Posted on 05/05/2007 6:55:48 PM PDT by jdm
Fred Thompson fervently backed the Iraq war, railed against an expanding federal government, took stands that occasionally annoyed his party and rarely spoke about his views on social issues during his tenure as a senator from Tennessee or in his writings and speeches since leaving office.
In short, the man some in the GOP are touting as a dream candidate has often sounded like the presidential hopeful many of them seem ready to dismiss: Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
With some in the party clamoring for an alternative to their current field of presidential contenders and Thompson's allies hinting strongly that he will run, 400 conservatives flocked to Newport Beach, Calif., on Friday night to hear the actor-turned-politician-turned-actor address the annual dinner of the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a group that credits itself with pushing Ronald Reagan to run for governor of California in the 1960s. Thompson delivered a vision of cutting taxes, reducing the size of government, overhauling Social Security and staying in Iraq until "there is some semblance of stability."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Here’s some more. :)
agree with you that Thompson’s support for McCain-Feingold is serious. I did some research on it, and found that while he did indeed support campaign finance “reform,” he was not in lockstep with McCain about the details. Below is a list of campaign finance “reform” votes where Thompson’s and McCain’s votes differed. Most significantly, Thompson introduced an amendment that would increase hard money contribution limits. McCain voted to kill discussion of Thompson’s amendment, but Thompson prevailed, and the amendment passed (with McCain ultimately voting for it). In the discussion of this amendment, Thompson specifically noted that individual contributions are free speech.
For me, this doesn’t fully mitigate Thompson’s support for McCain-Feingold, but it does seem to add credence to Thompson’s recent criticisms of the bill.
CFR related items where Thompson departed from McCain
March 19, 2001 - April 2, 2001
Votes 00037-00064
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_107_1.htm
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00037
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00038
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00046
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00047
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00049
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00053 (this was Thompson’s amendment to increase hard money contributions — McCain voted to kill it)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r107:1:./temp/~r107Kv5YyZ:e0 (here is the discussion)
:http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00054
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00055 (this is the final vote on Thompson’s successful amendment to increase hard money limits. McCain ended up supporting it, although he tried to kill it)
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00056
83 posted on 04/02/2007 3:42:39 PM EDT by ellery
Very interesting. So far, that vote is the biggest negative. I wish that amendment were revisited. It would be interesting to see how the voting would go, knowing what is known now.
Isn’t the WaPo pretty much the Old Gray Wh.. uh Lady’s parrot? And a Norwegian Blue Parrot at that.
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