Posted on 03/27/2007 6:39:50 AM PDT by veronica
With former Senator Fred Thompson pondering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, the hunt is on to see if he has his conservative credentials in order or whether there might be some moderation lurking in his voting past.
Mr. Thompson, the Tennessee lawyer turned actor turned senator turned actor again, is getting a lot of attention in Republican circles.
That is especially so among conservatives, who are debating whether he would be more ideologically appealing to them than the three leading Republican candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.
Mr. Thompson compiled a record in the Senate that included votes against same-sex marriage and other gay rights proposals, consistent opposition to gun control and support of a ban on late-term abortions. He scored generally high marks from conservative groups.
But he was also a supporter of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, opposed by most conservatives. A former trial lawyer, Mr. Thompson opposed some of the changes sought by Republicans to protect businesses from lawsuits.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I was posing the question to a Rudy supporter. Veronica, do you find Fred's support of CFR to be a big deal?
And thompson isn't just trying to ignore his past position and adopt a new one like he's been that way all along. He's saying it's a failure, and he's pitching a solution which is very conservative.
Thank you for the positive feedback. :)I too hope he announces soon.
What a good question. I can't wait to hear the answer, which I'm sure is forthcoming...
"In 1999, Giuliani made headlines by trying to cut off public funding for the Brooklyn Museum of Art after an exhibit featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung. Giuliani was again rebuffed in court on First Amendment grounds, but he subsequently formed a "decency commission" to issue a set of recommended standards for local museums that receive city money."
You can read Fred's thoughts on the investigation HERE
I did not ask that. In addition, Fred changed his views in response to CFR not working. Has Rudy changed his views accordingly with CFR?
We'll see what he has to say. Meanwhile, how does Fred stack up against Hillary and Obama?
Or any other leftist scum.
Tancredo '08
Anything else is a sellout.
Quite a bit better - he, unlike Rudy, can hold the GOP together.
BTW, did you see Rudy sinking like a brick against Hillary in New York polling? Fred is already competitive against both and he hasn't even entered the race.
"I am for the most Conservative candidiate who can win. That's Rudy,"
I know I'm going to catch grief over this ,but, here goes. Right up front I will support the Republican nominee, although I believe there is a price to be paid. I don't see the religious right turning out for Rudy and the last two republicans had to have them to win. John McCain is the darling of the media because he has criticised the republicans so much, but this love affair with the media will end if he is nominated. Then all his negatives will appear, remember he is one of the Keating five and although his republican contenders have not brought it up you can bet the farm the dems will. Just a thought.
In the most recent poll, he is beating Hillary and trailing Obama. Not bad for a guy who hasn't even announced yet.
He specifically asked Veronica because there is a trend in the pro-Rudy crowd to attack other candidates by pointing out flaws they have that are identical to flaws in their own candidate.
It's one thing to oppose a candidate for their positions that you disagree with. But what is the principle by which you find fault with other candidates for holding positions you support in your own candidate?
Rudy supporters spend a lot of time finding an issue here or there that other candidates have in common with Rudy, and then attack them for those positions.
They seem to think that if every candidate has one flaw, everybody will throw up their hands and vote for the man who has EVERY flaw.
But that's because they can't find anything good about Rudy that doesn't hold equally true for every one of the candidates who have a chance of winning.
For example, none of our candidates are weak on the war on terror, except I guess McCain with his anti-torture stuff. Some are much stronger on the war on terror than Giuliani, having actually done things in their public life to combat it, or having served in the military.
Our major candidates all support tax cuts, and all claim to be fiscal conservatives. Romney has a record in Mass., Thompson has a record in the Senate, McCain was weak on tax cuts but I do believe he's taken a lot of good votes on keeping government spending down.
Our major candidates all support the War in Iraq. They all support law-and-order.
Rudy doesn't have a single redeeming quality that isn't shared with at least one of the other major candidates.
His sole selling point, the one thing he has that nobody else has, is that he is the FRONT RUNNER.
Once Thompson knocks him out of that, he'll have nothing.
Oddly, by this argument if McCain was in front in all the polls, the Rudy people would all be McCain people, trashing us for not supporting the only person who could beat Hillary.
The nice thing is that, for most Rudy supporters, all we have to do is to get our favored candidate into the lead, and they all become OUR friends again, since their support has no principle, no character, no philosophy, except for backing the front-runner so Hillary doesn't win.
In what way does Fred Thompson's record stand to up Rudy's in terms of real problem solving, as Rudy did in NY?? How about fighting crime, as Rudy did both as a lawyer in the Reagan administration, and as Mayor? In what manner had Fred Thompson proved his mettle, as Rudy did on 9-11, or McCain for that matter, as a POW, in terms of dealing with the stress of an unanticipated attack or other testing ground such as that? Just askin...
There you go. See, that wasn't hard. Those are the questions that need to be asked, and you've articulated well what you see as your candidate's strength.
So why launch into an attack on Fred's position on CFR when it's the same position your candidate held? Do you support CFR? Is that why you like Rudy, or do you like Rudy DESPITE his position on the CFR?
Fred does not have the record of leadership and executive experience of Rudy or Romney or the other governers.
He was a federal prosecuter and a lawyer. So on the question of "fighting crime", I will note that his first acting role was playing himself in the movie "Marie", which was about a criminal corruption case. He did well in that one. He also was a watergate prosecuter, and he stood up to entrenched interests in that case.
I don't see 9/11 has proving Rudy's mettle, and more than it proved Bush's mettle. Rudy could have collapsed that day like the democrat leadership did in New Orleans after Katrina, but he didn't. Instead, he rose to the challenge, like Haley Barbour did in Mississippi after Katrina, and as our local officials did after 9/11 at the Pentagon.
I really don't see Rudy's 9/11 work as being seminal in terms of making him a President. It's easy to become a celebrity hero. But what did he actually DO after 9/11?
We aren't rebuilding the buildings. They rushed to "prepare" the site, abandoning dead bodies that they are still finding today. He pulled people off recovery duty only to put them back on when the union complained too loudly about it and public opinion turned against him.
He tried to claim executive powers for an additional 3 months. Oh, and he turned down 10 million from the Saudis, which frankly everybody here seems to think was great but I think smacked of a maniacal king-like act. (He should have allowed the legislature to vote on whether his city should turn down the money, rather than doing so because of his own personal feelings).
Frank Rich: Mr. Giuliani is also a war supporter and even contributed a Brownie of his own to the fiasco, the now disgraced [former New York City Police Commissioner] Bernard Kerik, who helped botch the training of the Iraqi police. But, unlike Mr. McCain, Mr. Giuliani isn't dogged by questions about Iraq. To voters, his [Giuliani's] war history begins and ends with the war against the enemy that actually attacked America on 9/11. He wasn't a cheerleader for the subsequent detour into Iraq, wasn't in office once the war started, and actively avoids speaking about it in any detail.
But the fact is he has been a strong supporter of Bush. So has McCain. Romney has also supported Bush, and Fred Thompson's public pronouncements on the war have been supportive of the new effort, if not of the mistakes we made earlier.
I appreciate Rudy's support, but his strong likeability doesn't seem to translate into him being able to sway public opinion on the war, nor did it allow him to help elect republicans in the last election when we lost both the house and senate with Rudy's strong support for candidates and his strong support for the war.
I'm no Rudy backer by any means ,but I don't think we can fault him for the Republican meltdown, I think that can be contributed to their positions , hiding under their beds, that is.
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