Showing posts with label FDT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FDT. Show all posts
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Fred Thompson on the Economy
Trying to fix problems caused by excess consumption with more spending is like telling a fat guy that the way to lose weight is to eat more donuts.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Fred Thompson for RNC Chair ?
Hat Tip to The Griffin Room
Yesterday, I spoke extensively with a prominent (understatement) Republican strategist, and he informed me that he believes there is great interest in Sen. Fred Thompson serving as the next Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Fred is a mainstream conservative who made a lot of sense during the Republican debates. Watch for more and more chatter about this because there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with some of the other names who have been floated so far.
BTW, I attended a forum at the Harvard Kennedy School yesterday where Sen. Thompson spoke and answered questions for almost two hours. He was well received and spoke with much passion.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Fred08.com: An Outside Insider’s View
Hat Tip to Michael @ Kung Fu Quip
Fred08.com:
An Outside Insider’s View
A lot has been written about the Thompson campaign in the past two days. I have read a bunch of post-mortems all focused on what went wrong, but I thought I would spend a little time telling you what went right. For people interested in online politics and the way candidates use the web, the Thompson campaign is a great case study in what can go well, and go badly in our world.
On May 22nd, I was sitting at Inova Fairfax hospital as my wife was rehydrated. A vicious stomach flu was circulating through the house and had brought my wife and son down. As we sat there that evening, I received an e-mail on my Blackberry from the brother of a friend of the Thompson’s. A few days earlier, they had seen an article in the Washington Post wherein I chastised my party for not using the Internet effectively.
I had been sweating the fallout from that article for two days. I was not exactly loved by the RNC for my critical assessment of their online operation. That article, which was about 180 degrees removed from the series of conversations I had with the reporter, was not going to help.
The Thompson team, however, agreed with my assessment that campaigns could use the Internet differently and wanted me to come out to “The House” to chat about it. We agreed to meet the next day despite what would become a full-blown case of the flu. The Thompson team, it seems, had circulated that same flu about a week earlier and none of them were afraid of catching it again.
On May 23rd, I met with Team Fred and after a three hour discussion of new and innovative ways you could use the Internet to supplement a traditional campaign, I left with an assignment - build a Presidential website in the height of a media storm, that would withstand a huge rush of traffic the moment it launched, and do it all in 10 days.
The Launch
On June 5, 2007, we launched ImWithFred.com. The site was originally envisioned as a simple splash page that would gather low hanging fruit - early donors and supporters looking to sign up. A requirement that all forms be pre-populated so visitors would not have to fill in information more than once threw in a wrinkle and we ended up building personalization into a splash page - not something most people would do. We also ended up building tools that would allow viral recruitment for both donors and volunteers.
Now these tools were hardly new or innovative, but the combination of designing the data architecture, doing the graphic design work, cutting up the site, coding it all, and allowing time to test for bugs in 10 days (over Memorial Day weekend, no less) was about the craziest thing I have ever tried. The data architecture alone had to support huge traffic, and getting the servers provisioned, hardened and tested would eat into our ability to deploy a test environment. Doing all of this over the holiday made me very popular with the development team.
Speaking of the team, I have to give credit to Dan Hopkins, Blaise Hazelwood, Todd Zeigler, Ken Smith, Brian Lyle and the gang that pulled this together. They did an outstanding job getting the site launched under those conditions and rarely complained (to me at least).
On Hannity and Colmes, Fred announced his website url and the flood came in. We took a lot of heat for the thin site, but we didn’t have time for much else. Had we had a month to design, build and test, we could have done more. Given the time we had, and the limitations of working under the “Testing the Waters” rules, I thought we did fine. We attracted over 100,000 unique visitors, raised over a quarter million dollars, and added nearly 30,000 names to our list in the first 24 hours.
On June 12, we rolled out the Fred File, added Fred’s bio, and added tools to spread the word through traditional media by contacting talk radio and newspapers. I was traveling back from a meeting in Colorado that night on a flight that was seriously delayed. I ended up doing the go-live countdown from a seat just inside the arrival gate at Dulles airport on their wi-fi connection. We made the rollout about 30 minutes ahead of Fred’s appearance on Leno that night.
The blog was a hit almost instantly and led me to believe the path we had chosen was right. Fred’s commentaries were getting a lot of comments and I saw the beginning of an online community I’ve never seen around a GOP candidate’s online operation. What’s more, nobody wrote a single word about what supporters were saying online. Nobody accused us of endorsing the random beliefs espoused by the occasional nut, and nobody on the campaign had to answer a single press call (that I am aware of) about the blog or anything said on it.
ImWithFred.com Version 2.0 - The New McKinley
Described inappropriately as ImWithFred.com 2.0 by some creative types, the actual site was finished the week of July 9th. We had been asked to shoot for having the live site ready the first week of July (timed to be released with the announcement). The site was delayed by a week. The announcement was delayed by two months.
Originally I saw the campaign’s Internet operation as the modern day equivalent of McKinley in 1896. As Fred took his message to the people, they could, at the same moment, come and visit him sitting on the front porch of this virtual house. FDT could simultaneously campaign in Iowa and around the world, by carrying the coffee shop conversations online - posting about questions he was asked at a rally, or continuing to develop regular, and lengthy posts about the issues we face.
While the pundits will discuss and debate exactly where the campaign went wrong, the one thing I believe they misunderstand is the way the Internet could have, and should have, shaped this campaign. That misunderstanding contributed to the “Fred is lazy” storyline early on.
The campaign still had to do the things necessary to win - talking to, registering, IDing, and mobilizing voters. Nobody questioned that. That the campaign strategy was written off as “relying entirely on the Internet” was simply not accurate.
The idea, from my perspective, was to harness the power of the Net to build a robust community that would become an integral part of the ground game. The Bush-Cheney campaign had begun the process of enabling volunteer action online. It pioneered activism tools that allowed voters to create and run phone bank and canvass operations from their home. It allowed people to participate on their own terms, rather than forcing them to attend a Saturday morning walk.
I saw this campaign as the natural evolution of that effort, but it would go further in the one arena where BC04 fell short. The Bush campaign was innovative in allowing people to participate in the mechanics of the campaign, but it never developed the community that could interact, inspire, and spur each other into action. I felt in 2004, and still feel today, that is the missing pieces required to fully realize the benefit of these applications.
The Thompson web operation would be different. With Jon Henke, Howard Mortman and William Beutler constantly opening new channels through local, state and national blogs, and the campaign site providing a vehicle for those attracted to participate in the campaign, we could reach the tipping point where engaged people are empowered to contribute in ways never attempted by the GOP.
Buy In
When I first met with Linda Rozett, Mark Corallo and Ed McFadden, I was distrustful. I unfairly stereotyped them as traditional communications people. It has been my experience in dealing with campaign Communications staff that they have developed a sort of impenetrable cocoon around themselves. Any thought that runs contrary to the way they did things on their first campaign is somehow filtered out as a bad idea. I would describe it as a mild form of mental illness. It’s a cognitive dissonance of the first order and it seems to afflict nearly all of them.
Mark, Ed and Linda didn’t fit that mold. They understood that we needed to be part of the dialog on blogs and online forums like Townhall, but they also understood the need to drive traffic to our own property and to develop a community. The chatter about Fred online, the traffic to the site, and the money coming in led me to believe the theory was right and we could introduce a paradigm shift.
I knew from my RNC days and the Bush days that buy-in for a radically different approach would be critical. I was pleased to see that everyone in the campaign from Fred and Jeri through Linda, Mark and Ed was onboard. It really did make a difference.
The Little Red Truck
Unfortunately, the staff turnover that began in the late summer had an almost immediate effect on the Internet operation.
As the Communications team focused on traditional media tactics, their attention increasingly turned away from the Internet. The commentaries became less frequent, online initiatives were no longer part of the equation.
In October, we began discussions of an end of quarter fundraising drive featuring a real-time disclosure of our success. The concept was shot down over concerns that it would place too much emphasis on money. As we moved through November, we began to hear rumblings of Fredsgiving Day - a third party money bomb effort scheduled the day before Thanksgiving.
It was unclear whether the campaign would support the effort. There were concerns (voiced by many online) that the timing was off - nobody would pay attention the day before the holiday. In the event the campaign decided to jump in, we went ahead and built the little red truck to track contributions that day. It was never deployed.
It was late in December when the little red truck finally saw the sunlight. Over the next three weeks, that little red pickup helped the campaign raise 1.25 million dollars. Had it been unveiled sooner, who knows what might have happened.
Lessons Learned
I share all of this anecdotally in the hopes of illustrating something for GOP campaigns (and more broadly for campaigns in general). I’m afraid that the withdrawal of Fred Thompson will lead people to conclude that the model was wrong. I really don’t feel it was.
As I said, I think the Thompson Internet operation, in the early days, and in the final days, was really second to none. Political campaign professionals should study the Thompson effort not as a case study in what went badly, but as an example of what was going very well, and could have been extraordinary had it not been for the media’s obsessive demand for ‘the tried and true tactics of the 1980s’.
As an example of the strength of Thompson’s online effort, look at the Thompson campaign blog and you’ll see something remarkable for GOP candidates - comments. And not just a few comments, but hundreds and even thousands of comments.
Rudy’s blog doesn’t allow comments. Romney’s gets a few per post. Ron Paul just recently launched a blog (despite the fact that blog software is largely free). He currently gets between a handful and a few dozen comments.
I don’t think this indicates a lack of supporter enthusiasm as much as it indicates that the campaigns have created a blog with nothing to say on sites that are so scrubbed of interesting content they’re alsmost sterile. Most of the posts are rehashed press releases, rehashed campaign e-mails, or occasionally a video so overscripted it becomes almost completely unwatchable.
Most campaigns think of comments as a way for people to respond to the post. Almost nobody on the GOP side sees this as a way for their supporters to network, to share ideas, or to brainstorm ways to help the campaign.
Most Republicans fear the rogue comment that will be used to tarnish their campaign. What they fail to realize is in a vibrant community that rogue comment is always surrounded by dozens of voices or more shouting them down. If anything, they typically dispel arguments that your base is crazy.
For the rabidly partisan Democrats reading this, please don’t mischaracterize this post as “Republican Internet guru just discovers blogs and comments.” That is not at all the point. The point is something much larger that I have been shouting at my party for several years now - they need to trust and engage the people. Since the people are online, they need to engage people online. There are just as many Democtrats who need to learn this lesson (cough, cough, Hillary, cough, cough).
They need to build online operations so they invite people to the discussion rather than turning them off of it. Get candidates to write, in their own words, frequent posts. Understand that a ground game is critical, but it must be viewed in terms of ROI. A thoughtful, honest post from a candidate may be discussed and passed around by thousands of people online. It takes little time to write if it’s sincere and not obsessive studied and focus grouped.
If your candidate honestly doesn’t have time to write, have staff carry a video camera and a MacBook to post from the road. Forgo the hair, the makeup, and the lighting. You’re on a bus 50 miles from Waterloo. Nobody is going to believe that your makeup is perfect and so is the lighting. Be real. We don’t expect perfection, but we do expect honesty.
My last piece of advice is this… In your interview process, ask your Communications Director to name his five favorite blogs. If they can’t, ask them for a suggestion on how best to target communications to specific demographic segments using banner ads. If they can’t answer either of those questions, don’t hire them. They don’t get what’s going on in the world around them.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Bloggers, Candidates, Elections, Fred Thompson, News Media, Operatives, Politics, Republicans, The Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
NPR's Audie Cornish followed former Tenn. Sen Fred Thompson during this past summer when he was still thinking about starting his run for the Republican presidential nomination - which he dropped this past week. She offers this analysis of why he wasn't able to capitalize on the initial surge of interest in his candidacy.
First, Thompson focused a lot on conservative blogs and radio, and some Fox News shows. It was very difficult to get him or through to that campaign in those first few weeks. After a certain amount of time Thompson's so-called "earned media" diminished - and he pretty much fell off the radar. The campaign sort of squandered the attention they had from the mainstream media at the start.
Second, Thompson did not defy the "lazy" label with his campaign schedule. While he made strong and hard pushes in the final week or two before Iowa and again in South Carolina, I would be very surprised if his schedule matched up to say a Mitt Romney or a John McCain - or any of the Democrats. Just a week before his announcement in September his campaign manager-to-be Bill Lacy told me this in an interview when I asked about the "lazy" thing.
By not putting in the trail time and making good use of initial media interest I think Thompson made it less likely he would be able to exploit potentially "big" debate performances that could have elevated him above the pack.
-- Audie Cornish
Fred08.com:
An Outside Insider’s View
A lot has been written about the Thompson campaign in the past two days. I have read a bunch of post-mortems all focused on what went wrong, but I thought I would spend a little time telling you what went right. For people interested in online politics and the way candidates use the web, the Thompson campaign is a great case study in what can go well, and go badly in our world.
On May 22nd, I was sitting at Inova Fairfax hospital as my wife was rehydrated. A vicious stomach flu was circulating through the house and had brought my wife and son down. As we sat there that evening, I received an e-mail on my Blackberry from the brother of a friend of the Thompson’s. A few days earlier, they had seen an article in the Washington Post wherein I chastised my party for not using the Internet effectively.
I had been sweating the fallout from that article for two days. I was not exactly loved by the RNC for my critical assessment of their online operation. That article, which was about 180 degrees removed from the series of conversations I had with the reporter, was not going to help.
The Thompson team, however, agreed with my assessment that campaigns could use the Internet differently and wanted me to come out to “The House” to chat about it. We agreed to meet the next day despite what would become a full-blown case of the flu. The Thompson team, it seems, had circulated that same flu about a week earlier and none of them were afraid of catching it again.
On May 23rd, I met with Team Fred and after a three hour discussion of new and innovative ways you could use the Internet to supplement a traditional campaign, I left with an assignment - build a Presidential website in the height of a media storm, that would withstand a huge rush of traffic the moment it launched, and do it all in 10 days.
The Launch
On June 5, 2007, we launched ImWithFred.com. The site was originally envisioned as a simple splash page that would gather low hanging fruit - early donors and supporters looking to sign up. A requirement that all forms be pre-populated so visitors would not have to fill in information more than once threw in a wrinkle and we ended up building personalization into a splash page - not something most people would do. We also ended up building tools that would allow viral recruitment for both donors and volunteers.
Now these tools were hardly new or innovative, but the combination of designing the data architecture, doing the graphic design work, cutting up the site, coding it all, and allowing time to test for bugs in 10 days (over Memorial Day weekend, no less) was about the craziest thing I have ever tried. The data architecture alone had to support huge traffic, and getting the servers provisioned, hardened and tested would eat into our ability to deploy a test environment. Doing all of this over the holiday made me very popular with the development team.
Speaking of the team, I have to give credit to Dan Hopkins, Blaise Hazelwood, Todd Zeigler, Ken Smith, Brian Lyle and the gang that pulled this together. They did an outstanding job getting the site launched under those conditions and rarely complained (to me at least).
On Hannity and Colmes, Fred announced his website url and the flood came in. We took a lot of heat for the thin site, but we didn’t have time for much else. Had we had a month to design, build and test, we could have done more. Given the time we had, and the limitations of working under the “Testing the Waters” rules, I thought we did fine. We attracted over 100,000 unique visitors, raised over a quarter million dollars, and added nearly 30,000 names to our list in the first 24 hours.
On June 12, we rolled out the Fred File, added Fred’s bio, and added tools to spread the word through traditional media by contacting talk radio and newspapers. I was traveling back from a meeting in Colorado that night on a flight that was seriously delayed. I ended up doing the go-live countdown from a seat just inside the arrival gate at Dulles airport on their wi-fi connection. We made the rollout about 30 minutes ahead of Fred’s appearance on Leno that night.
The blog was a hit almost instantly and led me to believe the path we had chosen was right. Fred’s commentaries were getting a lot of comments and I saw the beginning of an online community I’ve never seen around a GOP candidate’s online operation. What’s more, nobody wrote a single word about what supporters were saying online. Nobody accused us of endorsing the random beliefs espoused by the occasional nut, and nobody on the campaign had to answer a single press call (that I am aware of) about the blog or anything said on it.
ImWithFred.com Version 2.0 - The New McKinley
Described inappropriately as ImWithFred.com 2.0 by some creative types, the actual site was finished the week of July 9th. We had been asked to shoot for having the live site ready the first week of July (timed to be released with the announcement). The site was delayed by a week. The announcement was delayed by two months.
Originally I saw the campaign’s Internet operation as the modern day equivalent of McKinley in 1896. As Fred took his message to the people, they could, at the same moment, come and visit him sitting on the front porch of this virtual house. FDT could simultaneously campaign in Iowa and around the world, by carrying the coffee shop conversations online - posting about questions he was asked at a rally, or continuing to develop regular, and lengthy posts about the issues we face.
While the pundits will discuss and debate exactly where the campaign went wrong, the one thing I believe they misunderstand is the way the Internet could have, and should have, shaped this campaign. That misunderstanding contributed to the “Fred is lazy” storyline early on.
The campaign still had to do the things necessary to win - talking to, registering, IDing, and mobilizing voters. Nobody questioned that. That the campaign strategy was written off as “relying entirely on the Internet” was simply not accurate.
The idea, from my perspective, was to harness the power of the Net to build a robust community that would become an integral part of the ground game. The Bush-Cheney campaign had begun the process of enabling volunteer action online. It pioneered activism tools that allowed voters to create and run phone bank and canvass operations from their home. It allowed people to participate on their own terms, rather than forcing them to attend a Saturday morning walk.
I saw this campaign as the natural evolution of that effort, but it would go further in the one arena where BC04 fell short. The Bush campaign was innovative in allowing people to participate in the mechanics of the campaign, but it never developed the community that could interact, inspire, and spur each other into action. I felt in 2004, and still feel today, that is the missing pieces required to fully realize the benefit of these applications.
The Thompson web operation would be different. With Jon Henke, Howard Mortman and William Beutler constantly opening new channels through local, state and national blogs, and the campaign site providing a vehicle for those attracted to participate in the campaign, we could reach the tipping point where engaged people are empowered to contribute in ways never attempted by the GOP.
Buy In
When I first met with Linda Rozett, Mark Corallo and Ed McFadden, I was distrustful. I unfairly stereotyped them as traditional communications people. It has been my experience in dealing with campaign Communications staff that they have developed a sort of impenetrable cocoon around themselves. Any thought that runs contrary to the way they did things on their first campaign is somehow filtered out as a bad idea. I would describe it as a mild form of mental illness. It’s a cognitive dissonance of the first order and it seems to afflict nearly all of them.
Mark, Ed and Linda didn’t fit that mold. They understood that we needed to be part of the dialog on blogs and online forums like Townhall, but they also understood the need to drive traffic to our own property and to develop a community. The chatter about Fred online, the traffic to the site, and the money coming in led me to believe the theory was right and we could introduce a paradigm shift.
I knew from my RNC days and the Bush days that buy-in for a radically different approach would be critical. I was pleased to see that everyone in the campaign from Fred and Jeri through Linda, Mark and Ed was onboard. It really did make a difference.
The Little Red Truck
Unfortunately, the staff turnover that began in the late summer had an almost immediate effect on the Internet operation.
As the Communications team focused on traditional media tactics, their attention increasingly turned away from the Internet. The commentaries became less frequent, online initiatives were no longer part of the equation.
In October, we began discussions of an end of quarter fundraising drive featuring a real-time disclosure of our success. The concept was shot down over concerns that it would place too much emphasis on money. As we moved through November, we began to hear rumblings of Fredsgiving Day - a third party money bomb effort scheduled the day before Thanksgiving.
It was unclear whether the campaign would support the effort. There were concerns (voiced by many online) that the timing was off - nobody would pay attention the day before the holiday. In the event the campaign decided to jump in, we went ahead and built the little red truck to track contributions that day. It was never deployed.
It was late in December when the little red truck finally saw the sunlight. Over the next three weeks, that little red pickup helped the campaign raise 1.25 million dollars. Had it been unveiled sooner, who knows what might have happened.
Lessons Learned
I share all of this anecdotally in the hopes of illustrating something for GOP campaigns (and more broadly for campaigns in general). I’m afraid that the withdrawal of Fred Thompson will lead people to conclude that the model was wrong. I really don’t feel it was.
As I said, I think the Thompson Internet operation, in the early days, and in the final days, was really second to none. Political campaign professionals should study the Thompson effort not as a case study in what went badly, but as an example of what was going very well, and could have been extraordinary had it not been for the media’s obsessive demand for ‘the tried and true tactics of the 1980s’.
As an example of the strength of Thompson’s online effort, look at the Thompson campaign blog and you’ll see something remarkable for GOP candidates - comments. And not just a few comments, but hundreds and even thousands of comments.
Rudy’s blog doesn’t allow comments. Romney’s gets a few per post. Ron Paul just recently launched a blog (despite the fact that blog software is largely free). He currently gets between a handful and a few dozen comments.
I don’t think this indicates a lack of supporter enthusiasm as much as it indicates that the campaigns have created a blog with nothing to say on sites that are so scrubbed of interesting content they’re alsmost sterile. Most of the posts are rehashed press releases, rehashed campaign e-mails, or occasionally a video so overscripted it becomes almost completely unwatchable.
Most campaigns think of comments as a way for people to respond to the post. Almost nobody on the GOP side sees this as a way for their supporters to network, to share ideas, or to brainstorm ways to help the campaign.
Most Republicans fear the rogue comment that will be used to tarnish their campaign. What they fail to realize is in a vibrant community that rogue comment is always surrounded by dozens of voices or more shouting them down. If anything, they typically dispel arguments that your base is crazy.
For the rabidly partisan Democrats reading this, please don’t mischaracterize this post as “Republican Internet guru just discovers blogs and comments.” That is not at all the point. The point is something much larger that I have been shouting at my party for several years now - they need to trust and engage the people. Since the people are online, they need to engage people online. There are just as many Democtrats who need to learn this lesson (cough, cough, Hillary, cough, cough).
They need to build online operations so they invite people to the discussion rather than turning them off of it. Get candidates to write, in their own words, frequent posts. Understand that a ground game is critical, but it must be viewed in terms of ROI. A thoughtful, honest post from a candidate may be discussed and passed around by thousands of people online. It takes little time to write if it’s sincere and not obsessive studied and focus grouped.
If your candidate honestly doesn’t have time to write, have staff carry a video camera and a MacBook to post from the road. Forgo the hair, the makeup, and the lighting. You’re on a bus 50 miles from Waterloo. Nobody is going to believe that your makeup is perfect and so is the lighting. Be real. We don’t expect perfection, but we do expect honesty.
My last piece of advice is this… In your interview process, ask your Communications Director to name his five favorite blogs. If they can’t, ask them for a suggestion on how best to target communications to specific demographic segments using banner ads. If they can’t answer either of those questions, don’t hire them. They don’t get what’s going on in the world around them.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Bloggers, Candidates, Elections, Fred Thompson, News Media, Operatives, Politics, Republicans, The Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thompson Failed to
Capitalize On Initial
Media Interest
01-25-2008
Capitalize On Initial
Media Interest
01-25-2008
NPR's Audie Cornish followed former Tenn. Sen Fred Thompson during this past summer when he was still thinking about starting his run for the Republican presidential nomination - which he dropped this past week. She offers this analysis of why he wasn't able to capitalize on the initial surge of interest in his candidacy.
First, Thompson focused a lot on conservative blogs and radio, and some Fox News shows. It was very difficult to get him or through to that campaign in those first few weeks. After a certain amount of time Thompson's so-called "earned media" diminished - and he pretty much fell off the radar. The campaign sort of squandered the attention they had from the mainstream media at the start.
Second, Thompson did not defy the "lazy" label with his campaign schedule. While he made strong and hard pushes in the final week or two before Iowa and again in South Carolina, I would be very surprised if his schedule matched up to say a Mitt Romney or a John McCain - or any of the Democrats. Just a week before his announcement in September his campaign manager-to-be Bill Lacy told me this in an interview when I asked about the "lazy" thing.
He knows how important it is to prepare and be ready for big events. I think that preparation is important and that is going to involve - maybe I don't ask him to have a grinding schedule every day where he spends 18 or 20 hours out because frankly I'd much rather have him able to be deliver better performances.
By not putting in the trail time and making good use of initial media interest I think Thompson made it less likely he would be able to exploit potentially "big" debate performances that could have elevated him above the pack.
-- Audie Cornish
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
to the woodshed, rinos!
Hat Tip to my buddy Beth @ 'my vast right wing conspiracy'
Posted by Beth on January 23rd, 2008
Excuse me while I join the Anchoress in escorting Reaganites In Name Only (oops! I mean angry conservatives! or did I?) to the woodshed. I’ll be the one holding a whip, just itching to use it.
Attention, fellow former Fredheads–you who say you’re a Reagan conservative, but refuse to learn the art of politics and teamwork in the pursuit of achieving big-picture common goals: If you plan on sitting out the elections, or, God forbid, voting Democrat to “teach a lesson” or whatever, you are not a Reagan conservative. You are not a real Fredhead, either. Neither of these men would do such a thing.
Don’t believe me? Don’t just take my word for it, although I know this to be an absolute truth–here’s another thing the Anchoress mentions:
Oh, how soon those dragging around Reagan’s corpse forget.
I find it literally jaw-dropping when I read someone invoking the name of Ronald Reagan, while in the same sentence (!) petulantly announcing that none of the candidates are conservative enough and that voting this year is simply not an option. Or even more amusingly, announcing that Candidate X has “betrayed” conservatives or “stabbed us in the back,” while betraying conservatism themselves. Huh??? Epic FAIL.
I’ll allow the Anchoress to finish. (Read the comments, too.) God bless her for saving me from a head explosion.
And thank you, Wuzzadem, for making me laugh as you always do. After the last couple of days, I needed it. :)
Posted by Beth on January 23rd, 2008
Excuse me while I join the Anchoress in escorting Reaganites In Name Only (oops! I mean angry conservatives! or did I?) to the woodshed. I’ll be the one holding a whip, just itching to use it.
It seems the standard GOP voter - and apparently Rush Limbaugh - wants to disinter Ronald Reagan from his noble tomb and hoist him onto the campaign trail because he is their saint and savior, and if they can’t vote for someone exactly like him “Ronaldus Magnus” well, they’re going to sit out this all-important election.
Excuse me, but Ronald Reagan would have had no patience for the likes of you.
Attention, fellow former Fredheads–you who say you’re a Reagan conservative, but refuse to learn the art of politics and teamwork in the pursuit of achieving big-picture common goals: If you plan on sitting out the elections, or, God forbid, voting Democrat to “teach a lesson” or whatever, you are not a Reagan conservative. You are not a real Fredhead, either. Neither of these men would do such a thing.
Don’t believe me? Don’t just take my word for it, although I know this to be an absolute truth–here’s another thing the Anchoress mentions:
Ronald Reagan above all was a pragmatist and a realist. He understood something that some voters seem to have forgotten:
“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.“
– Ronald Reagan, An American Life
Oh, how soon those dragging around Reagan’s corpse forget.
I find it literally jaw-dropping when I read someone invoking the name of Ronald Reagan, while in the same sentence (!) petulantly announcing that none of the candidates are conservative enough and that voting this year is simply not an option. Or even more amusingly, announcing that Candidate X has “betrayed” conservatives or “stabbed us in the back,” while betraying conservatism themselves. Huh??? Epic FAIL.
I’ll allow the Anchoress to finish. (Read the comments, too.) God bless her for saving me from a head explosion.
And thank you, Wuzzadem, for making me laugh as you always do. After the last couple of days, I needed it. :)
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Fred Thompson on Jay Leno: "I'm running for President of the United States."
Transcript
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you.
JAY LENO: Thanks for coming. I hope you didn't hear the monologue.
FRED THOMPSON: I did. We'll let the Tennessee joke slide until after the election.
JAY LENO: Right.
FRED THOMPSON: You know, I appreciated that last segment you did, though. Every once in a while I need something that just makes me glad I got out of television. (Laughter.)
JAY LENO: Oh, really. Thanks. That's very kind of you. I've got to ask you something. You were here in June. You said then you were testing the water. You've been in the water for a while now. Are you starting to get a little wrinkly? (Laughter.)
FRED THOMPSON: These wrinkles don't come from the water. (Laughter.)
JAY LENO: They don't come from the water. All right. What's the temperature? Is it tepid? What does the water tell you.
FRED THOMPSON: Nice and warm.
JAY LENO: Nice and warm?
FRED THOMPSON: It hasn't been that long really. We've done in a few months, where a lot of people have been working on it since they were in the choir in high school. So we're where we need to be right now, and that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I'm running for President of the United States.
JAY LENO: All right. (Applause.)
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you.
JAY LENO: I'm excited. Wow.
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you.
JAY LENO: Well, that's very exciting. Now, it took a long time to decide this.
FRED THOMPSON: Not really. We started -- we mentioned it the first time in March. A lot of people have been, of course, running for some time. Everybody kind of changed the rules. Usually you don't announce until after Labor Day, but they started running a lot earlier, spending millions of dollars and so forth, and everyone said that you couldn't run this year without raising a hundred million dollars and starting much earlier. I don't believe that. I wasn't in the room when they made the rules; so I had to kind of follow my own lead. So we started around the kitchen table in late March talking about it, thinking about it, thinking about what kind of world and what kind of country our kids were going to grow up in and how many people have a chance to do something about it. And I decided that it was time for me to step up. So I did. (Applause.)
JAY LENO: A lot of the pundits say, "Oh, well, you waited too long."
FRED THOMPSON: No, I don't think so. Of course, we'll find out, but I don't think people are going to say, you know, "That guy would make a very good President, but he just didn't get in soon enough." (Laughter.) Communications being what they are nowadays, if you can't get your message out in a few months, you're probably not ever going to get it out. Most people don't start paying attention to these elections until they get a little closer. They treat politicians kind of like the dentist -- they don't have anything to do with them until they have to, until the election is near. (Laughter.)
JAY LENO: Well, you haven't spent any money yet, and you're second in the polls. There must be something to the theory.
FRED THOMPSON: Not too bad. Well, you can't tell much by polls these days, but obviously the people are going to give me an opportunity to talk to them about the things that I think are important. I think there will be decisions made in the next few years that are going to impact our lives and the lives of our kids and grandkids for a long, long time. They're going to determine whether or not we're a weaker, less prosperous, more-divided nation than we have been. We can't let that happen on our watch.
JAY LENO: Now, if you -- Giuliani, Romney, McCain -- which of those guys is the toughest opponent? Which do you fear the most?
FRED THOMPSON: I don't know. I know them all to a certain extent. John McCain and I sit side by side on the Senate floor. He's a good friend and will be after this is over with unless, of course, he beats me.
JAY LENO: Right. (Laughter.)
FRED THOMPSON: Then I'll have to take another look at it, but I can't gauge them. I still think it's kind of early. You know, if you look back in history, some of these primary states, early primary states, have changed from what the polls were from like three weeks out.
JAY LENO: Right.
FRED THOMPSON: They're all formidable, but I think I will be, too. So the nation is not going to be hurt by having one more good person step into the race.
JAY LENO: Now you're on the cover of "Newsweek." It says "Lazy Like a Fox," which is -- I used to get this in school. "Jay has the ability but does not apply himself. (Laughter.) "If Jay spent as much time" -- Do you consider yourself a good -- do you like to campaign, or is it one of those necessary evils?
FRED THOMPSON: No, I like the part where you get out with the people.
JAY LENO: Right.
FRED THOMPSON: That's kind of been my history, you know, the red pick-up truck and all, you know, more than just symbolism. First of all, it got me away from the staff. They couldn't ride along in the truck. It also got me out with the people.
JAY LENO: You took a truck and drove around?
FRED THOMPSON: Took my truck and with one guy. A lot of times he drove; sometimes I drove. We'd go from town to town and announce ahead of time we were showing up, pull up in the square. I'd get in the back of the truck in the bed and make a speech, and we'd move on. And we went from 20 points down against a popular incumbent congressman to 20 points ahead on election night. And then, two years later, we ran again in another contested race, won by another 20 points. I won in Tennessee -- if I can brag a little bit on myself politically -- by 20 points in two races in a state that Bill Clinton carried twice. So I must like campaigning enough to get the job done. And the same thing is true with regard to what we're facing now. Of course, the stakes are much more important, I think, much more serious when you're running for President, and I take it that way. I'm going to do my dead-level best to make sure that the people get an opportunity to make the decision. You know,
the pundits have all decided one way or another. The media and a lot of people make their living off of politics nowadays, and that's fine. But if I can get out with the folks, sometimes I'll communicate to them on the air waves, where tonight, I think, right after the show is over, we're going to have on our website -- Fred08.com -- I'm on for about 15 minutes telling the folks what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. So we're using that. And then we're going tonight, Jeri and the kids are backstage here. We're going to go to Iowa. So we'll do that plus grassroots campaigning which is what we're going to do in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina for the next, oh, seven days.
JAY LENO: You mentioned New Hampshire now. Your fellow Republicans are debating tonight, and they're a little miffed at you for being here instead of being there. What do you say?
FRED THOMPSON: Well, we'll have an opportunity to debate a lot. I've been debating in courtrooms in the country since I was 28 years old and political forums and so forth. So they're fine, and we'll do our fair share.
JAY LENO: What do you think of them? As someone who watches these debates, I must admit it's a little thirty-second --
FRED THOMPSON: I don't think much of them.
JAY LENO: How would you like to debate? FRED THOMPSON: I would do it in small groups preferably one-on-one and set aside a segment of time -- Newt Gingrich has a good idea. He talks about the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The circumstances are different, but the principal is still the same: A thoughtful discussion over a period time to get to know what people are really thinking and what they're really like. The segments now, you know, you've got ten guys if everybody shows up, you know, with 30, 40 second sound bites. It's not designed to enlighten the American people. It's more designed for the people who are putting the debates on, and you run from one to another to another to another, and that's all well and good. I'll do my share, but I don't think it's a very enlightening forum to tell you truth. And I'll tell you something else. For those who talk about that New Hampshire situation, I'm certainly not disrespecting them, but it's a lot more difficult to get on the
"Tonight Show" than it is to get into a presidential debate. (Applause.)
JAY LENO: Exactly. We'll be right back with Fred Thompson right after this. (Commercial break.)
JAY LENO: We're back with newly announced Presidential candidate Fred Thompson. And that is the most presidential suit I've ever seen.
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you very much.
JAY LENO: That's the one they issue when you're going to run?
FRED THOMPSON: The official Presidential suit.
JAY LENO: Let me ask you. I've got some bumper stickers. Let's see if you like any of these here. "Fred Thompson Because Giuliani is Too Hard to Spell." (Laughter.) I like this one, "Fred Thompson. He has a narrow stance." (Laughter.) Probably can't comment on that one.
FRED THOMPSON: Uh-uh.
JAY LENO: We'll try one more. "Because I'm not Dr. Phil." (Laughter.)
FRED THOMPSON: I have been mistaken for Dr. Phil.
JAY LENO: Really.
FRED THOMPSON: Yes.
JAY LENO: If it works, use it.Let me ask you about some serious matters. The Iraq war, obviously the biggest issue in the campaign -- were you for it?
FRED THOMPSON: Yeah.
JAY LENO: You were for it.
FRED THOMPSON: I think we got to remember what it would be like if we had not done what we did. Saddam would still be there, having defeated the United Nations, all the resolutions. It would have defeated the United States in effect. It would have been in a position to continue its nuclear weapons program. His two sons would still have been doing what they were doing -- putting people in human shredders and attacking their neighbors. And I think, especially in light of what Iran is doing right now, they certainly would have been in a nuclear competition in that part of the world, sitting on those oil reserves. To think that, had we not gone in there, we wouldn't have any problems or anything, I think is dead wrong.
JAY LENO: Do we stay?
FRED THOMPSON: I think we stay until we get the job done, Jay. I don't think --
JAY LENO: What is the definition of "get the job done"? I think that's the part that is confusing people.
FRED THOMPSON: Until it is pacified enough for those people who walk through those lines with people shooting at them in some cases who voted, put their finger in the ink and so forth, the first time in that part of the world, in the history of the world, until they have an opportunity to have a free life and to not be killed by al-Qaeda and others fighting in that part of the world. I think that's doable. I think it's tough, but I think we can't afford to go into a situation and not show resolve. I think the most dangerous thing in the world that could happen to the United States of America is for people to think we're weak and divided. Iraq is a part of a much bigger picture -- Iraq and Afghanistan. There's a global war going on. We are the main target and those who would befriend us. The enemy is ruthless. Al-Qaeda is here in this country. National intelligence estimates tell us that. They are strong. They're trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction. I don't know how much -- how more stark the situation could be. That's going to be the situation we're going to have to deal with for sometime regardless of what happens in Iraq, but if the wrong result happens in Iraq and we're perceived the wrong way by friends and enemies alike, it's going to make the situation more difficult, and we're going to be more vulnerable. It's a tough deal, but a it's a choice of two bad choices. It's not a good and a bad.
JAY LENO: Well, how about Iran? Do you see possible military action there as well? I mean, at what point does it stop?
FRED THOMPSON: You can't ever tell what the facts on the ground are going to be a year or two years from where we're sitting here. Obviously our intelligence know some things that you and I don't know. I was chairman of a committee that dealt with some of these issues for the Secretary of State until I resigned to do this. I had a high security clearance, but I don't know exactly where they are in their nuclear program. I don't think our intelligence knows precisely, but they're moving in that direction, and they're clearly responsible for more and more of our problems. They are sending in these improvised explosive devices. They're training Iraqi militants in Iran and sending them back in to Iraq. They're sponsoring Hezbollah and probably as we speak are planning another attack on Israel. They support Hamas. They support terrorism all around the world. They've got a fellow who is not put together well upstairs running the country and has threatened the destruction of
Israel. I mean, sometimes, when these maniacs make threats, they mean it, and it comes to pass later on. So we've got to take that situation very seriously, but obviously a military attack is the last thing in the world that you want to have to do, and there's some things that we can do that probably will not necessitate that.
JAY LENO: I just wonder what we do to get a -- I grew up -- when I was a kid, John F. Kennedy was President. It was the Peace Corps, and we would send American college students to these countries, and they would love us. I think we made friendships that were good for 25, 30 years because Americans had befriended these countries. And it seems like we are not well-liked around the world. Maybe I'm naive and maybe because I'm in show business, but it seems like I would want people to like us as a country because they think we're a -- I know we're a good country, but I wonder what we have to do to get these allies, these other countries to maybe -- what are we doing wrong?
FRED THOMPSON: Well, part of that comes with being the strongest, most powerful, most prosperous country in the history of the world. I think that goes with the territory. We're more unpopular than we need to be. That's for sure, but our people have shed more blood for the liberty and freedom of other peoples in this country than all the other countries put together. (Applause.) And I don't feel any need to apologize for the United States of America. We don't make --
JAY LENO: I wasn't suggesting that --
FRED THOMPSON: I know you weren't. We make mistakes. I think we can do some things better. I think part of what we've got to do with regard to the global terrorist problem I talked about is for all the forces of civilization, all of our friends and people who love freedom need to understand that this is a battle against freedom and tyranny worldwide, that the good guys need to be on one side. To the extent that we can do better in reaching out and convincing people, sharing intelligence and sharing military operations and so forth and equipment and know-how and technology, we certainly need to do that. We have shown how difficult it is to shoulder these burdens or the greatest share of these burdens by ourselves, and we need to do that. But we need to keep it in perspective. We're probably never going to be loved by everyone as long as we're that way. Look, on the other hand, at a place like France. We've gotten more criticism probably from French leaders and French
people or press than anybody else; yet they elected a person that came over here, shook President Bush's hand before the election, went back, and said, "We want to be friends with the United States," and they elected him. (Applause.) So we may have misjudged -- we may have taken some of that rhetoric coming from the leaders of that country from what the real people think. So it's not a totally clear picture.
JAY LENO: So you're off to Iowa tonight?
FRED THOMPSON: Off to Iowa.
JAY LENO: It starts right now.
FRED THOMPSON: It starts right now. (Applause.)
JAY LENO: Senator, good luck in your campaign, sir. (Applause.) Come back and see us any time.
FRED THOMPSON: Appreciate it. Thank you.
Transcript
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you.
JAY LENO: Thanks for coming. I hope you didn't hear the monologue.
FRED THOMPSON: I did. We'll let the Tennessee joke slide until after the election.
JAY LENO: Right.
FRED THOMPSON: You know, I appreciated that last segment you did, though. Every once in a while I need something that just makes me glad I got out of television. (Laughter.)
JAY LENO: Oh, really. Thanks. That's very kind of you. I've got to ask you something. You were here in June. You said then you were testing the water. You've been in the water for a while now. Are you starting to get a little wrinkly? (Laughter.)
FRED THOMPSON: These wrinkles don't come from the water. (Laughter.)
JAY LENO: They don't come from the water. All right. What's the temperature? Is it tepid? What does the water tell you.
FRED THOMPSON: Nice and warm.
JAY LENO: Nice and warm?
FRED THOMPSON: It hasn't been that long really. We've done in a few months, where a lot of people have been working on it since they were in the choir in high school. So we're where we need to be right now, and that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I'm running for President of the United States.
JAY LENO: All right. (Applause.)
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you.
JAY LENO: I'm excited. Wow.
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you.
JAY LENO: Well, that's very exciting. Now, it took a long time to decide this.
FRED THOMPSON: Not really. We started -- we mentioned it the first time in March. A lot of people have been, of course, running for some time. Everybody kind of changed the rules. Usually you don't announce until after Labor Day, but they started running a lot earlier, spending millions of dollars and so forth, and everyone said that you couldn't run this year without raising a hundred million dollars and starting much earlier. I don't believe that. I wasn't in the room when they made the rules; so I had to kind of follow my own lead. So we started around the kitchen table in late March talking about it, thinking about it, thinking about what kind of world and what kind of country our kids were going to grow up in and how many people have a chance to do something about it. And I decided that it was time for me to step up. So I did. (Applause.)
JAY LENO: A lot of the pundits say, "Oh, well, you waited too long."
FRED THOMPSON: No, I don't think so. Of course, we'll find out, but I don't think people are going to say, you know, "That guy would make a very good President, but he just didn't get in soon enough." (Laughter.) Communications being what they are nowadays, if you can't get your message out in a few months, you're probably not ever going to get it out. Most people don't start paying attention to these elections until they get a little closer. They treat politicians kind of like the dentist -- they don't have anything to do with them until they have to, until the election is near. (Laughter.)
JAY LENO: Well, you haven't spent any money yet, and you're second in the polls. There must be something to the theory.
FRED THOMPSON: Not too bad. Well, you can't tell much by polls these days, but obviously the people are going to give me an opportunity to talk to them about the things that I think are important. I think there will be decisions made in the next few years that are going to impact our lives and the lives of our kids and grandkids for a long, long time. They're going to determine whether or not we're a weaker, less prosperous, more-divided nation than we have been. We can't let that happen on our watch.
JAY LENO: Now, if you -- Giuliani, Romney, McCain -- which of those guys is the toughest opponent? Which do you fear the most?
FRED THOMPSON: I don't know. I know them all to a certain extent. John McCain and I sit side by side on the Senate floor. He's a good friend and will be after this is over with unless, of course, he beats me.
JAY LENO: Right. (Laughter.)
FRED THOMPSON: Then I'll have to take another look at it, but I can't gauge them. I still think it's kind of early. You know, if you look back in history, some of these primary states, early primary states, have changed from what the polls were from like three weeks out.
JAY LENO: Right.
FRED THOMPSON: They're all formidable, but I think I will be, too. So the nation is not going to be hurt by having one more good person step into the race.
JAY LENO: Now you're on the cover of "Newsweek." It says "Lazy Like a Fox," which is -- I used to get this in school. "Jay has the ability but does not apply himself. (Laughter.) "If Jay spent as much time" -- Do you consider yourself a good -- do you like to campaign, or is it one of those necessary evils?
FRED THOMPSON: No, I like the part where you get out with the people.
JAY LENO: Right.
FRED THOMPSON: That's kind of been my history, you know, the red pick-up truck and all, you know, more than just symbolism. First of all, it got me away from the staff. They couldn't ride along in the truck. It also got me out with the people.
JAY LENO: You took a truck and drove around?
FRED THOMPSON: Took my truck and with one guy. A lot of times he drove; sometimes I drove. We'd go from town to town and announce ahead of time we were showing up, pull up in the square. I'd get in the back of the truck in the bed and make a speech, and we'd move on. And we went from 20 points down against a popular incumbent congressman to 20 points ahead on election night. And then, two years later, we ran again in another contested race, won by another 20 points. I won in Tennessee -- if I can brag a little bit on myself politically -- by 20 points in two races in a state that Bill Clinton carried twice. So I must like campaigning enough to get the job done. And the same thing is true with regard to what we're facing now. Of course, the stakes are much more important, I think, much more serious when you're running for President, and I take it that way. I'm going to do my dead-level best to make sure that the people get an opportunity to make the decision. You know,
the pundits have all decided one way or another. The media and a lot of people make their living off of politics nowadays, and that's fine. But if I can get out with the folks, sometimes I'll communicate to them on the air waves, where tonight, I think, right after the show is over, we're going to have on our website -- Fred08.com -- I'm on for about 15 minutes telling the folks what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. So we're using that. And then we're going tonight, Jeri and the kids are backstage here. We're going to go to Iowa. So we'll do that plus grassroots campaigning which is what we're going to do in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina for the next, oh, seven days.
JAY LENO: You mentioned New Hampshire now. Your fellow Republicans are debating tonight, and they're a little miffed at you for being here instead of being there. What do you say?
FRED THOMPSON: Well, we'll have an opportunity to debate a lot. I've been debating in courtrooms in the country since I was 28 years old and political forums and so forth. So they're fine, and we'll do our fair share.
JAY LENO: What do you think of them? As someone who watches these debates, I must admit it's a little thirty-second --
FRED THOMPSON: I don't think much of them.
JAY LENO: How would you like to debate? FRED THOMPSON: I would do it in small groups preferably one-on-one and set aside a segment of time -- Newt Gingrich has a good idea. He talks about the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The circumstances are different, but the principal is still the same: A thoughtful discussion over a period time to get to know what people are really thinking and what they're really like. The segments now, you know, you've got ten guys if everybody shows up, you know, with 30, 40 second sound bites. It's not designed to enlighten the American people. It's more designed for the people who are putting the debates on, and you run from one to another to another to another, and that's all well and good. I'll do my share, but I don't think it's a very enlightening forum to tell you truth. And I'll tell you something else. For those who talk about that New Hampshire situation, I'm certainly not disrespecting them, but it's a lot more difficult to get on the
"Tonight Show" than it is to get into a presidential debate. (Applause.)
JAY LENO: Exactly. We'll be right back with Fred Thompson right after this. (Commercial break.)
JAY LENO: We're back with newly announced Presidential candidate Fred Thompson. And that is the most presidential suit I've ever seen.
FRED THOMPSON: Thank you very much.
JAY LENO: That's the one they issue when you're going to run?
FRED THOMPSON: The official Presidential suit.
JAY LENO: Let me ask you. I've got some bumper stickers. Let's see if you like any of these here. "Fred Thompson Because Giuliani is Too Hard to Spell." (Laughter.) I like this one, "Fred Thompson. He has a narrow stance." (Laughter.) Probably can't comment on that one.
FRED THOMPSON: Uh-uh.
JAY LENO: We'll try one more. "Because I'm not Dr. Phil." (Laughter.)
FRED THOMPSON: I have been mistaken for Dr. Phil.
JAY LENO: Really.
FRED THOMPSON: Yes.
JAY LENO: If it works, use it.Let me ask you about some serious matters. The Iraq war, obviously the biggest issue in the campaign -- were you for it?
FRED THOMPSON: Yeah.
JAY LENO: You were for it.
FRED THOMPSON: I think we got to remember what it would be like if we had not done what we did. Saddam would still be there, having defeated the United Nations, all the resolutions. It would have defeated the United States in effect. It would have been in a position to continue its nuclear weapons program. His two sons would still have been doing what they were doing -- putting people in human shredders and attacking their neighbors. And I think, especially in light of what Iran is doing right now, they certainly would have been in a nuclear competition in that part of the world, sitting on those oil reserves. To think that, had we not gone in there, we wouldn't have any problems or anything, I think is dead wrong.
JAY LENO: Do we stay?
FRED THOMPSON: I think we stay until we get the job done, Jay. I don't think --
JAY LENO: What is the definition of "get the job done"? I think that's the part that is confusing people.
FRED THOMPSON: Until it is pacified enough for those people who walk through those lines with people shooting at them in some cases who voted, put their finger in the ink and so forth, the first time in that part of the world, in the history of the world, until they have an opportunity to have a free life and to not be killed by al-Qaeda and others fighting in that part of the world. I think that's doable. I think it's tough, but I think we can't afford to go into a situation and not show resolve. I think the most dangerous thing in the world that could happen to the United States of America is for people to think we're weak and divided. Iraq is a part of a much bigger picture -- Iraq and Afghanistan. There's a global war going on. We are the main target and those who would befriend us. The enemy is ruthless. Al-Qaeda is here in this country. National intelligence estimates tell us that. They are strong. They're trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction. I don't know how much -- how more stark the situation could be. That's going to be the situation we're going to have to deal with for sometime regardless of what happens in Iraq, but if the wrong result happens in Iraq and we're perceived the wrong way by friends and enemies alike, it's going to make the situation more difficult, and we're going to be more vulnerable. It's a tough deal, but a it's a choice of two bad choices. It's not a good and a bad.
JAY LENO: Well, how about Iran? Do you see possible military action there as well? I mean, at what point does it stop?
FRED THOMPSON: You can't ever tell what the facts on the ground are going to be a year or two years from where we're sitting here. Obviously our intelligence know some things that you and I don't know. I was chairman of a committee that dealt with some of these issues for the Secretary of State until I resigned to do this. I had a high security clearance, but I don't know exactly where they are in their nuclear program. I don't think our intelligence knows precisely, but they're moving in that direction, and they're clearly responsible for more and more of our problems. They are sending in these improvised explosive devices. They're training Iraqi militants in Iran and sending them back in to Iraq. They're sponsoring Hezbollah and probably as we speak are planning another attack on Israel. They support Hamas. They support terrorism all around the world. They've got a fellow who is not put together well upstairs running the country and has threatened the destruction of
Israel. I mean, sometimes, when these maniacs make threats, they mean it, and it comes to pass later on. So we've got to take that situation very seriously, but obviously a military attack is the last thing in the world that you want to have to do, and there's some things that we can do that probably will not necessitate that.
JAY LENO: I just wonder what we do to get a -- I grew up -- when I was a kid, John F. Kennedy was President. It was the Peace Corps, and we would send American college students to these countries, and they would love us. I think we made friendships that were good for 25, 30 years because Americans had befriended these countries. And it seems like we are not well-liked around the world. Maybe I'm naive and maybe because I'm in show business, but it seems like I would want people to like us as a country because they think we're a -- I know we're a good country, but I wonder what we have to do to get these allies, these other countries to maybe -- what are we doing wrong?
FRED THOMPSON: Well, part of that comes with being the strongest, most powerful, most prosperous country in the history of the world. I think that goes with the territory. We're more unpopular than we need to be. That's for sure, but our people have shed more blood for the liberty and freedom of other peoples in this country than all the other countries put together. (Applause.) And I don't feel any need to apologize for the United States of America. We don't make --
JAY LENO: I wasn't suggesting that --
FRED THOMPSON: I know you weren't. We make mistakes. I think we can do some things better. I think part of what we've got to do with regard to the global terrorist problem I talked about is for all the forces of civilization, all of our friends and people who love freedom need to understand that this is a battle against freedom and tyranny worldwide, that the good guys need to be on one side. To the extent that we can do better in reaching out and convincing people, sharing intelligence and sharing military operations and so forth and equipment and know-how and technology, we certainly need to do that. We have shown how difficult it is to shoulder these burdens or the greatest share of these burdens by ourselves, and we need to do that. But we need to keep it in perspective. We're probably never going to be loved by everyone as long as we're that way. Look, on the other hand, at a place like France. We've gotten more criticism probably from French leaders and French
people or press than anybody else; yet they elected a person that came over here, shook President Bush's hand before the election, went back, and said, "We want to be friends with the United States," and they elected him. (Applause.) So we may have misjudged -- we may have taken some of that rhetoric coming from the leaders of that country from what the real people think. So it's not a totally clear picture.
JAY LENO: So you're off to Iowa tonight?
FRED THOMPSON: Off to Iowa.
JAY LENO: It starts right now.
FRED THOMPSON: It starts right now. (Applause.)
JAY LENO: Senator, good luck in your campaign, sir. (Applause.) Come back and see us any time.
FRED THOMPSON: Appreciate it. Thank you.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/gallup/2007/09/potential-impac.html?csp=34
Potential impact of Fred Thompson's entry into the race
by Frank Newport
Fred Thompson will spice up the race for the Republican nomination for president this week – with his appearance on the Jay Leno show and then his formal announcement on Thursday in Iowa that he is running for president.
Thompson’s appearances this week come as no surprise to anyone. His interest in the presidency has been so well known that we have included him in our USA Today/Gallup trial heat polls of Republicans since late March. And he’s done quite well in all of those polls. Thompson received 13% of the GOP vote in that very first March poll, immediately establishing himself in third place – behind Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Now, in our latest poll in August, Thompson's in second place at 19% -- behind Giuliani, but ahead of McCain and Mitt Romney.
I think it’s reasonable that Thompson may move up further over the weekend, given the publicity that will surround his “official” announcement. The key question is how close he will come to supplanting Rudy Giuliani as the front-runner. In the last August poll, there was a 13% point gap separating the two men. We’ll see as the dust settles by next week whether that gap has diminished significantly.
(Of course, there is a Republican debate sponsored by Fox News Wednesday night in New Hampshire. And any time candidates get together before a camera, there is the possibility of a major gaffe or attention-generating event that could shake up the race. John McCain has been more and more direct in his criticisms of his fellow Republicans as he tries a new strategy to shake up his “on the decline” campaign. It would not be unreasonable to find McCain coming out swinging, so to speak, at the debate.)
Thompson has some hidden strengths. An important Gallup analysis – reported here last week – shows that even at this point only 56% of Republicans know enough about Thompson to be able to rate him. That compares to 91% who have an opinion about Giuliani. When we shrank the sample down just to those Republicans who knew Giuliani, Thompson, McCain and Romney, lo and behold Giuliani’s lead fell away and Thompson led the pack.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Thompson will become the front runner as he becomes better known. But it does suggest at least the possibility that he will gain and that Giuliani will drop on a relative basis as the latter's name identification advantage disappears.
We also know that Giuliani does less well among highly religious Republicans. Thompson does better. In fact the lead between Giuliani and Thompson is only 4 points among Republicans who attend church every week. This could have a bearing on the inclinations of Republican voters in some of the early primary states.
Potential impact of Fred Thompson's entry into the race
by Frank Newport
Fred Thompson will spice up the race for the Republican nomination for president this week – with his appearance on the Jay Leno show and then his formal announcement on Thursday in Iowa that he is running for president.
Thompson’s appearances this week come as no surprise to anyone. His interest in the presidency has been so well known that we have included him in our USA Today/Gallup trial heat polls of Republicans since late March. And he’s done quite well in all of those polls. Thompson received 13% of the GOP vote in that very first March poll, immediately establishing himself in third place – behind Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Now, in our latest poll in August, Thompson's in second place at 19% -- behind Giuliani, but ahead of McCain and Mitt Romney.
I think it’s reasonable that Thompson may move up further over the weekend, given the publicity that will surround his “official” announcement. The key question is how close he will come to supplanting Rudy Giuliani as the front-runner. In the last August poll, there was a 13% point gap separating the two men. We’ll see as the dust settles by next week whether that gap has diminished significantly.
(Of course, there is a Republican debate sponsored by Fox News Wednesday night in New Hampshire. And any time candidates get together before a camera, there is the possibility of a major gaffe or attention-generating event that could shake up the race. John McCain has been more and more direct in his criticisms of his fellow Republicans as he tries a new strategy to shake up his “on the decline” campaign. It would not be unreasonable to find McCain coming out swinging, so to speak, at the debate.)
Thompson has some hidden strengths. An important Gallup analysis – reported here last week – shows that even at this point only 56% of Republicans know enough about Thompson to be able to rate him. That compares to 91% who have an opinion about Giuliani. When we shrank the sample down just to those Republicans who knew Giuliani, Thompson, McCain and Romney, lo and behold Giuliani’s lead fell away and Thompson led the pack.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Thompson will become the front runner as he becomes better known. But it does suggest at least the possibility that he will gain and that Giuliani will drop on a relative basis as the latter's name identification advantage disappears.
We also know that Giuliani does less well among highly religious Republicans. Thompson does better. In fact the lead between Giuliani and Thompson is only 4 points among Republicans who attend church every week. This could have a bearing on the inclinations of Republican voters in some of the early primary states.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thompson Announcement Coming September 6th
Former U. S. Senator Fred Thompson will announce as an official candidate for president on September 6th.
The veteran actor has been "exploring" the race in recent months.
Despite his unofficial status, Thompson has placed high, or first, in several national, regional and state polls, including one of GOP activists in Oklahoma.
Thompson's Oklahoma leaders include Tulsa attorney Steve Edwards and Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud.
Thompson has named strategist Todd Harris to head his communications department. Harris, a former aide to Senator John McCain and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will replace Linda Rozett who left Thompson's operation earlier this week. Harris served as deputy communications director to McCain during the Arizona senator's 2000 presidential race. He was communications director to then-Governor Jeb Bush for the 2002 gubernatorial campaign in Florida. Harris worked for Schwarzenegger from 2003 to 2005.
Late this afternoon, Thompson's campaign sent the following message: On September 6, 2007, Fred Thompson will be announcing his intention to run for President of the United States with a webcast available to millions at www.imwithfred.com. The launch of the video will be followed by a five-day campaign tour through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. On the evening of the 6th, there will also be a National House Party, during which there will be a conference call with Fred.
We enter this campaign in a strong position. Fred is consistently near the top in the polls, and conservatives across the country have put together the closest thing to a draft in recent presidential campaign history in an effort to bring about this day. The next few weeks will only serve to build upon those efforts, with house parties, visits to the early primary states, and a homecoming in Lawrenceburg, TN on the 15th. To view the dates and locations of Fred's bus tour, please click here, and check back soon for more information on attending one of these events.
By announcing via webcast, Fred is able to take his consistently mainstream conservative message directly to the voters, who are already responding to that message with a strong upwelling of grassroots support. The webcast and the following campaign tour will play to Fred’s strengths, a consistent record of conservatism, his ability to clearly spread his message, and his ability to work with and connect with Americans from all walks of life. Sincerely, Bill LacyManager, Friends of Fred Thompson, Inc.
The veteran actor has been "exploring" the race in recent months.
Despite his unofficial status, Thompson has placed high, or first, in several national, regional and state polls, including one of GOP activists in Oklahoma.
Thompson's Oklahoma leaders include Tulsa attorney Steve Edwards and Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud.
Thompson has named strategist Todd Harris to head his communications department. Harris, a former aide to Senator John McCain and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will replace Linda Rozett who left Thompson's operation earlier this week. Harris served as deputy communications director to McCain during the Arizona senator's 2000 presidential race. He was communications director to then-Governor Jeb Bush for the 2002 gubernatorial campaign in Florida. Harris worked for Schwarzenegger from 2003 to 2005.
Late this afternoon, Thompson's campaign sent the following message: On September 6, 2007, Fred Thompson will be announcing his intention to run for President of the United States with a webcast available to millions at www.imwithfred.com. The launch of the video will be followed by a five-day campaign tour through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. On the evening of the 6th, there will also be a National House Party, during which there will be a conference call with Fred.
We enter this campaign in a strong position. Fred is consistently near the top in the polls, and conservatives across the country have put together the closest thing to a draft in recent presidential campaign history in an effort to bring about this day. The next few weeks will only serve to build upon those efforts, with house parties, visits to the early primary states, and a homecoming in Lawrenceburg, TN on the 15th. To view the dates and locations of Fred's bus tour, please click here, and check back soon for more information on attending one of these events.
By announcing via webcast, Fred is able to take his consistently mainstream conservative message directly to the voters, who are already responding to that message with a strong upwelling of grassroots support. The webcast and the following campaign tour will play to Fred’s strengths, a consistent record of conservatism, his ability to clearly spread his message, and his ability to work with and connect with Americans from all walks of life. Sincerely, Bill LacyManager, Friends of Fred Thompson, Inc.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Fred Thompson's Rope-a-dope
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/27362.html
Fred Thompson's Rope-a-dope
August 17, 2007 02:00 PM EST
by Star Parker
It's said that in life, timing is everything. And it could be that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson's entry into the 2008 presidential race, expected in early September, will prove to be timed perfectly.
According to a just released poll from the Pew Research Center, 52 percent of Americans have a negative reaction to the presidential campaign thus far and only 19 percent have anything positive to say. And the main complaint of the disgruntled 52 percent is that the campaign simply started too early.
This could be Thompson's "rope-a-dope." Recall this maneuver of Muhammad Ali's in his famous "rumble in the jungle" in Zaire with then heavyweight champion George Foreman. Ali leaned back on the ropes in the early rounds, his forearms up covering his face, and let Foreman pound himself to exhaustion. Ali then stepped up, fresh and strong, and knocked Foreman out.
Thompson has been sitting on the sidelines while the large field of announced candidates on both sides have been traipsing from debate to debate in a campaign begun earlier than ever.
When Thompson announces next month and formally enters the race, his timing alone might be appreciated by a public wondering why they have been forced to start listening to candidates more than a year and half before they'll go to the polls to vote.
In a Washington Post poll done last week, only one in five Republicans say they are "very satisfied" with their candidates. And although the Democratic field is more settled (almost half of Democrats say they are "very satisfied" with their candidates), the negative ratings for their front runner and likely nominee, Sen. Hillary Clinton, remain at almost 50 percent.
So, Fred Thompson, a seasoned actor, may really know how to respond on cue. With Act One, Scene One played out, he may enter the stage in Scene Two and wake up the audience.
And, from what the Washington Post's David Broder reports, it may be more than just timing that wakes up this audience.
According to Broder, who reports on a two hour interview he just did with Thompson, the ex-senator and actor is going to be bold. He's got a nice life as a star in the popular "Law and Order" TV series, a beautiful young wife and young children, and is not running for president out of some ego-driven need.
He is stepping up to the plate out of a sense that there are things that need to be said that aren't being said, and that, if elected, he'll have a shot at getting these things done.
Anyone who has been reading what I have written these last few months knows my incredulity that the massive entitlements crisis facing this nation has not been part of the campaign discussion. It's been like hearing the social director of the Titanic announce shuffleboard times as the ship is going down.
It sounds like Thompson is ready to put the facts on the table before the American public and, yes, fasten your seatbelts, tell the truth.
He's going to talk about Medicare and Social Security and what we need to do to tighten our belts and get our lives back under control. And he's going to talk about national security and weigh in as a traditional values candidate.
This kind of honesty and candor is only possible with a candidate for whom the truth is more important than the job. And it sounds like Fred is ready.
Clinton, who in all likelihood will be the Democratic nominee, has just released her first campaign ad. In the short video, she lays out her cards about what her campaign will be about.
First, she'll run against George Bush. Second, she'll tell the American people they can rely on her to fix their problems. According to her ad, we're all "invisible" to the Bush administration.
The ad couldn't help but remind me of an exchange that occurred at the time when Clinton was making her first push at Hillary-care during her husband's administration. It took place between then Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, and Paul Starr, who was one of the crafters of the Clinton plan to nationalize health care.
Starr was pitching the government-as-mother-hen view of the world that defined Hillary then and, as evident in her new ad, defines her now.
Gramm said to Starr, "Don't tell me that you care as much about my grandchildren's health care as I do." Starr replied, "Excuse me, senator. But I do care about your grandchildren's health care." Gramm then rejoined, "Then tell me, what are their names."
No, Senator Clinton. The president of the United States cannot be and should not be our mother.
Freedom is for adults. It sounds like Fred Thompson is about to remind us all of this important truth.
Star Parker is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org) and author of three books. She can be reached at parker(at)urbancure.org.
Fred Thompson's Rope-a-dope
August 17, 2007 02:00 PM EST
by Star Parker
It's said that in life, timing is everything. And it could be that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson's entry into the 2008 presidential race, expected in early September, will prove to be timed perfectly.
According to a just released poll from the Pew Research Center, 52 percent of Americans have a negative reaction to the presidential campaign thus far and only 19 percent have anything positive to say. And the main complaint of the disgruntled 52 percent is that the campaign simply started too early.
This could be Thompson's "rope-a-dope." Recall this maneuver of Muhammad Ali's in his famous "rumble in the jungle" in Zaire with then heavyweight champion George Foreman. Ali leaned back on the ropes in the early rounds, his forearms up covering his face, and let Foreman pound himself to exhaustion. Ali then stepped up, fresh and strong, and knocked Foreman out.
Thompson has been sitting on the sidelines while the large field of announced candidates on both sides have been traipsing from debate to debate in a campaign begun earlier than ever.
When Thompson announces next month and formally enters the race, his timing alone might be appreciated by a public wondering why they have been forced to start listening to candidates more than a year and half before they'll go to the polls to vote.
In a Washington Post poll done last week, only one in five Republicans say they are "very satisfied" with their candidates. And although the Democratic field is more settled (almost half of Democrats say they are "very satisfied" with their candidates), the negative ratings for their front runner and likely nominee, Sen. Hillary Clinton, remain at almost 50 percent.
So, Fred Thompson, a seasoned actor, may really know how to respond on cue. With Act One, Scene One played out, he may enter the stage in Scene Two and wake up the audience.
And, from what the Washington Post's David Broder reports, it may be more than just timing that wakes up this audience.
According to Broder, who reports on a two hour interview he just did with Thompson, the ex-senator and actor is going to be bold. He's got a nice life as a star in the popular "Law and Order" TV series, a beautiful young wife and young children, and is not running for president out of some ego-driven need.
He is stepping up to the plate out of a sense that there are things that need to be said that aren't being said, and that, if elected, he'll have a shot at getting these things done.
Anyone who has been reading what I have written these last few months knows my incredulity that the massive entitlements crisis facing this nation has not been part of the campaign discussion. It's been like hearing the social director of the Titanic announce shuffleboard times as the ship is going down.
It sounds like Thompson is ready to put the facts on the table before the American public and, yes, fasten your seatbelts, tell the truth.
He's going to talk about Medicare and Social Security and what we need to do to tighten our belts and get our lives back under control. And he's going to talk about national security and weigh in as a traditional values candidate.
This kind of honesty and candor is only possible with a candidate for whom the truth is more important than the job. And it sounds like Fred is ready.
Clinton, who in all likelihood will be the Democratic nominee, has just released her first campaign ad. In the short video, she lays out her cards about what her campaign will be about.
First, she'll run against George Bush. Second, she'll tell the American people they can rely on her to fix their problems. According to her ad, we're all "invisible" to the Bush administration.
The ad couldn't help but remind me of an exchange that occurred at the time when Clinton was making her first push at Hillary-care during her husband's administration. It took place between then Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, and Paul Starr, who was one of the crafters of the Clinton plan to nationalize health care.
Starr was pitching the government-as-mother-hen view of the world that defined Hillary then and, as evident in her new ad, defines her now.
Gramm said to Starr, "Don't tell me that you care as much about my grandchildren's health care as I do." Starr replied, "Excuse me, senator. But I do care about your grandchildren's health care." Gramm then rejoined, "Then tell me, what are their names."
No, Senator Clinton. The president of the United States cannot be and should not be our mother.
Freedom is for adults. It sounds like Fred Thompson is about to remind us all of this important truth.
Star Parker is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org) and author of three books. She can be reached at parker(at)urbancure.org.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Fred Thompson's Gamble
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/15/AR2007081501925.html
Fred Thompson's Gamble,
By David S. Broder
Thursday, August 16, 2007; Page A15
When Fred Thompson makes his long-delayed entrance into the Republican presidential race, he will not tiptoe quietly. Instead, he will try to shake up the establishment candidates of both parties by depicting a nation in peril from fiscal and security threats -- and prescribing tough cures that he says others shrink from offering.
In a two-hour conversation over coffee at a restaurant near his Virginia headquarters, the former senator from Tennessee said that when he joins the battle next month, he "will take some risks that others are not willing to take, in terms of forcing a dialogue on our entitlement situation, our military situation and what it's going to cost" to ensure the nation's future.
After spending most of the past few years on TV's "Law and Order," and starting a new family, with two children under 4, the 65-year-old lawyer says he finds himself motivated for the first time to seek the White House.
"There's no reason for me to run just to be president," he said. "I don't desire the emoluments of the office. I don't want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there -- different, more far-reaching ideas -- that is worth doing."
Thompson, like many of the others running, has caught a strong whiff of the public disillusionment with both parties in Washington -- and the partisanship that has infected Congress, helping to speed his own departure from the Senate.
But he says he thinks the public is looking for a different kind of leadership. "I think a president could go to the American people and say, 'Here's what we need to be doing. And I'm willing to go halfway. Now you have to make them [the opposition] go halfway.' "
The approach Thompson says he's contemplating is one that will step on many sensitive political toes. When he says "we're getting a free ride" fighting a necessary war in Iraq with an undersized military establishment, "wearing out our people and equipment," it sounds like a criticism of the president and the Pentagon.
When he says he would have opposed adding the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, "a $17 trillion add-on to a program that's going bankrupt," he is fighting the bipartisan judgment of the last Congress.
When he says the FBI is perhaps incapable of morphing itself into the smart domestic security agency the country needs, he is attacking another sacred cow.
Thompson repeatedly cites two texts as fueling his concern about the country's future. One is "Government at the Brink," a two-volume report he issued as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee at the start of the Bush administration in 2001 and handed to the new president's budget director as a checklist of urgent management problems.
The difficulties outlined in federal procurement, personnel, finances and information technology remain, Thompson said, and increasingly "threaten national security."
His second sourcebook contains the scary reports from Comptroller General David Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, on the long-term fiscal crisis spawned by the aging of the American population and the runaway costs of health care. Walker labels the current patterns of federal spending "unsustainable" and warns that unless action is taken soon to improve both sides of the government's fiscal ledger -- spending and revenue -- the next generation will suffer.
"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges."
Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could ensure a better future for their children.
But these issues -- national security and the fiscal crisis of an aging society with runaway heath-care costs -- "are worth a portion of a man's life. If I can't get elected talking that way, I probably don't deserve to be elected."
Thompson says he feels "free to do it" his own way, and that freedom may just be enough to shake up the presidential race.
davidbroder@washpost.com
Fred Thompson's Gamble,
By David S. Broder
Thursday, August 16, 2007; Page A15
When Fred Thompson makes his long-delayed entrance into the Republican presidential race, he will not tiptoe quietly. Instead, he will try to shake up the establishment candidates of both parties by depicting a nation in peril from fiscal and security threats -- and prescribing tough cures that he says others shrink from offering.
In a two-hour conversation over coffee at a restaurant near his Virginia headquarters, the former senator from Tennessee said that when he joins the battle next month, he "will take some risks that others are not willing to take, in terms of forcing a dialogue on our entitlement situation, our military situation and what it's going to cost" to ensure the nation's future.
After spending most of the past few years on TV's "Law and Order," and starting a new family, with two children under 4, the 65-year-old lawyer says he finds himself motivated for the first time to seek the White House.
"There's no reason for me to run just to be president," he said. "I don't desire the emoluments of the office. I don't want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there -- different, more far-reaching ideas -- that is worth doing."
Thompson, like many of the others running, has caught a strong whiff of the public disillusionment with both parties in Washington -- and the partisanship that has infected Congress, helping to speed his own departure from the Senate.
But he says he thinks the public is looking for a different kind of leadership. "I think a president could go to the American people and say, 'Here's what we need to be doing. And I'm willing to go halfway. Now you have to make them [the opposition] go halfway.' "
The approach Thompson says he's contemplating is one that will step on many sensitive political toes. When he says "we're getting a free ride" fighting a necessary war in Iraq with an undersized military establishment, "wearing out our people and equipment," it sounds like a criticism of the president and the Pentagon.
When he says he would have opposed adding the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, "a $17 trillion add-on to a program that's going bankrupt," he is fighting the bipartisan judgment of the last Congress.
When he says the FBI is perhaps incapable of morphing itself into the smart domestic security agency the country needs, he is attacking another sacred cow.
Thompson repeatedly cites two texts as fueling his concern about the country's future. One is "Government at the Brink," a two-volume report he issued as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee at the start of the Bush administration in 2001 and handed to the new president's budget director as a checklist of urgent management problems.
The difficulties outlined in federal procurement, personnel, finances and information technology remain, Thompson said, and increasingly "threaten national security."
His second sourcebook contains the scary reports from Comptroller General David Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, on the long-term fiscal crisis spawned by the aging of the American population and the runaway costs of health care. Walker labels the current patterns of federal spending "unsustainable" and warns that unless action is taken soon to improve both sides of the government's fiscal ledger -- spending and revenue -- the next generation will suffer.
"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges."
Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could ensure a better future for their children.
But these issues -- national security and the fiscal crisis of an aging society with runaway heath-care costs -- "are worth a portion of a man's life. If I can't get elected talking that way, I probably don't deserve to be elected."
Thompson says he feels "free to do it" his own way, and that freedom may just be enough to shake up the presidential race.
davidbroder@washpost.com
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Thompson Sees First Poll Lead in S.C.
http://campaignsandelections.com/sc/articles/index.cfm?id=519
Thompson Sees First Poll Lead in S.C.
By - John Boyanoski
(August 15, 2007)
The still not-yet-a-candidate of 2008 has grabbed his first South Carolina poll lead, which could have a huge impact on the 2008 race for the White House.
Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee led all Republicans with 22 percent, while U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton led Democratic candidates with 36 percent, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday. Clinton has led most South Carolina polls during the campaign, but this is the first for Thompson, who has been slowly building his numbers and support since the spring.
"This is very significant," said David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University. "But I am not surprised by it. He is a Southerner and that appeals to the base here, plus has a strong appeal with the Christian right."
Among the 749 Republican respondents, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was second with 18 percent, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 17 percent.
Chip Felkel, a Greenville-based Republican political consultant, said those are significant numbers for those campaigns as well. Not many people have been giving Giuliani a chance in South Carolina because he doesn't really appeal to staunch conservatives, but he has consistently polled first or second, he said. Meanwhile, Romney has struggled to get above 15 percent despite heavy campaigning, so it's big news that he is moving up, Felkel said.
Felkel wondered how much of Thompson's victory, though, had to do with his own candidacy, rather than voter discontent with the rest of the Republican field. Felkel said he feels Thompson's push has a lot to do with the struggles of U.S. Sen. John McCain, who came in at 11 percent in the poll. McCain had been in the lows 30s in the spring.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee came in with 7 percent; U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas with 3 percent; U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas with 2 percent, and U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado with 1 percent rounded out the Republican field.
Among 436 Democratic respondents, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois finished second to Clinton with 33 percent. Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was the only other Democrat to get double digits when he snared 12 percent. U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had 3 percent, while U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich had 1 percent.
However, Obama grabbed almost 55 percent of the black voters in the state, which is significant because it is unlikely a Democrat will win South Carolina in 2008, but its January Democratic primary is seen as important because it is the first primary state with a significant black population.
Clinton grabbed 29 percent of the black vote, according to the poll.
John Boyanoski can be reached at jboyanoski@scpols.com
Thompson Sees First Poll Lead in S.C.
By - John Boyanoski
(August 15, 2007)
The still not-yet-a-candidate of 2008 has grabbed his first South Carolina poll lead, which could have a huge impact on the 2008 race for the White House.
Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee led all Republicans with 22 percent, while U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton led Democratic candidates with 36 percent, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday. Clinton has led most South Carolina polls during the campaign, but this is the first for Thompson, who has been slowly building his numbers and support since the spring.
"This is very significant," said David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University. "But I am not surprised by it. He is a Southerner and that appeals to the base here, plus has a strong appeal with the Christian right."
Among the 749 Republican respondents, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was second with 18 percent, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 17 percent.
Chip Felkel, a Greenville-based Republican political consultant, said those are significant numbers for those campaigns as well. Not many people have been giving Giuliani a chance in South Carolina because he doesn't really appeal to staunch conservatives, but he has consistently polled first or second, he said. Meanwhile, Romney has struggled to get above 15 percent despite heavy campaigning, so it's big news that he is moving up, Felkel said.
Felkel wondered how much of Thompson's victory, though, had to do with his own candidacy, rather than voter discontent with the rest of the Republican field. Felkel said he feels Thompson's push has a lot to do with the struggles of U.S. Sen. John McCain, who came in at 11 percent in the poll. McCain had been in the lows 30s in the spring.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee came in with 7 percent; U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas with 3 percent; U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas with 2 percent, and U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado with 1 percent rounded out the Republican field.
Among 436 Democratic respondents, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois finished second to Clinton with 33 percent. Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was the only other Democrat to get double digits when he snared 12 percent. U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had 3 percent, while U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich had 1 percent.
However, Obama grabbed almost 55 percent of the black voters in the state, which is significant because it is unlikely a Democrat will win South Carolina in 2008, but its January Democratic primary is seen as important because it is the first primary state with a significant black population.
Clinton grabbed 29 percent of the black vote, according to the poll.
John Boyanoski can be reached at jboyanoski@scpols.com
Friday, July 27, 2007
Mary Matalin Sticking With Fred Thompson
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/07/mary_matalin_stays_put.html
Matalin Sticking With Fred Thompson
Rumors are flying about more senior level departures from the unofficial presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
But The Fix can knock down one of the major ones: Mary Matalin, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and longtime Republican political operative, is staying put.
Reached in Croatia (are we good or what?), Matalin said she chats daily with the Thompson organization and remains 100 percent on board.
Our sense of the ongoing Thompson staff shuffle is that it is teetering on the brink of becoming just plain bad news. The sharks are circling and whispers about the too-prominent role of Thompson's wife -- Jeri -- are everywhere. With news of every departure, the story tilts away from Thompson's best interests.
The audience for this story remains largely confined within the Beltway for the moment, which is good for Thompson. But staff stirrings can lead to stories about disorganization, unhappiness and general disorder, and that is a narrative that does Thompson's "campaign" no good, especially as he prepares to launch his bid formally sometime in the next month or so.
Thompson's GOP "savior" image started taking on water in Washington over the last week or so and may take on some more before it's all over. But, in truth, the key to Thompson's appeal -- and chances at the Republican nomination -- are tied less to whether Washington likes him than to how his candidacy is received by social conservatives in early states like Iowa and South Carolina.
Thompson's candidacy is aimed at filling a perceived void among the current top tier when it comes to a voice for social conservatives. As long as these voters still see Fred as their guy, the chatter inside the Beltway is much ado about nothing. If, however, the story starts to bleed out into larger questions of whether he and his campaign are up to the task, it's much more problematic.
Matalin Sticking With Fred Thompson
Rumors are flying about more senior level departures from the unofficial presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
But The Fix can knock down one of the major ones: Mary Matalin, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and longtime Republican political operative, is staying put.
Reached in Croatia (are we good or what?), Matalin said she chats daily with the Thompson organization and remains 100 percent on board.
Our sense of the ongoing Thompson staff shuffle is that it is teetering on the brink of becoming just plain bad news. The sharks are circling and whispers about the too-prominent role of Thompson's wife -- Jeri -- are everywhere. With news of every departure, the story tilts away from Thompson's best interests.
The audience for this story remains largely confined within the Beltway for the moment, which is good for Thompson. But staff stirrings can lead to stories about disorganization, unhappiness and general disorder, and that is a narrative that does Thompson's "campaign" no good, especially as he prepares to launch his bid formally sometime in the next month or so.
Thompson's GOP "savior" image started taking on water in Washington over the last week or so and may take on some more before it's all over. But, in truth, the key to Thompson's appeal -- and chances at the Republican nomination -- are tied less to whether Washington likes him than to how his candidacy is received by social conservatives in early states like Iowa and South Carolina.
Thompson's candidacy is aimed at filling a perceived void among the current top tier when it comes to a voice for social conservatives. As long as these voters still see Fred as their guy, the chatter inside the Beltway is much ado about nothing. If, however, the story starts to bleed out into larger questions of whether he and his campaign are up to the task, it's much more problematic.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Gingrich says Fred Thompson presidential bid could keep him out of race
www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/NEWS/70721003
Saturday, 07/21/07
Gingrich says Fred Thompson presidential bid could keep him out of race
Former top aide to Gingrich to become Thompson adviser
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that a White House bid by fellow Southerner Fred Thompson would make him less likely to join the race.
"If Fred Thompson runs and he does well, then I think that makes it easier for me to not run," Gingrich said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "On the other hand, just given what you've seen with (John) McCain the last few months, how can you predict?"
Gingrich, a Republican who in recent months has been actively promoting his ideas for reforming government, reiterated that he would wait until early October to make a decision.
He has at times offered conflicting hints about his plans.
In May, he said "it is a great possibility" that he would pursue the presidency. But a month later he said the probability was "4-to-1 odds" against.
"I've always said it was unlikely I would run," the former Georgia congressman said Friday.
Gingrich is scheduled to give a daylong briefing at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday where he plans to contrast the private sector, which he calls "the world that works," with the government, which he calls "the world that fails."
The speech is part of a broader public relations campaign planned for the coming months.
"The system is simply broken," he said, citing failing public schools, the government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina and its inability to control immigration. "I don't think you can fix these systems ... I would outsource large parts of them."
In a related development, Rich Galen, a former top aide to Gingrich, will become a top adviser to Thompson, the former Republican Tennessee senator who is likely to officially enter the presidential race in September.
Saturday, 07/21/07
Gingrich says Fred Thompson presidential bid could keep him out of race
Former top aide to Gingrich to become Thompson adviser
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that a White House bid by fellow Southerner Fred Thompson would make him less likely to join the race.
"If Fred Thompson runs and he does well, then I think that makes it easier for me to not run," Gingrich said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "On the other hand, just given what you've seen with (John) McCain the last few months, how can you predict?"
Gingrich, a Republican who in recent months has been actively promoting his ideas for reforming government, reiterated that he would wait until early October to make a decision.
He has at times offered conflicting hints about his plans.
In May, he said "it is a great possibility" that he would pursue the presidency. But a month later he said the probability was "4-to-1 odds" against.
"I've always said it was unlikely I would run," the former Georgia congressman said Friday.
Gingrich is scheduled to give a daylong briefing at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday where he plans to contrast the private sector, which he calls "the world that works," with the government, which he calls "the world that fails."
The speech is part of a broader public relations campaign planned for the coming months.
"The system is simply broken," he said, citing failing public schools, the government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina and its inability to control immigration. "I don't think you can fix these systems ... I would outsource large parts of them."
In a related development, Rich Galen, a former top aide to Gingrich, will become a top adviser to Thompson, the former Republican Tennessee senator who is likely to officially enter the presidential race in September.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Thompson Catches Giuliani in Latest Harris Poll
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/07/18/thompson-catches-giuliani-in-latest-harris-poll/
July 18, 2007, 10:03 pm
Thompson Catches Giuliani in Latest Harris Poll
Matt Phillips breaks down the latest Harris Interactive poll.
Though not yet an official candidate, actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is now in a statistical dead heat with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani atop the pack of potential Republican presidential nominees, the latest survey from Harris Interactive shows.
Thompson
With 29% of Republican primary or caucus voters saying they’d be most likely to vote for Mr. Thompson, he leads Mr. Giuliani by just one percentage point, according to the July survey. Mr. Thompson’s edge is within the 4.2-percentage-point margin of error on the question, and thus not conclusive, but his months-long surge in popularity is not in dispute. Since the poll Harris Interactive published in May, Mr. Thompson has risen by 11 percentage points among respondents. At the same time, Mr. Giuliani has slid by 10 percentage points since May, when 38% of Republican primary and caucus voters said he would likely get their vote.
Perhaps best known for his portrayal of no-nonsense District Attorney Arthur Branch on the hit NBC series “Law and Order,” Mr. Thompson served as a senator from 1994 to 2003. He has been taking steps — including fundraising — that leave open the possibility of a presidential run. And while he has not yet made an official announcement, his presence has caused a stir among the ranks of Republicans. His Harris Poll ratings this month among potential GOP primary voters put him 12 percentage points ahead of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was once considered a Republican front-runner. Of the Republican primary voters polled in July, 17% responded that they would be most likely to vote for McCain. Mr. Thompson also leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the top fundraiser in the GOP race, by 20 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in the Democratic race, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois slipped further behind Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in July, as more than one-third — 35% — of Democratic primary and caucus voters said she would most likely get their vote. Out of the same pool of people, 28% said they would most likely vote for Mr. Obama, that’s down from 32% in June.
The most recent online poll was conducted July 6-13. In it, Harris surveyed 2,225 adults, out of whom 822 said they would vote in a Democratic primary or caucus and 560 said they would vote in a primary or caucus for Republicans. Questions asked just of potential Democratic primary or caucus voters have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Questions put to potential Republican primary or caucus voters have a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
July 18, 2007, 10:03 pm
Thompson Catches Giuliani in Latest Harris Poll
Matt Phillips breaks down the latest Harris Interactive poll.
Though not yet an official candidate, actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is now in a statistical dead heat with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani atop the pack of potential Republican presidential nominees, the latest survey from Harris Interactive shows.
Thompson
With 29% of Republican primary or caucus voters saying they’d be most likely to vote for Mr. Thompson, he leads Mr. Giuliani by just one percentage point, according to the July survey. Mr. Thompson’s edge is within the 4.2-percentage-point margin of error on the question, and thus not conclusive, but his months-long surge in popularity is not in dispute. Since the poll Harris Interactive published in May, Mr. Thompson has risen by 11 percentage points among respondents. At the same time, Mr. Giuliani has slid by 10 percentage points since May, when 38% of Republican primary and caucus voters said he would likely get their vote.
Perhaps best known for his portrayal of no-nonsense District Attorney Arthur Branch on the hit NBC series “Law and Order,” Mr. Thompson served as a senator from 1994 to 2003. He has been taking steps — including fundraising — that leave open the possibility of a presidential run. And while he has not yet made an official announcement, his presence has caused a stir among the ranks of Republicans. His Harris Poll ratings this month among potential GOP primary voters put him 12 percentage points ahead of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was once considered a Republican front-runner. Of the Republican primary voters polled in July, 17% responded that they would be most likely to vote for McCain. Mr. Thompson also leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the top fundraiser in the GOP race, by 20 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in the Democratic race, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois slipped further behind Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in July, as more than one-third — 35% — of Democratic primary and caucus voters said she would most likely get their vote. Out of the same pool of people, 28% said they would most likely vote for Mr. Obama, that’s down from 32% in June.
The most recent online poll was conducted July 6-13. In it, Harris surveyed 2,225 adults, out of whom 822 said they would vote in a Democratic primary or caucus and 560 said they would vote in a primary or caucus for Republicans. Questions asked just of potential Democratic primary or caucus voters have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Questions put to potential Republican primary or caucus voters have a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Check out FDT on Mark Levin
Check out this audio of Fred Thompson on the Mark Levin show: http://tinyurl.com/3aktbh
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Thompson delays filing as campaign ramps up
www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/4947.html
Thompson delays filing as campaign ramps up
By: Mike Allen
Jul 14, 2007 02:36 PM EST
He has collected millions of dollars. Aides go to work every day in a secret suite of offices in McLean, Va. He has policy briefings. He is preparing for nationally televised Republican debates. He just named a communications director and a political director.
But yet, Fred Thompson still says he’s not sure he’s going to run for president.
The “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee is delaying his formal entry into the race in part because his current status makes him less of a target and lets other candidates continue to get chewed up. “We’re in no hurry,” one close adviser said mischievously.
But there’s another big reason. If he were to formalize his candidacy beyond its current “testing the waters” status, Friends of Fred Thompson Inc. would have to reveal its contributions and expenses this week.
Thompson’s aides say they will not file such a report, and the Democratic National Committee plans to argue aggressively in coming days that he should. Democratic aides argue that Thompson could be violating campaign finance laws by “ducking” a full filing.
Filing as a candidate also triggers other legal requirements, including personal financial disclosure.
In the Senate, Thompson was an advocate of campaign-finance reform, and held four months of hearings on the Democratic campaign finance scandals in 1997.
Democrats point to an FEC regulation saying the “testing the waters” exemption does not apply to funds received for activities indicating that the individual has decided to become a candidate, refers to himself as a candidate, or is raising “funding in excess of what could reasonably be expected to be used for exploratory activities.”
Karen Finney, the DNC communications director, said: “There is an inherent hypocrisy given that Thompson campaigned as a reformer, called for broader disclosure and railed on the campaign finance problems of Democrats.”
A Thompson adviser said he is fully obeying the law. “We’re doing what we supposed to be doing, which is raising enough to build a team,” the adviser said.
Another Thompson official said: “When you’re trying to determine whether you can be a viable candidate for president, you’re talking about a nationwide fundraising effort. The FEC rules recognize that the ability to raise money is an important factor in determining whether a person is a viable candidate for president, just like traveling the country and collecting endorsements. They’re all activities to gauge your potential political strength.”
The Thompson official says one way the former senator may push back against calls for him to show his money is to file with the Internal Revenue Service as a section 527 political organization, a section that includes political parties. (Here are the Center for Responsive Politics definitions for different types of advocacy organizations.)
“If we file with the IRS, that’ll take the wind out of the sails of their disclosure argument,” the official said. If that were going to be done, it would need to be done by July 31.
Although some 527s have looser fundraising requirements than a federal candidate does, Thompson is raising money on his website according to the restrictions for candidates, with individuals allowed to give a maximum of $2,300 per election. The Thompson official said the new organization would not raise any “soft” money, or money with looser regulations.
Thompson advisers said the former senator does not plan to disclose details of campaign finances to the FEC until the report due date of Oct. 15, although the campaign may make an announcement about its very successful fundraising long before that, probably in conjunction with a declaration of his candidacy.
Senior Thompson advisers had talked about announcing the week of the Fourth of July, then sometime in July, then the first week in August. On Friday, one top official even mentioned September. Thompson’s team says it’s up to the former senator, and they really don’t know. The point, they say, is that he’s going to wait as long as possible without deflating the enthusiasm of his many vocal grass-roots supporters.
The advisers say that one factor in their calculation is the rapidly changing terrain of the race, and they point out that Thompson has already become a leading target for both Democrats and Republicans. Since he’s coming in first in some polls, including in Florida, and needs to overcome some complaints from former colleagues that he is insufficiently studious or energetic, he wants to debut with a first-class organization as one way of showing his seriousness.
Thompson’s testing of the waters is becoming increasingly thorough. He now has an office-park suite that can be expanded as the campaign ramps up. That office will house parts of the press, research, policy and strategy staffs. But a large bulk of the operation will be headquartered in Nashville, Tenn.
Thompson’s team continues to hire heavily, and is targeting refugees from the floundering campaign of Sen. John McCain. “We’re taking the survivors into the lifeboats,” chortled one Thompson adviser.
A Thompson source disclosed to The Politico that the communications director will be Linda Schoumacher Rozett, a former journalist who has been vice president of communications for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Rozett’s role will be largely behind the scenes, and the Thompson team plans to hire another communicator to be “the face of the campaign,” the source said.
Day-to-day media contacts will be handled by Burson Taylor Snyder, a Capitol Hill veteran who was communications director for House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.
Mark Corallo of Corallo Comstock Inc. in Alexandria, Va., has been serving as Thompson’s spokesman, but may end up as a senior consultant to the campaign.
In a report confirmed by Thompson aides, syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported Saturday that the political director will be Randy Enwright, a Republican political consultant from Florida who knows Iowa and is close to the Bush family.
Members of the campaign continue to discuss whether Thompson should participate in a debate on Aug. 5 in Des Moines, Iowa, sponsored by ABC News and moderated by George Stephanopoulos. One member of the Thompson team had told The Politico early this month that the former senator was beginning to prepare for it. And some of the announcement-date conversations had taken that debate into account.
But now it sounds like Thompson may not participate, although his advisers will not give a definitive account of their thinking. One factor his team is discussing is how much criticism he would take for avoiding questioning by Stephanopoulos.
Thompson delays filing as campaign ramps up
By: Mike Allen
Jul 14, 2007 02:36 PM EST
He has collected millions of dollars. Aides go to work every day in a secret suite of offices in McLean, Va. He has policy briefings. He is preparing for nationally televised Republican debates. He just named a communications director and a political director.
But yet, Fred Thompson still says he’s not sure he’s going to run for president.
The “Law & Order” actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee is delaying his formal entry into the race in part because his current status makes him less of a target and lets other candidates continue to get chewed up. “We’re in no hurry,” one close adviser said mischievously.
But there’s another big reason. If he were to formalize his candidacy beyond its current “testing the waters” status, Friends of Fred Thompson Inc. would have to reveal its contributions and expenses this week.
Thompson’s aides say they will not file such a report, and the Democratic National Committee plans to argue aggressively in coming days that he should. Democratic aides argue that Thompson could be violating campaign finance laws by “ducking” a full filing.
Filing as a candidate also triggers other legal requirements, including personal financial disclosure.
In the Senate, Thompson was an advocate of campaign-finance reform, and held four months of hearings on the Democratic campaign finance scandals in 1997.
Democrats point to an FEC regulation saying the “testing the waters” exemption does not apply to funds received for activities indicating that the individual has decided to become a candidate, refers to himself as a candidate, or is raising “funding in excess of what could reasonably be expected to be used for exploratory activities.”
Karen Finney, the DNC communications director, said: “There is an inherent hypocrisy given that Thompson campaigned as a reformer, called for broader disclosure and railed on the campaign finance problems of Democrats.”
A Thompson adviser said he is fully obeying the law. “We’re doing what we supposed to be doing, which is raising enough to build a team,” the adviser said.
Another Thompson official said: “When you’re trying to determine whether you can be a viable candidate for president, you’re talking about a nationwide fundraising effort. The FEC rules recognize that the ability to raise money is an important factor in determining whether a person is a viable candidate for president, just like traveling the country and collecting endorsements. They’re all activities to gauge your potential political strength.”
The Thompson official says one way the former senator may push back against calls for him to show his money is to file with the Internal Revenue Service as a section 527 political organization, a section that includes political parties. (Here are the Center for Responsive Politics definitions for different types of advocacy organizations.)
“If we file with the IRS, that’ll take the wind out of the sails of their disclosure argument,” the official said. If that were going to be done, it would need to be done by July 31.
Although some 527s have looser fundraising requirements than a federal candidate does, Thompson is raising money on his website according to the restrictions for candidates, with individuals allowed to give a maximum of $2,300 per election. The Thompson official said the new organization would not raise any “soft” money, or money with looser regulations.
Thompson advisers said the former senator does not plan to disclose details of campaign finances to the FEC until the report due date of Oct. 15, although the campaign may make an announcement about its very successful fundraising long before that, probably in conjunction with a declaration of his candidacy.
Senior Thompson advisers had talked about announcing the week of the Fourth of July, then sometime in July, then the first week in August. On Friday, one top official even mentioned September. Thompson’s team says it’s up to the former senator, and they really don’t know. The point, they say, is that he’s going to wait as long as possible without deflating the enthusiasm of his many vocal grass-roots supporters.
The advisers say that one factor in their calculation is the rapidly changing terrain of the race, and they point out that Thompson has already become a leading target for both Democrats and Republicans. Since he’s coming in first in some polls, including in Florida, and needs to overcome some complaints from former colleagues that he is insufficiently studious or energetic, he wants to debut with a first-class organization as one way of showing his seriousness.
Thompson’s testing of the waters is becoming increasingly thorough. He now has an office-park suite that can be expanded as the campaign ramps up. That office will house parts of the press, research, policy and strategy staffs. But a large bulk of the operation will be headquartered in Nashville, Tenn.
Thompson’s team continues to hire heavily, and is targeting refugees from the floundering campaign of Sen. John McCain. “We’re taking the survivors into the lifeboats,” chortled one Thompson adviser.
A Thompson source disclosed to The Politico that the communications director will be Linda Schoumacher Rozett, a former journalist who has been vice president of communications for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Rozett’s role will be largely behind the scenes, and the Thompson team plans to hire another communicator to be “the face of the campaign,” the source said.
Day-to-day media contacts will be handled by Burson Taylor Snyder, a Capitol Hill veteran who was communications director for House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.
Mark Corallo of Corallo Comstock Inc. in Alexandria, Va., has been serving as Thompson’s spokesman, but may end up as a senior consultant to the campaign.
In a report confirmed by Thompson aides, syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported Saturday that the political director will be Randy Enwright, a Republican political consultant from Florida who knows Iowa and is close to the Bush family.
Members of the campaign continue to discuss whether Thompson should participate in a debate on Aug. 5 in Des Moines, Iowa, sponsored by ABC News and moderated by George Stephanopoulos. One member of the Thompson team had told The Politico early this month that the former senator was beginning to prepare for it. And some of the announcement-date conversations had taken that debate into account.
But now it sounds like Thompson may not participate, although his advisers will not give a definitive account of their thinking. One factor his team is discussing is how much criticism he would take for avoiding questioning by Stephanopoulos.
Fred Thompson Going after NYC Firefighters
Jonathan Martin over at Politico writes about Republican Fred Thompson courting New York City firefighters who may have problems with their former mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
Martin notes that Thompson had breakfast in New York this week with former senator Al D'Amato, who has endorsed him, and Steve Cassidy, head of New York City's Uniformed Firefighters Association. The meal was Thursday, the day after the International Association of Fire Fighters released a video highly critical of Giuliani, and was documented by a crew from WCBS-TV. (The UAF and IAFF are affiliated.)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0707/Subtle_very_subtle.html
Martin notes that Thompson had breakfast in New York this week with former senator Al D'Amato, who has endorsed him, and Steve Cassidy, head of New York City's Uniformed Firefighters Association. The meal was Thursday, the day after the International Association of Fire Fighters released a video highly critical of Giuliani, and was documented by a crew from WCBS-TV. (The UAF and IAFF are affiliated.)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0707/Subtle_very_subtle.html
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Thompson In August ?
Insiders claim Fred Thompson will get into the GOP presidential race sometime in August.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Key Evangelical Leader Tells Brody File: "It's Fred Thompson's Race to Lose"
www.cbn.com/CBNnews/193880.aspx
Key Evangelical Leader Tells Brody File: "It's Fred Thompson's Race to Lose"
July 12, 2007
Fred Thompson just got some encouraging news. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission tells The Brody File the following:
"My assessment is that at this moment in time it is Fred Thompson's race to lose. It may be a convergence of the right man, in the right place and at the right time. I have never seen anything like this grassroots swell for Thompson. I'm not speaking for Southern Baptists but I do believe I have my hand on the pulse of Southern Baptists and I think I know where the consensus is."
Strong words. Dr. Land doesn't endorse candidates but he is a powerful figure in Evangelical circles. His words matter. So why the fascination with Thompson? Land told me there are a lot of factors. He believes electability is extremely important and thinks that Thompson may be the best social conservative candidate right now to beat Hillary Clinton. He says just look at the head to head polling between the two of them. But there's more. You know, it was Land that came up with the term, "Southern-Fried Reagan" when describing Thompson. So now he tells me the following:
"He has an ability to connect with people. He comes from small town America where he can appeal to NASCAR dads, Security moms, and Reagan Democrats."
The Brody File is always trying to give it to you straight so let me do so here. Dr. Land is not the only Evangelical leader to feel this way. Others that I have talked to haven't gone on record but they like what they see from Thompson. This has got to be a major concern for Mitt Romney…not to mention frustrating. Here is Romney working hard on the campaign trail for months and securing key conservatives along the way. He's put out policy initiatives, talked about the culture war, etc. Thompson skips along singing a happy tune because he's not officially in yet. Romney needs some of those Evangelical heavyweights. Having them in his hip pocket is crucial. It would give him cover on the Mormon issue. It's a long race but I'm hearing that you can expect some of these national leaders to come out by the fall with who they like. Time is of the essence.
Key Evangelical Leader Tells Brody File: "It's Fred Thompson's Race to Lose"
July 12, 2007
Fred Thompson just got some encouraging news. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission tells The Brody File the following:
"My assessment is that at this moment in time it is Fred Thompson's race to lose. It may be a convergence of the right man, in the right place and at the right time. I have never seen anything like this grassroots swell for Thompson. I'm not speaking for Southern Baptists but I do believe I have my hand on the pulse of Southern Baptists and I think I know where the consensus is."
Strong words. Dr. Land doesn't endorse candidates but he is a powerful figure in Evangelical circles. His words matter. So why the fascination with Thompson? Land told me there are a lot of factors. He believes electability is extremely important and thinks that Thompson may be the best social conservative candidate right now to beat Hillary Clinton. He says just look at the head to head polling between the two of them. But there's more. You know, it was Land that came up with the term, "Southern-Fried Reagan" when describing Thompson. So now he tells me the following:
"He has an ability to connect with people. He comes from small town America where he can appeal to NASCAR dads, Security moms, and Reagan Democrats."
The Brody File is always trying to give it to you straight so let me do so here. Dr. Land is not the only Evangelical leader to feel this way. Others that I have talked to haven't gone on record but they like what they see from Thompson. This has got to be a major concern for Mitt Romney…not to mention frustrating. Here is Romney working hard on the campaign trail for months and securing key conservatives along the way. He's put out policy initiatives, talked about the culture war, etc. Thompson skips along singing a happy tune because he's not officially in yet. Romney needs some of those Evangelical heavyweights. Having them in his hip pocket is crucial. It would give him cover on the Mormon issue. It's a long race but I'm hearing that you can expect some of these national leaders to come out by the fall with who they like. Time is of the essence.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood, or: Hey, RepublicansAgainstFred! Why Don’t You Leave A Comment Here?
Big Hat Tip to : William Beutler
http://www.blogpi.net/mister-robinsons-neighborhood-or-hey-republicansagainstfred-why-dont-you-leave-a-comment-here
Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood, or: Hey, RepublicansAgainstFred! Why Don’t You Leave A Comment Here?
Published by William Beutler July 10th, 2007 in Republicans, Comment Sections, White House '08, Online Campaigns, Fred Thompson
As my now-standard disclosure should make pretty clear, lately I’ve been keeping a close eye on Fred Thompson-related Internet discussion. And before that, I’d been writing plenty about overzealous online campaigns. Well, here the twain meet.
It’s one thing to offer relevant criticisms of a candidate (or potential candidate), but making things up out of whole cloth is an obvious sign of desperation. From what I’ve seen, some people are desperately afraid of no one so much as Fred. Which people? Savvy readers will be able to guess for themselves, but I’ll save my comments on that for later.
This post tracks the activities of one (I assume it’s just one) shape-shifting anti-Fredhead and the ridiculous lengths to which he (I assume it’s a he) has gone in recent weeks to attack Fred in many a comment section across the left- and rightosphere. Let’s dig in:
I can’t remember where I first noticed somebody named “Jim Robinson” going after Fred, but thanks to the Oracle of Mountain View, it was not difficult to track his hilariously ineffective mau-mauing across the blogosphere. Early on, he sounded like a Rudy fan:
This guy is a joke and delussional if he thinks people qill vote for him because they like Arthur Branch. He has absolutely no executive experience and is less qualified for the job than Barack Huessein Obama.
Posted by: Jim Robinson | May 31, 2007 at 12:26 PM
This comment is a rarity not just for its expression of support for Giuliani, but also because it was posted Gina Cobb’s website and hers only (the typos, as we shall see, were not a rarity). This next comment, on the other hand, found its way to at least three dozen comment sections, sometimes as Jim Robinson and sometimes as Thompson Truth File:
During his eight years in the Senate, Thompson won his free trade credentials with his votes to extend the president’s fast-track trade promotion authority and to approve permanent trading relations with China. One right-wing critic in a widely circulated internet column called Thompson a “neocon globalist” for his immigration, free trade, and foreign policy positions. Social conservatives are also likely to question Thompson’s “liberal” voting record on immigration. Although Thompson has recently written and spoken out about the need for strong border control, while in the Senate he voted to increase visas for skilled foreign workers and to increase permits for unskilled foreign farm workers. Overall, Americans for Better Immigration, an anti-immigration lobbying group, gives Thompson a career grade of C for his mixed voting record. Thompson will likely come under withering criticism from anti-immigrant candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who mixes his social conservatism with a heavy dose of nationalism and anti-corporate populism.
Posted by Thompson Truth File | June 11, 2007 4:26 PM
I particularly enjoy the bit about “one right-wing critic.” One assumes that the critic being quoted is either a figment of the author’s imagination or someone so fringey and insignifcant their name would provoke, at best, a quizzical look. Here our Mr. Robinson sounds more like a supporter of Rep. Tancredo — quite a leap for a recent Rudy-booster. Also weird is the detached, matter-of-fact nature of these statements, as if these are not the writer’s opinions, but perhaps you might be interested to know… know what? Fred is not an “anti-corporate populist”? Gee, that’s helpful.
Another comment, both too long and too slanderous to repeat here, was posted to a couple dozen different comment sections during the month of June — on conservative blogs such as Frank J’s IMAO and Steven Taylor’s PoliBlog, liberal blogs like Crooks and Liars and The Hollywood Liberal, even mainstream newspapers like the Denver Post and gossip site TMZ.com.
It may be a clue that “Jim Robinson” is almost surely stolen from Jim Robinson, the owner and operator of Free Republic. If you’re wondering, here’s what the real Jim Robinson thinks of Fred:
Unlike RudyMcRomney, Thompson/Hunter are not the media’s choice. Nor are they the Republican leadership’s choice. They’re the grassroots conservatives’ choice! Great concept, eh? … now that we have fine conservatives like Thompson, Hunter, Tancredo, et al, making solid progress … I’m starting to get optimistic about our chances.
Now, here’s “our” Jim at Michael van der Galien’s site, upon the news that Fred was (at the time) planning a trip to Israel:
Fred Thompson is going to Isreal to campaign for the US PResidency but cant be bothered with getting on the campaign trail and meeting actual US citizens. Thats rich. Sound like a globalist.
Oh Fred, you globalist, you! And see this from Wizbang Blue:
Thompson is a puppet of Karl Rove who is pushing an amnesty bill on a public that clearly doesnt want it. Why doesnt someone ask Thompson about his ties to Rove ans whether or not he supports theamnesty bill. So far Fred refuses to answer any questions and later this month he will be traveling to Isreal and London to campaign for the United States Presidency. Something very shady is going on and the people have a right to know who exactly Fred Thompson is.
Posted by Jim Robinson | June 12, 2007 4:27 PM
What’s that? Fred, a supporter of the misbegotten “comprehensive” immigration bill? Now, that’s worse than wrong — that’s outright dishonest. Fred has been speaking out against the bill in radio and web commentaries and at speeches in Virginia and Connecticut — listen to Fred in his own words.
Meanwhile, our pseudonymous critic actually stepped up this line of attack. Shedding “Jim Robinson” and adopting “FredsForAmnesty” — this may be my favorite handle — he decided to invent a quote and push it as far across the blogosphere as possible. See this comment, deposited on at least two dozen blogs in late June, here from The Jawa Report:
“We can not deport 12 million illegal aliens.” Fred Thompson
Posted by: FredsForAmnesty at June 20, 2007 05:45 PM
It’s easy to isolate because he spelled “cannot” as “can not.” Many people have said this, but Fred Thompson has not been among them.
Even more hilariously, this individual set up an account just to plant this made-up quote at lefty netroots homebase MyDD. Even better, a MyDD contributor actually told him where to go — indicating that this line of argument works on neither conservatives nor liberals. It’s almost too much.
And we haven’t even gotten to the other ridiculous nom-de-blog mentioned in the title, “RepublicansAgainstFred.” This moniker has been used at least three dozen times, on some of the most prominent blogs on the right. At Wizbang proper:
He is nothing more than a puppet of Roves and if he manages to fool the GOP primary voters into giving him the nomination, the GOP will get creamed in the general.
If Fred Thompson wins the nomination, I will immediately go out and register as an independent. I can not in good conscience vote for a completly inept and dishonest candidate. There is too much at stake.
Posted by RepublicansAgainstFred | June 19, 2007 1:49 PM
At Captain’s Quarters:
I dont care who endorses Freddie or comes out against him. I will never vote for Freddie. not in the primary and not in the general. He is a politcal HACK!
Posted by: RepublicansAgainstFred at July 2, 2007 12:41 PM
My favorite among these coincided with Fred’s recent trip to London, which included a meeting with Lady Thatcher and a speech before a private (not public, like the schools) center-right think tank. Here’s what he posted to California Yankee:
Who the hell does this guy think he is going to London and making statements about foreign policy? Last time I checked he was only a private citizen and he cleary has no authority to do so. He is out of line. WAY out of line.
Posted by: RepublicansAgainstFred | Tuesday, June 19, 2007 at 05:53 PM
Okay, now that’s just funny. And before I forget — RepublicanWomenAgainstFred? Definitely the same guy.
Anyway, I think I’ve made my point — some falsehood-spreading moron with way too much time on his hands has launched a comment-section crusade against Fred Thompson. If bloggers who have received his comments are interested in forwarding his IP address to me, I will gladly look into it further. It doesn’t really matter, though — the good news is that it doesn’t seem to be having any effect whatsoever. The bad news, such as it is, will be discussed in my next post.
In the meantime, feel free to suggest any additional instances of this laughable conspiracy of one in the comments.
http://www.blogpi.net/mister-robinsons-neighborhood-or-hey-republicansagainstfred-why-dont-you-leave-a-comment-here
Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood, or: Hey, RepublicansAgainstFred! Why Don’t You Leave A Comment Here?
Published by William Beutler July 10th, 2007 in Republicans, Comment Sections, White House '08, Online Campaigns, Fred Thompson
As my now-standard disclosure should make pretty clear, lately I’ve been keeping a close eye on Fred Thompson-related Internet discussion. And before that, I’d been writing plenty about overzealous online campaigns. Well, here the twain meet.
It’s one thing to offer relevant criticisms of a candidate (or potential candidate), but making things up out of whole cloth is an obvious sign of desperation. From what I’ve seen, some people are desperately afraid of no one so much as Fred. Which people? Savvy readers will be able to guess for themselves, but I’ll save my comments on that for later.
This post tracks the activities of one (I assume it’s just one) shape-shifting anti-Fredhead and the ridiculous lengths to which he (I assume it’s a he) has gone in recent weeks to attack Fred in many a comment section across the left- and rightosphere. Let’s dig in:
I can’t remember where I first noticed somebody named “Jim Robinson” going after Fred, but thanks to the Oracle of Mountain View, it was not difficult to track his hilariously ineffective mau-mauing across the blogosphere. Early on, he sounded like a Rudy fan:
This guy is a joke and delussional if he thinks people qill vote for him because they like Arthur Branch. He has absolutely no executive experience and is less qualified for the job than Barack Huessein Obama.
Posted by: Jim Robinson | May 31, 2007 at 12:26 PM
This comment is a rarity not just for its expression of support for Giuliani, but also because it was posted Gina Cobb’s website and hers only (the typos, as we shall see, were not a rarity). This next comment, on the other hand, found its way to at least three dozen comment sections, sometimes as Jim Robinson and sometimes as Thompson Truth File:
During his eight years in the Senate, Thompson won his free trade credentials with his votes to extend the president’s fast-track trade promotion authority and to approve permanent trading relations with China. One right-wing critic in a widely circulated internet column called Thompson a “neocon globalist” for his immigration, free trade, and foreign policy positions. Social conservatives are also likely to question Thompson’s “liberal” voting record on immigration. Although Thompson has recently written and spoken out about the need for strong border control, while in the Senate he voted to increase visas for skilled foreign workers and to increase permits for unskilled foreign farm workers. Overall, Americans for Better Immigration, an anti-immigration lobbying group, gives Thompson a career grade of C for his mixed voting record. Thompson will likely come under withering criticism from anti-immigrant candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who mixes his social conservatism with a heavy dose of nationalism and anti-corporate populism.
Posted by Thompson Truth File | June 11, 2007 4:26 PM
I particularly enjoy the bit about “one right-wing critic.” One assumes that the critic being quoted is either a figment of the author’s imagination or someone so fringey and insignifcant their name would provoke, at best, a quizzical look. Here our Mr. Robinson sounds more like a supporter of Rep. Tancredo — quite a leap for a recent Rudy-booster. Also weird is the detached, matter-of-fact nature of these statements, as if these are not the writer’s opinions, but perhaps you might be interested to know… know what? Fred is not an “anti-corporate populist”? Gee, that’s helpful.
Another comment, both too long and too slanderous to repeat here, was posted to a couple dozen different comment sections during the month of June — on conservative blogs such as Frank J’s IMAO and Steven Taylor’s PoliBlog, liberal blogs like Crooks and Liars and The Hollywood Liberal, even mainstream newspapers like the Denver Post and gossip site TMZ.com.
It may be a clue that “Jim Robinson” is almost surely stolen from Jim Robinson, the owner and operator of Free Republic. If you’re wondering, here’s what the real Jim Robinson thinks of Fred:
Unlike RudyMcRomney, Thompson/Hunter are not the media’s choice. Nor are they the Republican leadership’s choice. They’re the grassroots conservatives’ choice! Great concept, eh? … now that we have fine conservatives like Thompson, Hunter, Tancredo, et al, making solid progress … I’m starting to get optimistic about our chances.
Now, here’s “our” Jim at Michael van der Galien’s site, upon the news that Fred was (at the time) planning a trip to Israel:
Fred Thompson is going to Isreal to campaign for the US PResidency but cant be bothered with getting on the campaign trail and meeting actual US citizens. Thats rich. Sound like a globalist.
Oh Fred, you globalist, you! And see this from Wizbang Blue:
Thompson is a puppet of Karl Rove who is pushing an amnesty bill on a public that clearly doesnt want it. Why doesnt someone ask Thompson about his ties to Rove ans whether or not he supports theamnesty bill. So far Fred refuses to answer any questions and later this month he will be traveling to Isreal and London to campaign for the United States Presidency. Something very shady is going on and the people have a right to know who exactly Fred Thompson is.
Posted by Jim Robinson | June 12, 2007 4:27 PM
What’s that? Fred, a supporter of the misbegotten “comprehensive” immigration bill? Now, that’s worse than wrong — that’s outright dishonest. Fred has been speaking out against the bill in radio and web commentaries and at speeches in Virginia and Connecticut — listen to Fred in his own words.
Meanwhile, our pseudonymous critic actually stepped up this line of attack. Shedding “Jim Robinson” and adopting “FredsForAmnesty” — this may be my favorite handle — he decided to invent a quote and push it as far across the blogosphere as possible. See this comment, deposited on at least two dozen blogs in late June, here from The Jawa Report:
“We can not deport 12 million illegal aliens.” Fred Thompson
Posted by: FredsForAmnesty at June 20, 2007 05:45 PM
It’s easy to isolate because he spelled “cannot” as “can not.” Many people have said this, but Fred Thompson has not been among them.
Even more hilariously, this individual set up an account just to plant this made-up quote at lefty netroots homebase MyDD. Even better, a MyDD contributor actually told him where to go — indicating that this line of argument works on neither conservatives nor liberals. It’s almost too much.
And we haven’t even gotten to the other ridiculous nom-de-blog mentioned in the title, “RepublicansAgainstFred.” This moniker has been used at least three dozen times, on some of the most prominent blogs on the right. At Wizbang proper:
He is nothing more than a puppet of Roves and if he manages to fool the GOP primary voters into giving him the nomination, the GOP will get creamed in the general.
If Fred Thompson wins the nomination, I will immediately go out and register as an independent. I can not in good conscience vote for a completly inept and dishonest candidate. There is too much at stake.
Posted by RepublicansAgainstFred | June 19, 2007 1:49 PM
At Captain’s Quarters:
I dont care who endorses Freddie or comes out against him. I will never vote for Freddie. not in the primary and not in the general. He is a politcal HACK!
Posted by: RepublicansAgainstFred at July 2, 2007 12:41 PM
My favorite among these coincided with Fred’s recent trip to London, which included a meeting with Lady Thatcher and a speech before a private (not public, like the schools) center-right think tank. Here’s what he posted to California Yankee:
Who the hell does this guy think he is going to London and making statements about foreign policy? Last time I checked he was only a private citizen and he cleary has no authority to do so. He is out of line. WAY out of line.
Posted by: RepublicansAgainstFred | Tuesday, June 19, 2007 at 05:53 PM
Okay, now that’s just funny. And before I forget — RepublicanWomenAgainstFred? Definitely the same guy.
Anyway, I think I’ve made my point — some falsehood-spreading moron with way too much time on his hands has launched a comment-section crusade against Fred Thompson. If bloggers who have received his comments are interested in forwarding his IP address to me, I will gladly look into it further. It doesn’t really matter, though — the good news is that it doesn’t seem to be having any effect whatsoever. The bad news, such as it is, will be discussed in my next post.
In the meantime, feel free to suggest any additional instances of this laughable conspiracy of one in the comments.
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