engine describes the Web page as the “Official site of Fred Thompson for President Exploratory Committee.”

An exploratory committee would be a major step between Thompson’s less formal “testing the waters” committee and an official bid for the Republican nomination for president.

But spokeswoman Linda Rozett called the description inaccurate. Rozett said she doesn’t know how the description got on Google.

We’re pretty sure we found the reason why, and our readers probably figured it out too. On the Dmoz Open Directory site, take a look at this page about Thompson, particularly the starred entry near the top:

I’m With Fred – Official site of Fred Thompson for President Exploratory Committee.

Google has pulled the description seen in its search results from Dmoz. The ‘I’m With Fred’ webmaster doesn’t seem to know this little bit of HTML-fu, which will help the campaign stop this from happening:

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOODP”>

That tag will keep search engine crawlers from using the description on the Dmoz Open Directory. If the candidate is feeling grateful for this help, he can offer me the position of Ambassador to Tropical Places if he is elected.

At this early date, money remains the first, second, third, and probably twenty-fourth most significant concern for White House aspirants. The Thompson website, I’m With Fred, features links to donate and raise funds should the actor/Senator pursue a bid for the Presidency, just as the other candidates do.

His organization has opted for a slightly different approach to the Web. Thompson’s website doesn’t have the dizzying array of content blocks the other candidates we mentioned have posted. His main content section is a blog, kept up to date by an administrator at times when the candidate himself isn’t posting.

The important concept Thompson’s people seem to get is the need to have their supporters engage traditional media. His site features specific links to encourage people to write to newspaper editors or call talk radio.

Those two sections allow the visitor to pick a state followed by a media market. A results page shows the options available for contacting the media outlet of choice.

It’s easy to give the Internet too much credit for what it can do in building support for an issue, and to give mainstream media too little. Thompson’s people recognized this and built support for the old media into their new media.

Whether that’s an election breaker or not will be seen in 16 months.