Posted on 08/18/2007 9:21:51 PM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON — He’s an actor-turned-politician in the mode of Ronald Reagan, someone who’s at ease in front of a camera or a crowd, a man who can charm an audience with a folksy tale or a clever turn of phrase.
But is Fred Thompson truly Reaganesque?
Reagan was, after all, the Great Communicator, a leader so skilled at connecting with his subjects that he has become the standard by which all would-be presidents are judged.
Thompson’s admirers, elated over his expected decision to seek the Republican nomination for president, already are hailing his candidacy as the second coming of Reagan.
The former Tennessee senator, an ex-prosecutor who plays a stern district attorney on the television crime drama “Law and Order,” is expected to officially enter the race sometime next month.
Like Reagan, Thompson believes in smaller government and fiscal conservatism.
But let’s put aside politics for a minute and focus on the other trait he shares with the last actor who was elected president — an innate ability to communicate, to tell a story in a way that captures the public’s attention.
Both men come across as strong, authoritative figures on stage and screen. Their speaking voices are fluent and resonant, though vastly different. Reagan’s was smooth, mellow, grandfatherly. Thompson’s is deep, gruff, sometimes gravelly. Both men were blessed with the gift of gab and a flair for spinning a good yarn.
But is Thompson Reagan’s equal as a communicator?
Thompson does have the Reagan touch, said John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
“Thompson is at ease with the camera,” Geer said. “Certainly, Reagan was at ease with the camera. Second, at least from what I can see so far, Thompson, when he decides to be critical of somebody or question them, he does it in a way that has less of an edge to it than a lot of current politicians, and I think that is also Reaganesque.’’
In some ways, though, Thompson seems less like “the Gipper” and more like Sheriff Andy Taylor of the old “Andy Griffith Show,” Geer said.
“He has this kind of disarming quality about him, where he tries to use folksy kind of metaphors just like Taylor did,” Geer said. “But at the same time, Taylor was the most wily (man) in that entire city. Thompson is very smart as well, so he has this old country boy kind of routine that I think serves him pretty well.”
Clark Judge, who worked as a speechwriter for Reagan in the White House, also sees a little of Reagan in Thompson.
“Thompson has a very solid, reassuring presence at a podium and before a camera,” Judge said. “He comes across as someone you trust a lot. Look at him on some of his TV speeches, responses to State of the Union, that sort of thing. He’s very much someone who’s talking to you.”
One of Reagan’s greatest attributes, at least as an orator, was his ability to take written text and give it additional meaning, Judge said.
“For me, it was very, very different listening to Reagan before I started working for him and then listening to him when he was delivering text that I had actually written,” Judge said. “He would find meaning in the text and bring it out through his delivery.”
Judge said he doesn’t know whether Thompson has that talent because he’s never written for him. But, “Thompson is a very effective communicator, which is one reason he has moved up so fast (in the polls),” Judge said.
Others are less impressed by Thompson’s oratory skills.
“He’s no Reagan,” said John Kares Smith, a professor of communications at State University of New York in Oswego, an expert in presidential and political communication and a devotee of Thompson’s television show.
“Ronald Reagan had an ability and a real underestimated skill of being able to touch very deep-held American myths and beliefs,” Smith said. “When he would talk about the city on the hill, he really could resonate with our puritan past. Fred Thompson, I don’t think he has any of those skills at all.”
Thompson “just doesn’t connect the way Reagan did,” Smith said. “Reagan had maybe three ideas, and everybody knew what they were. He knew people. He had a wonderful sense of humor. Fred Thompson is not known for his humor.”
Reagan also was the eternal optimist and, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, used his speeches to raise people’s spirits, said David E. Johnson, a political consultant in Atlanta who worked on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1988.
“That was Reagan’s whole persona,” Johnson said. “That’s what his greatness was, very much like Jack Kennedy. Thompson, on the other hand, is more a ‘just the facts’ type of person. He doesn’t lift to the oratorical lengths that Reagan or Roosevelt did or even Bill Clinton did.”
As evidence, Johnson cited a speech that Thompson gave to a group of Republicans last May. Some complained that the address, Thompson’s first as a prospective presidential candidate, was downright disappointing.
But whether Thompson can live up to the Reagan legend may be beside the point. He doesn’t have to be a Reagan clone to win the GOP nomination, Judge said.
“The real issue,” Judge said, “is how he compares to the rest of the field.”
Anybody that believes that does not remember Reagan.
Reagan Quotes: (Imagine Romney saying these, and reaching the public so deeply and effectively with a few words.)
Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.
Ronald Reagan
Don’t be afraid to see what you see.
Ronald Reagan
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Ronald Reagan
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
Ronald Reagan
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.
Ronald Reagan
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
Ronald Reagan
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan
Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
Ronald Reagan
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan
Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.
Ronald Reagan
The exact same things were said about Ronald Reagan.
I should check out ‘Second Life’ - perhaps he has already ran and won the Presidency there.
I’m glad Ronald Reagan himself had a quite different opinion of the good Doctor.
Ronald Reagan:
Alan, I should be the one thanking you, because you did such an extraordinary job in the first 7 years of our administration: working with Jeane Kirkpatrick at the United Nations, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, defending our country against the forces of anti-Americanism.
I think particularly of your work at a conference in Nairobi where you and my daughter Maureen worked to eliminate the disgusting ``Zionism is racism’’ resolution from that conference’s final report and earned the gratitude of all Americans. And there was your performance as my Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, where you pursued successful reforms of the United Nations and opposed with every ounce of strength in your body all those who have served to foster and legitimize state-sponsored terrorism.
Alan, I should be thanking you — and I am — because every time I asked you to do your best, you did that and better. Every time I asked you to stand for America, you stood tall, and you deserve not only my thanks but the thanks of every citizen of this great country.
It’s hard for me to imagine two politicians more different than Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney.
One told you what you needed to hear, whether you liked it or not. The other tells you what he thinks you want to hear, whether he actually believes it or not...
Bulloney! You know better than that.
In Reagan’s first attempt at politics he was elected Governor of California. Then reelected. After a short two year pause he organized a challenge of a sitting GOP President and almost pulled off a huge upset. Four years later he was elected POTUS and reelected in two historic landslide victories. By all acounts Reagan is one of the great Presidents in US history.
Alan Keyes has won no political office in several tries. Again, Keyes is great with the rhetoric but unless he makes some drastic changes, he’ll never win elected office.
We aren’t talking about his appointments to positions in the Reagan administration. We’re talking about what it takes to win election to public office. Whatever the factors are, Alan Keyes doesn’t have what it takes to be a successful politico. Reagan was a natural.
“It’s hard for me to imagine two politicians more different than Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney.”
I am starting to think that Romney is more of a movement leader than I thought, actually I was having a problem figuring out what his interest in politics is, but now I am starting to believe that he does indeed have internal passions driving him, and I don’t think it is in favor of Reagan conservatives.
Now you're talking.
Yeah, everyone should bow to the superiority of made up Mitt; no better a choice than that other made by the media candidate Obama.
If you like him because he appears good in front of the camera then why not vote for Obama. He’s vaporware made up by the media the same as Romney. Poster boys don’t make very good leaders.
“vaporware “
Thats pretty good.
You called Keyes a “windbag.”
I’ve heard Alan speak many times, and find such a characterization ridiculous. There isn’t anyone in American political life I know of that deserves such an insult less.
He’s without parallel in keeping the focus constantly on the true problems America is faced with, the true threats to life and liberty as defined and envisioned by the Founders. He’s one of the few who has actually carried the Reagan message forward without fear nor favor.
I gave you one shining example of that. There are hundreds of other examples available.
http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/
Now, please provide me with ONE example of Fred Thompson’s eloquence on behalf of the principles we hold dear.
Show me his impassioned plea on behalf of the innocent unborn.
Show me his willingness to stand up against those who are tearing down America’s fundamental institutions as hard and fast as they can.
Show me the personal political scars he bears for conservatism and for America.
No, you’re the one talking about that. I haven’t followed you down that rabbit trail.
Mitt Romney’s “movement” is the advancement of Mitt Romney.
“Show me the personal political scars he bears for conservatism and for America.”
I would like to try that out as a tag line, it has been in the back of my mind about the entire, generational, Romney family for weeks.
Excellent.
you are too optimistic! not...
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