Waiting for the return of Thompson’s old red truck

August 12, 2007

The LAT had an interesting item today, speculating about whether presidential candidate Fred Thompson will follow Senate candidate Thompson’s style, and campaign in his favorite prop.

Thompson was the front runner for the GOP nomination [in the late spring of 1994], but Rep. Jim Cooper, his presumed Democratic opponent, had a big lead in the polls, greater name recognition and a lot more money. Thompson was in the doldrums.

“He was a very unhappy candidate,” said political consultant Tom Ingram, who masterminded the campaign. “He was complaining about all the Republican events — the coffees and teas and chicken dinners. So I said, ‘What would you like to do?’ ”

Thompson, the son of a used-car dealer who had grown up in modest circumstances, told Ingram he would like to get a truck and drive around the state meeting people. Up to that point, Thompson had been tooling around Tennessee in a Lincoln Town Car.

“So why don’t you do that?” said Ingram.

As the piece explained, Thompson hopped in an old red pickup and won voters over with his folksy charm, accentuated by the prop.

Now, the LAT includes some perspectives from Thompson detractors, who characterize the actor/lobbyist/senator as a “phony,” but as long as this story continues to circulate, it’s probably worth reminding folks of the details. The problem isn’t just that Thompson drove an old red pickup as a shameless ploy; it’s that he didn’t really drive the old red pickup at all.

Way back in 1996, Michelle Cottle explained the reality.

True story: it is a warm evening in the summer of 1995. A crowd has gathered in the auditorium of a suburban high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. Seated in the audience is a childhood friend of mine who now teaches at the school. On stage is Republican Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson, the lawyer/actor elected in 1994 to serve out the remainder of Vice President Al Gore’s Senate term (when Gore’s appointed successor retired after just two years). The local TV stations are on hand as Thompson wraps up his presentation on tax reform, in the plain-spoken, down-to-earth style so familiar to those who have seen him in any of his numerous film and television performances.

Finishing his talk, Thompson shakes a few hands, then walks out with the rest of the crowd to the red pickup truck he made famous during his 1994 Senate campaign. My friend stands talking with her colleagues as the senator is driven away by a blond, all-American staffer. A few minutes later, my friend gets into her car to head home. As she pulls up to the stop sign at the parking lot exit, rolling up to the intersection is Senator Thompson, now behind the wheel of a sweet silver luxury sedan. He gives my friend a slight nod as he drives past. Turning onto the main road, my friend passes the school’s small, side parking area. Lo and behold: There sits the abandoned red pickup, along with the all-American staffer.

Thompson didn’t even drive the thing — as Kevin Drum recently noted, “Basically, he just drove the thing the final few hundred feet before each campaign event, and then ditched it for something nicer as soon as he was out of sight of the yokels.”

Expect to hear quite a bit more of this in the coming weeks, after Thompson makes his announcement.

He’s an actor; they don’t drive – they have drivers. And dependly how badly they want to be “seen” to be driving, stunt drivers to do that for them! What did you expect? C’mon, once an actor, always an actor.

  • Thompson, the son of a used-car dealer who had grown up in modest circumstances, told Ingram he would like to get a truck and drive around the state meeting people.

    This is cool. The deceptiveness of it isn’t. It looked like- and people thought that- the guy really had an old red pickup truck that he drove around in, but it was really tantamount to a cardboard-cutout that lets you make yourself look like someone different than you are, that he just picked up for the campaign.

    Incidentally, CB, I think it would be better if you would try to integrate in these kinds of posts what’s wrong with the Republican’s statement with your material above the “fold,” and get right to why the Republican is lying. I know you might think it’s more effective this way, but to me it comes off as less potent. Even worse: I know that (despite my computer-industry dad, and being one of supposedly computer/technology-savvy generation Y) it takes me a very long time to figure out the basic features of some websites; I’m sure that (even now) there are probably a lot of people out there who read your posts to get a feel for the headlines, and the “read more” icon is something that just puzzles them– something they don’t know they are supposed to click on.

  • Thompson is the “none of the above” favored by many Republicans. He’ll surge into the lead by simply gargling boilerplate about terrorism, family values, cutting taxes, and religion. His undistinguished Senate career, his half-hearted lobbying and his acting make him a perfectly blank slate on which his party can write all of their aspirations. Thompson won’t define himself because it’s entirely to his advantage to have the Republican base define him to their own satisfaction.

    The “good” news is that the only way he’ll be elected is if the Democrats nominate someone with high negatives.

  • Props are part of the whole kissing babies, fake joviality and shake every hand possible style of campaigning that Americans have come to expect from the election process. My bigger concern with Fred is that the issue with the red truck is more than a prop — it is part of a bigger bait-and-switch routine. What other populist images will be shed as soon as they are no longer necessary to project an image? Georgie snookered the nation with his compassionate conservative rhetoric and his down-home drawl. Fred, I am afraid, is the very same wolf in sheeps clothing. The red truck is not a prop in this case, it is part of a more elaborate lie.

  • I was going to write something funny here, but I’ll just say:

    Props are good if the crowd is in on the joke and they get to laugh along with you. They’re not good when they’re part of deception. When a politician uses a few Spanish words in a speech to Latinos or in a Latino community, or says “Ich bin ein Berliner” when in Berlin, it can be a respectful way to communicate that you understand where a community is coming from and appreciate their pride and identity. But if you try to pass yourself off as being “of the barrios” based on your high-school Spanish and your knowing some Latin Americans growing up, when you’re actually a Polish/Irish/German white man who grew up in plurality-white communities, then you’re being a prick- being disrespectful and deceiving people. No one thinks John Kerry or any politician actually has some heavy connection to their community just because the politician rattles off the local pro sports team’s name in a speech there. It’s part of the game and it’s looked at as like a tease or a flirt. But this guy was trying to make people think he was bringing his prize-winning turnips off to the country fair in-between campaign speeches. It’s not like Michael Moore picking out a CCCP-flag trailer-truck and touring around with it to make a point, telling everybody what his doing and what point he’s trying to make wherever he goes. And it’s not like trying to dress apropos to the venue you’re in, like wearing a headscarve to meet people at a mosque or donning something more modest instead of a Hooters-style tank-top to attend a local church service.

  • Deception?- the latest being perpetrated is that Jheri Thompson is an attorney, until it was revealed she did not have a law degree!

  • I don’t guess I fully realized how long Thompson had been out of the Senate. I was thinking it was more like 2004. Five years is almost an eternity in this business though. Wonder what prompted the sudden spasm of public-spiritedness?

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