Posted on 07/26/2007 7:21:34 AM PDT by hardback
Many Republican faithful, from the grass roots to the Capitol, have concluded that Fred Thompson, the preternaturally avuncular actor and former Senator from Tennessee, is the cure-all for their party's ills.
Thompson has yet to enter the presidential race, and yet Thompson already shares front-runner status with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in some national polls of gop voters.
Thompson will spend the rest of the summer raising money, which he was scheduled to do conspicuously at a donor event in Washington on July 28. Another advantage to waiting: the longer he remains an unofficial candidate, the longer NBC can air reruns of Law & Order featuring Thompson as Manhattan DA Arthur Branch without running afoul of the equal-time provision of federal campaign law.
"His timing has been brilliant so far," insists Tennessee Congressman Zach Wamp, who led the effort to convince Thompson he should run. "While he's been waiting, some candidates have been falling and the others haven't been moving. Frankly, there's been a lot of advantages to [it]. He's probably gotten more attention not being a candidate than he would have being a candidate."
While Thompson's undeclared campaign , raises money and figures out how to live up to the hype surrounding his candidacy, his potential opponents are busy adjusting to the new dynamics of the race.
The problem for Giuliani—and the rest of the field—is that Thompson has the same strategy, and the Tennessean's Southern drawl and conservative voting record are likely to play well in South Carolina.
If Thompson can keep enthusiasm high until he enters the race in the fall, he might be able to turn what was supposed to be a marathon race for the nomination into a relatively brief, four-month sprint.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
I beg your pardon? The information I gave was correct as far as it went. I just didn’t think the rest was relevant, but I see now how it could be.
Then we both learned something.
Ah, yes, Mr. LeBoutillier is the one who predicted, I remember it as if it were yesterday, that Bush would "get creamed"(his words) by the Goron in 2000.
IOW, his prediction skills are about on the level of the Toesucker's.
I got to the point with most candidates that if someone says something negative about them, I verify if it is correct..
Thompson isn’t the GOP’s Savior, but he is a candidate worth considering (if he ever actually becomes a candidate).
So, nothing is good enough for you, and no reasoning acceptable.
In other words, there is no reason to provide you with the information you asked for, because it won’t be satisfactory to you.
So I ask, are you a Paulbearer, a Tancredoite, or a Hunterista?
Yeah. I was checking out another of his votes that was labeled that he voted no to ending preferences, when in fact he voted no on a cloture vote.
Yes, I was just about to post to you on that. Nice dissection, there.
This isn't just for Thompson.. almost everyone has bogus info floating around about them.. (think about the Swiftboating of Rudy by the Firefighter's union.)
I think it was meant to look like the Lincoln Memorial.
My point was that we don’t a bad field in 2008 when compared historically. I mean, look at 1996, the pick of the litter was Dole, who got it on seniority not charisma.
“The Bush Inertia needs to be shaken off dramatically.”
Sure, but is there any candidate for President who can do that? Is that the job of a candidate?
Something else needs to happen for the GOP to gets its mojo back.
“Thompson voted to continue affirmative action in the awarding of federal contracts by voting against Senate Amendment 1825 to H.R. 1854 which would have banned it.”
This isn’t shocking.
This is pat and parcel of the GOP Senate that never had the cohones to get really conservative and make conservative reforms happen.
What’s shocking is the cluelessness of conservatives projecting their own political views onto Thompson without realizing that Thompson was a McCain-lite ‘maverick’ conservative who was never super-right-wing to being with.
I thought only Perot voters did that. Silly me. (Come to think of it, I bet you that many of the conservative-type 1992 perot voters have gravitated to Thompson - just a guess.)
Apparently the poster in question is too lazy or too stupid to read for herself.
You mean I have to read all this crap to form an educated opinion?
Screw that, I just like say whatever...
What school of journalism did this hack attend?
If I recall, in the mid-1990s the Clinton administration wanted to continue affirmative action with the bogus “Mend it don’t end it” lingo. In the mid-1990s, we almost were able to kill affirmative action quotas. Hopwood case in Texas, Univ of Cali moved against it under Gov Pete Wilson, and we had a new GOP majority in Congress.
We are “almost” able to do a lot of things, then a group of obnoxious RINOs on this issue or that issue pre-caves and we lose the vote.
The verbiage to allow money for ‘outreach’ *NEVER WAS THE ISSUE*. The issue was whether you could make RACE PART OF THE CONTACTING DECISION PROCESS, in particular could you have a ‘set aside’ program. IT WAS ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION SET ASIDES.
That is what this language forbade - the set-aside programs which were and are racist in nature as they favor one race over another:
“(a) Prohibition: For fiscal year 1996, none of the funds made available by this Act may be used by any unit of the legislative branch of the Federal Government to award any Federal contract, or to require or encourage the award of any subcontract, if such award is based, in whole or in part, on the race, color, national origin, or gender of the contractor or subcontractor.”
so this statement - “Basically, no matter how Thompson voted on this, he could be accused of supporting affirmative action because the ‘Yea’ vote would have allowed for the continuation of affirmative action in the above exemptions.” - is incorrect. The law made exceptions for court orders and historically black colleges to make sure the ban wasn’t over extended beyond the main purpose. HIS WAS A VOTE IN FAVOR OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION QUOTAS AND SET ASIDES. Had he voted the other way, it would has been AGAINST AFFIRMATIVE ACTION QUOTAS AND SET ASIDES.
Nobody has ever argued against the reasonability of ‘outreach’ programs, nor has affirmative action opposition had anything to do with historically black colleges, so these exceptions are meaningless to the main question.
We actually have a better field than in 2000 (we just didn’t know it back then).Good point.
“Yeah. I was checking out another of his votes that was labeled that he voted no to ending preferences, when in fact he voted no on a cloture vote.”
Yeah, but if the cloture vote is the KEY vote, then it should be counted. For example, the key votes last month on immigration were all cloture votes.
It’s foolish to assume a cloture vote is just ‘procedural’, when such voted determine whether a bill lives or dies.
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