Posted on 07/31/2007 1:53:30 PM PDT by houston1
Fred Thompson is laying on the southern-fried charm. It’s a tire-melting afternoon in June,
and the son of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, turned two-term United States senator, Law & Order star,
and now almost Republican presidential candidate has just arrived at the Clarion Townhouse hotel in Columbia,
South Carolina, for a state-party fund-raiser.
A crush of reporters has swarmed him, one of whom has just asked if today will be the day Thompson makes things official.
Thompson delivers his honey-smooth reply as if on cue. “I’m just testing the waters, but the water is pretty warm,”
he says as he plows toward the ballroom...
In May 1994, Thompson trailed badly and talked of quitting. Frustrated, he called Knoxville political consultant Tom Ingram...
Although some of his campaign staff protested the move as cheesy, they leased Thompson a red Chevy pickup and he hit the road.
Cooper attempted to paint Thompson as phony, calling him a “Gucci-wearing, Lincoln-driving, Perrier-drinking,
Grey Poupon–spreading millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist.”
But voters loved the truck. They didn’t seem to mind that the candidate often switched from a sedan to the truck just miles from his appearances.
“We couldn’t believe anyone was buying it,” says Kopp. “We underestimated him.
What we didn’t get is that Fred is the country version of a street kid.
He’s been talking his way out of situations since he was in high school. He’s a charmer. People fall for it.”...
But Thompson’s strongest card, his backers say, is his Hollywood-fueled image of strength.
“People think that with presidential candidates, you need a lot of information about them,” says Tony Fabrizio,
a GOP pollster. “That’s wrong. It’s all about the concept. He has the Schwarzenegger Factor"
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
Only if you consider biased propaganda to be "info".
Back in the Mid-90s, my job required me to meet a VIP at Reagan National coming in from Nashville on Monday mornings. One of the joys of that job was to regularly encounter Senator Fred Thompson, carrying his big briefcase, as he strolled quickly and confidently toward his ride. No Entourage, No Yes Men. Just the Senator on his way to work after a weekend in Tennessee.
This guy has the look and demeanor of someone who gets the job done. One look at that natural scowl on his face and one knows, 'Don't get in my way boy! You'll get run over'
“You know, they said that you had to raise $100 million this year to compete,” Thompson says as his aides try to get him to turn rightward toward the cameras. “Without raising a dime, I was in the pack. So I’ve already saved $50 million this year.”Good one.
PING
Yeah, that SOB, let’s git ‘em before they get them chips in out heads!
-sigh-
Despite his eight years in the Senate, people seem to buy the idea, for the time being anyway, that he’s a Washington outsider.Fred never says this. I never say this. Nobody here in FR says this, unless it's a Paulite claiming that somebody else said it. So the only people who say it are the people who bring it up in order to shoot it down.
This argument, that Fred is not an outsider, is the quintessential Straw Man argument of all time.
Reagan ... with eight years as the chief executive of what amounts to one of the world’s largest countries.That's a good point. And a tough one for Fred. It's not a deal-breaker, by any means, but it does make it hard to say: Fred is the new Reagan.
And, again I ask, what is the big deal with going back to someone's high school days?
If you don't see the problem in being in "the club" of selling out national and popular sovereignty to the anti-Israel, pro-socialist globalist social engeneering elite, I wonder what you're finding to do in this Web site.
You don't need to worry about conspiricy. Just look at policy and ideology.
Of course as a member of the all powerful CFR this is irrelevant, as he has the power to bend the might Rio Grand into a shipping channel to Chicago...
Speaking as a Californian, this is not a good thing.
I’ve got to say, I saw the same thing in Evan Bayh. I was a regular on Independence Air flights to Washington for a while, and saw him several times on the RJ from Dulles ($69 ticket)
I heard former Sen. Fred Thompson speak for the first time last Friday, July 27 at the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Marriott in downtown Philadelphia. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee also spoke. Huckabee made a good impression and seemed to speak from the heart. After lunch, Thompson spoke and read his speech as if it were the first time he had seen it. ALEC is a good group of conservative state legislators.
Thompson read a speech about conservatives, the framers of the constitution, and federalism that was right for this audience of conservative state lawmakers. My only objection to the speech was that it seemed that Thompson was phoning it in. He sounds like a good conservative but he also sounds as if he thinks charm alone will win him the nomination. In fact, he sounded just a little on the lazy side.
I am asking Freepers from Tennessee who know him, does Thompson have the energy to run campaign for president and to govern? Is he lazy or did I catch him on a bad day? I would even say that Thompson was mildly disrespectful of his audience.
Out of the 1,400 people in that room were undoubtedly about 200-300 who would likely be delegates to the Republican National Convention in 2008. If Thompson could not muster the energy to give a good talk to a conservative audience like that, most of whom wish him well, then when would he summon the energy? Folksy is fine for the stump when you are running statewide for governor or senator but people expect more of a candidate for president if that is what he is.
Did you miss your meds again?
I am on this web site because as a 21st Century conservative I understand the roles of bipartisan think tanks and their diverse memberships, I understand that certain levels of international cooperation are essential to life on our planet in the digital age and that this can be accomplished without losing our sovereignty, and that international terrorism is a much greater threat to our way of life that 100 people of various positions and backgrounds having club sandwiches discussing policy.
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