Yes I think Fred Thompson is the one who can win and I fear he is the only one who can win. Barring a dramatic incident between now and election Day, this election belongs to the 'rats. On a state-by-state geographical breakdown the Republicans are in serious trouble when all the border states and even (gasp) Virginia were lost in the last election. We just lost Ohio, gone the way of Pennsylvania, likewise Missouri, and we simply cannot win the presidency without Ohio and Missouri and Virginia. By November we will have held office going on eight years and that indicates a problem for the incumbent party. But at the end of the day, the real problem is Iraq. Unless we can fix that mess we will lose the presidency and even more of the House and Senate.
But a year and a half in politics is, as they say, a lifetime and we may yet see some intervening events like 9/11 which stands everything on its head and opens the gate for the Republicans to hold on. I do not think it will be enough merely to put the Democrats fingerprints on the war and blame them for a Vietnam like ending. This is the Republicans' war and how it goes will probably determine the next election. But how it goes will not be determined objectively but by a media determined to stop the war and destroy the Republican Party. Remember, the media has already convinced enough Americans before the last election that 3000 fatalities were too much to bear and that the war was lost.
In the face of this grim prospect, Fred Thompson is the only candidate who is acceptable to all parts of the Republican spectrum and who also has requisite personal gravitas to make incursions into independents and Reagan Democrats needed to hold the states mentioned above as well as the Southwest which is cracking as well, and even Florida.
If the Republicans lose the grip on the presidency as well as the legislative branch, I fear the party will be eclipsed for a generation.
