Posted on 08/26/2007 11:48:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Indianapolis — “I’m with Fred” enticed the placards set up here at the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference at a table touting the noncampaign of actor, ex-senator and possible presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
In exchange for a $250 check, the faithful and the curious could enter a private room to meet Thompson, a political insider playing the outsider who might be the nation’s next Ronald Reagan — or might not even run.
Some walked away from the closed-door fundraiser on Saturday afternoon convinced.
“He looks presidential,” said Jeff Cardwell, 47, a conservative Christian lumber and hardware retailer. “He talks about going back to the basics. Putting God first in our country. I think he’s the person everybody looks to as being the true conservative of our party.”
But many of the party activists attending the conference from a dozen heartland states said they were seriously turned off by what they saw as Thompson’s ambivalence about whether to run months after other presidential hopefuls have been hard at it.
Thompson’s testing-the-waters bit is about to come to an end — supporters expect an announcement early next month — but here in the Midwest some said he’s waited too long.
“You can’t wait to get a mandate from the people,” said Elizabeth Morris, a community publisher and councilwoman in Dearborn County, Ind. “Either a person has a fire in the belly or they don’t.”
Either singular or plural, damn it.
I’ve heard the expression “fire in the belly” more times in the last eight weeks than in the rest of my life put together.
Why not, are others supposed to wonder what this guy up to is he a Prima Donna or something?
Others are paying their dues and he does not have to pay admission fee like the rest.
I hope he announces on the 5th gets is bump and see what this horse race is all about!
Fred makes me wonder, too. Is he in or out or there to take steam out of conservative candidates so a Rudy or Romney can win.
All the attention paid to him just like Obama in the Dem party takes steam out of any challenge to the leading candidate.
I’m convinced the Clintons are using Obama to keep the left and Edwards off balance.
Is Thompson a GOP foil to keep conservative candidates from picking up steam?
I think he almost has to run now. If he doesn’t run now, incensed, will not begin to describe his supporters.
I don’t think he is a foil, at least not directly or intentionally. In the end, he may be just that, but for now, none of us can be sure.
I like the guy and I wish he had never let things get this far and for this long. His body of work has mainly been CFR and nearly symbolic overtures to Federalism. A lawyer, actor and lobbyist that seems out of place and out of gas before he has begun.
That said, I certainly don’t think there are any ulterior, sinister motives behind what he is doing. He is not a stupid man and I think he realizes he will have his hat handed to him in short order in any debate of depth and substance.
He is taking time to hone his skills, dotting the “i’s” and crossing his “t’s”, he is building the machine and hoping that will carry the day, because at the end of the day, the Emperor has no clothes. I just hope he doesn’t embarrass himself and become fodder for late-night talk shows. He deserves better than that.
How is your declared candidate, with months and months of running, doing? Has he broken through to 2% in any poll yet?
I don't recall ever hearing the saying until Thompson formed his testing the waters committee.
I read this and I re-read it and frankly, I can't find a germ of sense in it anywhere.
It assumes:
1. Fred Thompson would let himself be used as a 'foil'-
2. There is a 'GOP' conspiracy against its own slate of candidates-
3. That the 'GOP' is capable of setting such a conspiracy into motion-
4. That there is a MOTIVE within the 'GOP' to set such a conspiracy into motion-
5. That the Thompson candidacy works against 'conservative' candidates, in view of the fact that Fred is out there every day espousing conservative principles sunrise-sunset and beyond-
Fred Thompson doesn't owe the other candidates any duty to run a campaign as dumb and ineffective as theirs have often been. He owes himself and those of us who hope for his victory to run his campaignd in the most effectve way he can. So far, I have no problem with a single strategy or tactic he has used.
I fully expect that come November 2008 Fred Thompson will be elected our next President by a comfortable margin. At that point, I hope all this 'foil' talk will be shipped.
As far as I know, Duncan Hunter is comfortably sharing that 2% with Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and John Cox.
It’s the new “gravitas”
LOL...Thank you for that. I am sooo tired of these people telling me that any day their "guy" is gonna take off. Please, it isn't gonna happen. We NEED to focus on viable canidates. Like Fred.
Polls don’t matter to me, nor are they my guide. The only polling that counts are the results that are announced after the citizens have voted. Even that is not always entirely accurate, but it’s what we have.
I have only been here 5 months, and you wouldn’t believe how many times your comment, nearly verbatim, was posted to me by the Rudy supporters. All this time I thought polls were unimportant to conservatives.
What’s NOT important about polls is who’s up 0.03% and who’s down by .04%. Or what percentage of people think about some issue that’s presented in a way that is patently designed to get a certain response.
But there is something to be taken from vanishingly small poll numbers week after week for months and months on end, and that is this: this is a candidacy that is going exactly nowhere, despite the fact that the candidate himself may be likable, spot on with the issues, and photogenic.
Now we don't, we NEED to choose the best candidate we can find and vote for him. Who told you which candidate is viable and which is not? Let me guess, was it the polls? If so, perhaps Fred should just stay home since Rudy is ahead in the polls. If polls make one viable, then Rudy is the most viable, so why even have an election? Polls are an arm of the anti-American fifth column, the media, and are used to guide the sheep along, ever so gently to the place they have already been so many times before.
My only interest is that my country "takes off" and in the best direction, and that is done by my choosing who is the best to lead us in that direction.
The press has been bitching all Summer that Thompson has not announced, because they have nothing to write about during the dog days of August.
Well, it is not Fred Thompson’s to fill their column inches. It is Fred Thompson’s job to run for President, and he does not do that job well if he wastes his announcement by making it in August when nobody, and I mean nobody, is paying attention.
Fred will announce just after Labor Day, as every sensible person has been predicting since May. Frankly, the fact that Fred has not allowed himself to be buffaloed by the MSM and all the political whiners makes me like him even more.
I saw Fred’s speech to the VFW last week. It was so “low energy” it brought me great concern. However, if you compare Hillary’s screeching to Fred’s folksy style, Fred’s the winner.
You take what you want from polls. I don’t want anything from them so I won’t be taking anything from them.
If you must take something, take the fact that they run a list of names past some people they happen to find at home and are willing to participate. The list of name goes by, they hear one they recognize, they choose it, and are pleased with themselves. The media publishes the poll and the poll then becomes self-fulfilling prophecy because the electorate is all too eager to jump on the winning bandwagon.
You made a good point but missed a much larger one.
We need a conservative who has a chance to win to run. Of all the candidates I like Duncan Hunter the best, but he’s not going to get the nomination and we all know that. I like Tom Tancredo, and he has even less chance than Hunter has of getting the nomination. There are some things I like about Giuliani, but his position on gun control is more than troublesome; that, coupled with his position on abortion is a likely deal-breaker for many voters. Romney? He doesn’t know who he is, so neither do we; and we can’t have that in a viable candidate. McCain? He’s finished. I won’t comment on the rest of the field because neither of them has a chance to get out of the low single-digits. That leaves Thompson. I like him, but I, too, think he may have waited too long, and teased too many people with his flirtation with running.
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