Sunday Discussion Group

April 15, 2007

The presidential campaign process usually includes an odd irony — while being a presidential candidate seems to automatically raise one’s stature, the process also makes the candidates appear small. Flaws become exaggerated, minor gaffes become major news stories, innocuous conduct is spun into controversies by a hungry media, policy positions divide supporters, and microscopic scrutiny reveals imperfections that campaigns fail to anticipate.

A presidential campaign, therefore, necessarily makes candidates look bad, just as their campaigns work 24-7 to make the candidates look great. The result is fairly predictable: voters start to wonder if there’s a savior out there who can rescue the party and save them from voting for one of the imperfect candidates. In 2004, this happened to the Dems, and helped spur Wesley Clark to enter the race.

In 2008, it’s happening again … with Fred Thompson?

In just three weeks, Fred Thompson has transformed the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. It is not merely that he has come from nowhere to double digits in polls. He is the talk of GOP political circles because he is filling the conservative void in the field.

Republican activists have complained for months that none of the Big Three — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney– fits the conservative model of a conservative leader for a conservative party. The party faithful have been waiting for another Ronald Reagan. But in conversations with them the past year, nobody mentioned Thompson as the messiah until he appeared March 11 on “Fox News Sunday.”

Thompson was surprised by the reaction to his statement that he was “giving some thought” to running. In the first Gallup Poll that listed Thompson (conducted March 23-25), he scored 12 percent — amazing for someone out of public life for more than four years who has not campaigned. More important is his backing within the political community. Buyer’s remorse is expressed by several House members who endorsed Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. Thompson’s popularity reflects weakness among announced Republicans.

That Thompson is moving forward with a campaign plan is obvious. This week, he disclosed a bout with cancer (which is in remission), and yesterday he added a Wall Street Journal op-ed about how much he loves tax cuts for the wealthy.

But what does all of this tell us about the race and the state of the GOP?

A few questions to consider:

Is the current Republican field really this dismal?

If (when) Thompson enters the race, won’t he become just another candidate, like all of the others?

Does the GOP really need another standard bearer who doesn’t like to work hard, doesn’t care for details, and has zero foreign policy experience? (In other words, given Bush’s humiliating presidency, shouldn’t the party be looking for someone who has an entirely different set of qualities?)

And finally, is Thompson just generic enough that Dems should be worried about him getting the nomination?

Discuss.

Is the current Republican field really this dismal?

Yes – because the Republican Primary voters demand a candidate that can’t possibly exist in the universe as we know it, or win the General.

If (when) Thompson enters the race, won’t he become just another candidate, like all of the others?

Yes.

Does the GOP really need another standard bearer who doesn’t like to work hard, doesn’t care for details, and has zero foreign policy experience? (In other words, given Bush’s humiliating presidency, shouldn’t the party be looking for someone who has an entirely different set of qualities?)

In the Republican Primary world, blind adherence to mutually exclusive ideologies is required – basically ruling out anyone competent or pragmatic.

As Douglas Adams said of Zaphod Beeblebrox, he got the job because anyone who wanted to be President was automatically disqualified. Republicans ought to consider that.

And finally, is Thompson just generic enough that Dems should be worried about him getting the nomination?

No. I don’t see the “average citizen” voter too be too impressed with someone they see on TV every week. Reagan’s film career was in the distant past.

  • Answers:

    1.) The Republican “species” is really this dismal. The wealthy are willing to accept more wealth—whether they need it or not; whether they even want it or not—and the millions upon millions of “poor” within the party (yes, Virginia, there IS such a thing as poor Republicans; acknowledging their socioeconomic status in life by hatefully venting the blame for their condition on other groups) are mesmerized by their own gullibilities, and the thrill of professional wrestling (guys who coldn’t make the initial cut at the Ringling Brothers Clown College), local stock-car races (comparable to real racing as FOXnoise and MOONTimes is comparable to real journalism). They operate this “party” in exactly the same manner as a terrorist organization operates—by trampling all possible alternatives to “their” vision, and by playing to the base weaknesses of the poorer class. A minimum-wage Republican can be angered enough to vote against anything that could improve his/her lot in life, simply because he is bribed/deceived/threatened to the point of compliance. Yep—they’re “that dismal….”

    2.) If Thompson enters the race—and that’s still an awfully big “if,” because this so-called “Big 3” will in all likelihood try to control the VP position (read: Cheney picking Cheney to be Bush’s VP)—the core question that will spread over the entire primary will be the possibility of Thompson not surviving a full term as POTUS.

    3.) After a bit more than 6 years, the GOP has pretty much constructed a philosophy of “not giving a flat feathered farthing” who—or what—their standard bearer is. They just need to have control of the government. So much wealth in exchange for so little honest labor—go figure.

    I wouldn’t be worried about Thompson as much as I’d be worried about who his VP is. Thompson’s not the drunklen idiot that Bush is—but the very last thing we need is another Darth Cheney, given that cancer can come out of remission with an expiditiously-fatal vengeance….

  • The party faithful have been waiting for another Ronald Reagan.

    Well, Thompson is an actor [/snark]

    I think that explains his poll numbers. From what I understand, people often conflate the character with the actor. If they like who ever he plays on TV, they think they like Fred Thompson.

    We also know the GOP has a little image problem: They have a pathological concern with image. Substance, not so much. How many times have we heard some WH or GOP pinhead wringing its paws over how something looks? The West Wing meets Keeping up Appearances. Gag. But for this very reason Thompson might look great to the PR-obsessed GOP. He looks authoritative and he, he has held office and he already comes with an image that meshes nicely with the GOPs delusion that they’re the party of law and order (sorry).

    However, that’s now. Besides having to be “on” all of the time and the probes into his personal life, I see two potential problems for Thompson if he hits the campaign trail. First, he’s an actor and the better he presents himself the more he’ll be open to accusations that he’s just acting. Second, he’s a Republican.
    ‘Nuff said.

  • There are plenty of times in the marketing schemes of many old and worn out products that a big deal is attempted to be made about the updating and fluffing up of the packaging rather than the product. It’s not too relevant to get a “Bold New Look” or a “New and Improved Appearance” when what you’re buying is oatmeal or a laundry detergent but the marketing carneys throw it out there anyway just to have something to say and to catch peoples attention just one more time.

    Fred Thompson is old everything being touted as something fresh and significantly different. It’ll be a tough sell.

  • The repub field comes across as a more of a soap opera than a political contest. After McCain’s slow spiral into abject delusion, the other two frontrunners seem like vanity candidates. You got a cross dressing mayor from NYC and a flip-flopping Mormon from an elitist northeastern state. Hardly the stuff of wingnut dreams. There’s plenty of room for a serious candidate.
    Is Thompson it? Repubs seem to adore actors – despite their contempt for Hollywood. I suspect the hope for Thompson is that he turns out to be a cross between Arnold and Ronnie. It’s a long double bank shot, but who else do they have? My question is does he have the durability, both physically and in terms of media exposure. It’s easy to root for the unknown underdog, but how will he stand up to the barrage of media attention? He’ll be interesting to watch.

    The biggest surprise for me is how little traction Huckabee has gotten. He’s been consistently wingnutty and is rather charming on a personal level. I thought he would be in the thick of it by this point, so what do I know about wingnuts and their leaders?

  • While I agree wiht everyone above on 1 – yep, really really dismal, I don’t agree on 2. Thompson has that one thing that impresses the reThugs so. He radiates toughness. He swaggers. And he has charisma. You can’t tell me that Rove wouldn’t have picked him out of a crowd to groom for power, the way he did W, based solely on those qualities. Giuliani has the swagger in spades, but he has all those doctrinal problems. McCain has just become sad, and he has a history that disqualifies him from the base.

    The other thing that Thompson has is the media can be expected to love him, to give him the easy ride they gave W. One of the guys, great to have a beer with. The msm hasn’t learned squat, they’re still lay down in front of power. They, as a group, remind me of the pathetic Mr. Collins in “Pride and Prejudice”, who craves the condescension of Lady Catherine DeBerg.

  • The lack of Fred Thompson’s name recognition will probably make him liked among conservatives, but among independents and battleground states this lack will probably be filled in by the next-closest thing: the current republican administration. And that obviously will hurt.

    The only way I can see that factor being avoided is if it was balanced out by strong negative emotions from the democrat… ie Clinton. DAMN IT.

  • To Steve: that’s a really condescending remark you made about “poor” republicans. You believe in helping the poor over the wealthy, and then you insult the very people you want helped? Very disrespectful.

    having said that, I am worried that this country’s gonna get another republican authoritarian leader. Let’s face it, Rudy’s got a good chance — everybody on the right is completely ignoring everything they don’t like about him, and people in the middle may decide to ignore his hypocrisies on this campaign if he goes against Clinton, who is more widely disliked than the democrats want to believe.

    We don’t need another six years like the six we’ve just had.Very scary thought.

    by anonymous

  • “Repubs seem to adore actors “-comment by JoeW

    To be able to sell the fraud of Republicanism, their candidate NEEDS to be an actor (to swindle voters who are not rich to vote against financial self interest).
    Con games need to be pitched by skilled con men.

  • The repub field comes across as a more of a soap opera than a political contest. – JoeW

    That is a good way to put it. And the daily chant of corrupt intentions and surfacing malfeasance really enhances that soap opera ambiance.

  • 1. No, the Republican party isn’t this dismal, if by “this dismal” you mean the Bush Crime Family. I don’t fear for the nation’s survival if any of the GOP big three should become president. These guys may be personally sleazy, and may talk out of all sides of their mouth at once, but they’re not zealots. I don’t care for their politics or their supporters, but I don’t fear them.

    2. Thompson may become like all the others. I hope he does. I’m nowhere near as afraid of an actor taking on whatever roles he has to play as I am a genuine religious fruitcake who doesn’t read or ask questions, who “listens to God” and wouldn’t mind plunging as all into Armageddon.

    3. I don’t know what the GOP wants, and I don’t care. They used to want things which were very far down on my priority list (stable dollar, pay-as-you go, good balance of payments, all the military we could buy, international goals over domestic ones … essentially bean counters rather than do gooders), but I have a feeling that the old GOP died the day Ford left office. The party does need someone with a new set of priorities — technology and science and education wouldn’t be a bad focus for them, for a change — but I don’t think they’re capable of it. The wackos have dug them into a bankruptcy and bigotry hole I just don’t think they can crawl out of, even if they wanted to.

    4. No, we needn’t be worried about Thompson. Under ordinary circumstances I’d say maybe … he’s an actor, sometimes fill-in for Paul Harvey, pliable to likes of middle America, used to the TeeVee culture we’ve become, etc. I just don’t think he’s “glamorous” enough to capture the imagination of anyone or re-charge the GOP, nor does he have a strong message to deliver if he were. He could save his party from further degradation by running as the nominee, but I think the American public has had it with Republicans for now. Maybe forever.

    When the AARP crowd dies off and the next generation realizes how much the GOP has screwed them and this country to profit themselves — and how much the world is passing us by — there may not be a chance for the GOP to recover. I’m talking about the current Bush Crime Family, of course, but also all the way back to St. Ronald the Reagan and his flock of devotees, maybe as far back as the harbinger Barry Goldwater. It seems to me we’ve been living in a delusion ever since WWII, ever since the reality of “one world” became a technological fact. In a world of modern transportation and communication, an environment “on the brink”, emerging nations with international technologies of terrorism, worldwide religious fanatics, the Democrat Party has a chance to frame its policies globally and sanely. The GOP used to, but I just don’t think it has a chance anymore. I think the GOP will go the way of the Whigs; it just doesn’t matter who they nominate.

  • And finally, is Thompson just generic enough that Dems should be worried about him getting the nomination?

    I foresee a moment in a debate where Thompson struggles for the answer to a question and finally just says, “I’m not a politician, but I play one on TV.”

  • The American public is rather shallow (just think American Idol). Thompson’s got an ugly mug. And if he were to talk about dire things (like Republican do), while the Democrats spoke optimisticlly about the country’s future, there would be no contest. The “new” Nixon-Kennedy could be Thompson-Edwards. Except that fifty years ago, old looking politicians were the norm (think Truman and Eisenhower), while today’s culture of youth and celebrity values the telegenic. Gravitas, scmavitas.

  • I don’t think that it’s a matter of the GOP field being “dismal” – I think it’s really a show of how much the religious right controls the party (or at least the perception of the religious right controlling the party – for my money, it’s still the big corporate interests which do – and they will support Rudy) and how unhappy the religious types are about the lack of representation of their social views among the current crop of top tier candidates (so why don’t they elevate Hunter or Huckabee or Trocky to the top tier?)

    I think this illustrates the dangers of the front loaded primary system – the ranks of candidates shouldn’t be closed by April of the year before – it shouldn’t be unusual for a candidate to jump in much closer to the actual elections. And, if the social issues are that important to the GOP electorate, a drawn-out primary season would allow someone from the lesser-tier to get votes in the early primaries, and establish their credibility and get respect from the media. Right now, it seems that front-loading the primaries means that it makes it a top-down media driven system – someone like Hunter or Huckabee won’t be allowed to catch fire via getting enough votes to make their candidacies credible – yet a media-driven, meida-friendly candidate is being pushed foraward by … the media.

  • There’s no reason for the Repubs to be excited about any of their candidates – Thompson included. The Republican field is weak in large part because who would want to take over after Bush with such institutionalized impediments as the cadre of loyal Bushie incompetents running rampant throughout government? Those who would be strong candidates for the R’s are taking a pass on this race.

    If the Repubs were trying to take back the White House from Democrats, a candidate with only charisma going for him like Thompson could be a viable option. But they are faced with having to come up with a replacement to a president from their own party who has an increadibly long streak of unpopularity, who is exceptionally polarizing and who set an agenda that will take a truly visionary leader to set this nation back on track from its ravages. That takes true smarts and not just on-screeen gravitas.

    Everyone I speak with is dismayed at this country’s direction and thinks we need someone to unsh*t the bed that Bush has befouled. People want change and that includes from the party in power. The Repubs will need one hell of a motivating candidate to counter the high resentment and dissatisfaction with Republican rule. And the scandals are just unfolding for the elephants as well. It will be a long election season for them.

    The ’08 election is for the Democrats to lose. Not that they couldn’t, but Republicans have nothing going for them other than a rabid 30% who don’t know any better. And that’s just not enough.

  • Thonpson could do well in the presidential race, under a “bring in the grown-ups” theme. People have a hard time distinguishing celebrity from merit, and Thompson has the huge advantage of face recognition, which makes people think that they know him. His TV character is serious, tough, scandal-free, and gruff-but-not-unlikable, so probably many people assume that he’s that way in life. Anyone who could support Reagan shouldn’t have much trouble supporting Thompson.

    However, I’d put my money on Edwards, Obama, or Clark in a race against Thompson, because of Thompson’s poor comparisons to the youth, energy, and charisma for the first two, and his credibility gap relative to Clark with respect to closing down the Iraq war as well as can be done.

  • Does the GOP really need another standard bearer who doesn’t like to work hard, doesn’t care for details, and has zero foreign policy experience? (In other words, given Bush’s humiliating presidency, shouldn’t the party be looking for someone who has an entirely different set of qualities?)

    For starters, consider how many conservative activists are under 35 – these people barely remember Reagan as other than the mythology they heard from their parents. As regards their “real world” experience since say they were 15 (the past 20 years), there has never been a Republican candidate who was a “genuine conservative” (i.e., a radical right winger like them) who wasn’t like that? And also remember that – to these people – Bush’s presidency hasn’t been humiliating. We’re talking here about the 35% of the public who are the True Believers.

    There is the additional fact that the majority of what these knotheads know about Fred Thompson is what they’ve seen on TV and in the movies, where he basically plays the avuncular “father figure” who keeps the “libs” of his staff on Law and Order in line. So he’s exactly what they want.

    And finally, is Thompson just generic enough that Dems should be worried about him getting the nomination?

    Forget “generic”, that is irrelevant. Any Democrats who don’t realize the threat he represents need to go stick their heads back up their posteriors.

    More Republicans have seen Fred Thompson in a situation where they enjoy inviting him into their homes every week than they have seen any of the other candidates – they are likely far more personally “comfortable” with him than they are with any of the others. Never mind that he hasn’t been a “leader,” that he only plays one, we’re talking about people who aren’t that able to distinguish reality from their fantasies on anything else so why would they do so here?

    Let me tell you something: Fred Thompson is a for-real conservative, and he has the personality to make a whole bunch of serious Hollywood liberals who are very politically committed feel comfortable in his presence – I speak of the writing/producing staff of “Law and Order.” He can indeed have this effect on a lot of “Reagan Democrats” in the election. I don’t know that he’s someone you’d like to “have a beer with,” but he has a public gravitas from the characters he’s played that he would be “your good old uncle whose advice you should listen to.”

    Yes, he has no experience in anything as regards foreign policy and all that, was pretty much of a do-nothing in office, but when did that matter in the past 27 years? We’re talking about a political party whose members thought Reagan really did command a submarine in WW2, not just play one in “Hellcats of the Navy.”

    Remember, all he needs is good writers. He knows how to deliver a script.

    Anybody who thinks he isn’t the biggest threat the Republicans can come up with doesn’t really understand contemporary politics as well as they think they do.

  • Steve is symptomatic of the kind of Nimrods who purport to represent Dem “thinking” on economics. His arrogant condescension is matched by his ignorance of historical facts and human nature.

    Good to see Fred Thompson actually understands what the real issue is here. The US has a formula for growth that relies on relatively low rates of taxation. If taxes rise, as they have in the EU, econ stagnation ensues and growth stops. A rising tide…….

    The Dems have no response to this eminently rational policy other than to promote class warfare by stating that some incomes grow far less than others. And a potpourri of stats that no one fact-checks. Read the New Yorker to see how far fact-checking has become lost art.

  • Tom Cleaver sounds like he has some personal experience with one of my fave TV programs. If Thompson can mesmerize the Hollyweirdos, he may be able to race Rudi all the way to the finish line!

    Any comparision between Fred and the barefoot hairdo with cheek and his victim-wife will come out on Fred’s side. Barry Obama is getting knifed by Hillarious allies like Katie Couric in the backrooms of the media cabal.

  • Anonymous, if I believe offering a sheep an alternative to the wolf, and that sheep chooses to jump into the wolf’s mouth while blaming a chicken at a farm several hundreds of miles away for its inevitable fate, I am under no obligation to say nice things about the sheep, as it is inherently the sheep’s fault for flinging itself to its demise. If you find that so disrespectful, then perhaps you might invest some of your time in examining the victim-complex tendencies of sheep….

  • Thompson could do well in the presidential race, under a “bring in the grown-ups” theme.

    This means running away from the sitting president. Not a good idea, if you want to win the primaries.

    The Dems have no response to this eminently rational policy other than to promote class warfare.

    I don’t like class warfare. But like the vast majority of Americans, I’ve been on the losing side of one since the mid 1970’s, and if someone wants to fight back, more power to them.

  • Steve is right.

    The salient fact of American politcs today, and politicians forget it at their peril, is that there are 50-plus million Americans who would volunteer to live in a cardboard box under a bridge, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod over an open fire, so long as someone out there promises them that in the next box over, someone different from them — gay, liberal, female, black, brown, foreign-born, Spanish-speaking, from some other cult — doesn’t even get the sparrow.

  • “Historical facts” are rife with examples, piled one upon another like a jumbled mass of rusted-out Buicks in a deep-south junkyard, of “the conservative poor” cowing to the promises of a better life from their political leadership—when an equally-jumbled pile of examples right next door clearly identified that political leadership of having engineered the wholly-unacceptable circumstances under which those conservative poor find themselves.

    And it should be noted that “historical facts,” when appropriated and spun in such a way to support an interpretation of “human nature” that is, in actuality, nothing more than a political agenda, become nothing more than the traditional smoke-and-mirrors hallmark of the libertarian….

  • Don’t think Dems need to be worried about any Republican for the next ten years. Could be wrong of course.

  • The length of today’s primary campaigns seems crazy to me. So much can happen between now and NH — a macaca moment, an incident that thrusts a mayor into the national spotlight, a stupid looking ad, an unpaid parking ticket in college. Do I want to vote for the guy who wears boxers or the guy I’d rather have at my barbecue, or the woman who once didn’t bake cookies but now brings them to Senate committee meetings?

  • (Perhaps if they run Thompson, we should run Martin Sheen.)

    Davis ex machina, in #22. I don’t see how the next republican nominee can run on Bush’s record. Republican candidates’ options would seem to be 1) constant eruptions of anger at the Democrats for preventing Bush from establishing his wonderful conservative because they would have worked if only they’d been given a fair chance, 2) complaints and sadness that the reason for Bush’s difficulties were because his actions weren’t as conservative as they should have been, and 3) trying to mention Bush as little as possible, much like Gore with Clinton in 2000. I’d put my money on #3, with intermittent epsiodes of #1 when before fully KoolAided conservative audiences.

  • Hey, I’m a Republican, but I won’t vote for Fred Thompson – even if he is running against the dreaded Hillary. I probably wouldn’t vote for her either, and just skip the ‘president’ part of the ballot. If Thompson were to somehow win, I wouldn’t want to be reponsible for helping to put another yokel into the White House.

  • His arrogant condescension is matched by his ignorance of historical facts and human nature.

    Good to see Fred Thompson actually understands what the real issue is here. The US has a formula for growth that relies on relatively low rates of taxation. If taxes rise, as they have in the EU, econ stagnation ensues and growth stops. A rising tide…….

    wow – where to start… the “arrogance” of ad hominem personal attacks and name-calling ? I’ll stick with the :historical facts” – we had unprecedented economic growth in the this country in the 50s and 60s with much higher tax rates than now – back then we actually believed in paying for our wars, funny concept, that… And that Clinton guy – he raised taxes in 1993 to GOP pious posturing of predicted economic disaster – and instead we had a decade-long economic boom which makes the low-tax/no fiscal responsibility 2000s totally lame by comparison.

    But hey – when the historical facts aren’t on your side, there’s always name-calling

  • Ethel-to-Tilly (#32),

    There’s no point in arguing historical facts with True Believers (especially today’s Republicans). You’re correct about the good times for America’s working families, of course. But that doesn’t make it so to those who simply will not see.

  • IMHO, Tom Cleaver is spot on here. A couple of points Tom C didnt make are that Thompson hasnt been in the Senate for quite a while so he has no recent record to defend, he has not been prominent in support of the war & hes from the south (the base of the Repugs). He may appear to many as above politics. People who think they can accurately predict this race are deluding themselves. All of the Dem candidates have their own baggage. At least 10 to 20% of the voters will never vote for a woman or a black man. HRC also has Monica & Whitewater around her neck. Edwards comes across to a lot of people as too slick or swarmy, in an Eddie Haskall kind of way. Like Tom, I dont think the experience Thompson has as an actor should be overlooked (or laughed at) & his baritone voice & physical stature may appeal to a lot of folks. Appearances matter hugely in prez races.

  • Generally agree with Tom Cleaver and bikenut53…

    But I think cancer is a non-starter for a lot of voters – I suppose it’s incorrect to say so, tho…

    So between Giuliani the transvestite and cancer-plagued Thompson I think things are looking good for the Dem’s…I just hope the surrogates for the Dem 2008 candidate know how to play hardball…

  • Some great comments throughout here, and props for ignoring the troll. I think Ed has it right, that really any of the first-tier Republicans would be preferable to the current dolt; in addition to honestly detesting the guy, this was the other reason why I was so thrilled George Macaca Allen lost last year. I was honestly worried that the country might choose to institutionalize the trend of “electing” the dumbest, meanest, most arrogant rich guy available. Bush himself is creating the ultimate case of “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

    As for Thompson specifically, I agree with Tom that he’s probably the most potentially formidable Republican out there. That he doesn’t have well-known strong positions, that he’s evidently lazy and affable, are enormous advantages to a Republican “base” that’s interested above all in defending their own illusions about the feasibility of anyone both sharing their deeply unpopular views and effectively wielding the power to act on those views.

    (Of course, they sort of got this once–with Reagan–but he only enacted the economic half of those unpopular views, which is the easier sell because people aren’t as apt to understand the implications of a tax code change or budget cuts that don’t affect them directly, than they are to grasp what, say, a full ban on abortion might mean.)

    And for an electorate that mostly knows him from television, Thompson comes into the race with the advantageous pre-written narrative of his TV character. Given his greater visibility in public life, he’s also way less likely to self-destruct in any context or on any issue than “Rudy McRomney.” Maybe, as Carpetbagger suggests, the magic will disappear if and when he gets in the race. But it didn’t for Bush, who was clearly both dumber and more publicly awkward than Thompson is.

    I suspect he’d beat Hillary Clinton rather handily, for one.

  • I know there are studies proving the “Mo” is overrated and that the eventual nominee tends to be the one who led in the polls most of the year before the primaries and all that. But I look at the top tier of the current crop of Republicans and I have to believe their next presidential candidate has yet to emerge. Republicans may be delusional but still…

    Anyway, I have to think it’s still anyone’s race. I’m half expecting to see Tommy Thompson break out. But Fred? Stranger things have happened I guess, but I’d have to see it to believe it.

  • I foresee a moment in a debate where Thompson struggles for the answer to a question and finally just says, “I’m not a politician, but I play one on TV.”

    If Fred Thomson said something like that, I would bet that he could get away with it as a joke. He would then speak about his Watergate tenure and his years as a senator. Unless there is some egregious aspect to his life that we don’t know about, he would probably not be flummoxed in a debate.

    In fact, he would do very well in a debate. He is tall (taller candidates usually win and he is 6″5″), has a great presence and speaking voice and, as has been pointed out, a “narrative” for listeners to relate to.

    If Hillary is the candidate, she better hope that Rudy McRomney wins the nomination.

    Thomson will run on issues that the primarily center/right electorate can relate to. So far he has not looked like W and no one equates him with the current office holder except to point out that he is a Republican. He has been so isolated from the current mainstream, that he can’t be painted with the same brush. Yes, he is a Republican and conservative in the more Goldwater sense, but I think that will be appealing in a general election.

    While running Democratic another loser candidate won’t happen this time(I keep saying that, but I am usually wrong), there is plenty of time for some man in a tank picture (Oh, why wasn’t LLoyd Bensen the candidate instead?) to appear. We will have to wait for a while to see who is going to emerge and whether the political atmosphere will be generous to a Democratic nominee.

  • I haven’t seen it mentioned that Thompson ‘shepperded’ Alito through the Supreme Court nomination process, and that goes a LONG way with the Republican Base…. They’ll equate that with truly caring about conservative issues.

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