He’s said (I believe on a Fox News interview) that there are parts of the bill that he still likes and others that he is not happy with.
Fred has mentioned recently that CFR is not working as he hoped and he favors scrapping parts of the bill.
We will be hearing from Fred on CFR soon.
After he announces within the next few weeks- all these questions will be fair game- as he well understands.
He even pushed through McCain's assault on the first amendment. It's the only truly significant (as in "having an impact") thing he accomplished in ten undistinguished years as a senator.
He says he's sorry now.
I feel a LOT better now that's he's expressed regret. / sarc
Disgruntled Willardian gnats PING!
Having Mary Matalin on board doesn’t make feel all warm and fuzzy about Thompson. I equate Matalin with Bush the Elder’s failed moderate policies, not to mention that she sleeps and has spawned with the enemy.
Somewhere between Rootie and McQueeg.
He’s said it hasn’t turned out the way he thought and lot’s of it need to be scrapped. No one’s perfect but he’s head and shoulders about Rudy McRomney.
ACU tracks a wide variety of issues before Congress, ranging from taxes to spending and national security to abortion. Accordingly, our ratings encompass three general categories: (1) economic and budget matters; (2) social and cultural issues, and (3) defense and foreign policy. ACU endeavors to analyze votes from each category in order to obtain a balanced, comprehensive picture of an individual member's ideological predisposition based upon recorded records.So if a member of Congress votes no on an issue because that member realizes the issue is none of the federal government's business per the Framers, the ACU would mark that a 'liberal' position even when it's not.Each member of the House and Senate is rated on a scale of 0 to 100.
The purpose of the "Rating" is to inform the public, in as unbiased a method as possible, exactly where individual Senators and Members of the House stand on the ideological spectrum from liberal to conservative.
This is such inside baseball. McCain Feingold was and is bad law. It does abridge free speech and FDT concedes that it has not worked. That said, the main people who are angry about it are: a) inside the beltway; and b) employed by advocacy groups whether of the left or right and thus have a financial interest and personal pecuniary ax to grind in opposing it.
Most people do not care much about it. FDT concedes that it was a mistake, but he saw politics awash in money and was trying to do something about it. End of story.
As far as the ratings, these things are compiled by groups like the ACU and the ACLU that have agendas too and ways of ranking votes. For example, FDT’s vote against some forms of Federal tort reform would be characterized as liberal by the Chamber of Commerce and probably the ACU. It is instead a principled conservative vote based on the idea that the states are best positioned to enact their own tort reform, both legislatively and through the selection of conservative state Supreme Courts. (I have heard Fred on this point and he is both eloquent on it and quite correct).
The bottom line, if you are looking for a conservative is not to cherry pick one or two votes a legislator has cast, but to look for a salient philosophy. FDT is: 1) the strongest federalist at least since Reagan, and perhaps more committed to federalism than the Gipper; and 2) Very much in favor of slashing the power and spending of the federal government. He is committed to overturning Roe, so he passes this litmus test of most of us in the GOP. In short, what is not to like about the man?
IMMIGRATION PROFILE OF SEN. FRED THOMPSON:
Voted to grant amnesty to close to one million illegal aliens from Nicaragua and Cuba in 1997
Voted in 1996 to continue chain migration
Voted in favor of chain migration in 1996
Voted to allow firms to lay off Americans to make room for foreign workers in 1998
In 1996, removed higher fines for businesses which hire illegal aliens
Tried to kill voluntary pilot programs for workplace verification in 1996
Thompson in favor of Amnesty as long as it’s not “easy”
In a recent appearance on the program Hannity and Colmes, Fred Dalton Thompson stated very clearly that getting the Illegal Alien Trespassers out of the country “is not gonna happen” and that the solution is to “work out a deal where they can have some aspirations of citizenship” but that we shouldn’t make it “easy” so that it is not unfair to the other Aliens waiting to get in. Pro Amnesty Fred?
You folks are forgetting the bottom line!
None of our candidates are perfect. Fred Thompson is not perfect - However - if I agree with Fred 86% of the time and he has the best chance of beating Hillary whom I agree with only 1% of the time then I’m for Fred.
I may agree with another candidate 92% of the time but IF that candidate has no chance of beating Hillary, I would be silly to support the candidate that cannot beat Hillary.
How about asking the question, "How conservative is McCain?" or "How conservative is Rudy?"
Is it any different now?
Whoever brought Thompson (or is pushing/encouraging him) to run, at least got it right when they saw the three “wrong tier” (first tier) candidates are not getting the traction they expected.
Oh Yes!... An actor, that is what we need… someone who resembles Reagan somehow!... Who?... What?,,, Thomson you say?... Bring him immediately!... We need that man.. Pronto!. (LOL)
Could it be really that the American voter is actually smarter? Boldly independent from the MSM and party affiliation?... Just with their eyes fixed on the ball?... on results… on actions? DARING to ignore all those who tell us we should be voting for one of these 3 bozos? Well 4 now with Thompson?
Thomson does not impress me more than the other 3 clowns.
Social conservatives, don’t let them fool you, be on the alert and do NO compromise your principles.
Bush signed it. We all voted for Bush.
The election will not be dcided on McCain Feingold, and neither will even the primaries. A Wall Street Journall poll taken earlier this month listed voters’ top priorities as:
1. The war in Iraq 34%
2. Health care 15%
3. Illegal immigration 12%
4. Terrorism 12%
5. Job creation and economic growth 8%
6. Energy and the cost of gas 6%
7. The environment and global warming 6%
8. Reducing the federal budget deficit 4%
9. All equally (vol.) 3%
These are the things most people are worried about, not McCain-Feingold, not tort reform and not the Council on Foreign Relations.
You gotta realize that even most conservative likely primary voters are far more conserned about these issues and how they affect their families. Most of them don’t hang around polical websites arguing over which candidate is the most conservative or even the most electable. That’s stuff for the political junkies like us who are a very small percentage of the number of conservatives who are likely to vote in the primaries.
They care about who’s going to keep the jihadists off of American soil, who’s going to secure the borders, who’s going to let the IRS take the least out of their paychecks, who’s going to give them more control over their kids’ schools and who’s going to encourage policies which will lower the cost of the fuel that runs their cars and trucks, lights their homes and keeps them warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
They notice when it costs more to bring home groceries from the store, to replace the washer or dryer, and to send a child to college. They don’t mind paying for their opwn helth insurance, but they don’t want to get burned on it, either.
Those who run small businesses want to be able to provide insurance for their employees, but not if it means they have to give up so much of their profits that it just isn’t worth it anymore. They want government regulators off of their backs and out of their businesses, bedrooms and gun safes.
Sometimes we get so involved in debating the finer points of conservatism or federalism that we lose sight of the fact that we are nowhere close to “average” voters, even in the primaries, where the more politically astute and activist tend to participate in larger percentages.
Fred Thompson, Wall St Journal, March.18,2007
Fred`s conservatism is head and shoulders above Rooty`s, McCain's or Romney's and that makes him a viable alternative to the liberal-centrist-moderatism of the Big-3!
Fred needs to clarify his positions on today’s glaring issues
and pound them home.
He is not quite the ideologue I would like but he is better than the other three
Here’s my take on Fred Thompson. He was a great senator for Tennessee, very judicious and common sense-oriented. I do not know what kind of Presiden Fred will make. We’re not sure of any of the republican candidates. I have talked to discouraged republicans in several states and the only one that generates enthusiasm is “Senator Fred”. There is just one alternative to Fred. That is Presiden Hillary Clinton. Marxism, revenge politics, poll-driven power-hungry and all that. We must coalesce around someone like Fred and hope for the best. The alternative is unthinkable!
Ouch... lower score than Bill Frist....??
This I did not know...