Posted on 09/04/2007 7:30:05 AM PDT by AmericanMade1776
After former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson acknowledged in mid-March that he was considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination, supporters of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney were quietly acknowledging the obvious: Their candidate was political roadkill if Thompson entered the contest anytime soon.
But things look very different now. Thompson's decision to delay his entry into the contest until this week not only damaged his own prospects but, more importantly, breathed life into a Romney candidacy that easily could have been snuffed out before it had begun.
Initially, coming from the right side of the ideological spectrum, Thompson appeared to fill the vacuum created when Virginia Sen. George Allen was eliminated as a credible presidential candidate. Even more important, the attorney-turned-actor-turned-Senator- turned-actor seemed to appeal to conservatives looking for "another Ronald Reagan."
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Was that suposed to be a joke? Not exactly a laundry list of occupations that inspires anyone.
I heard directly from one of Fred’s former speechwriters that Fred being lazy is a load of garbage, that Fred often was in his office long after everyone went home. I also heard an interview with the author of the new Thompson biography and he described his conversation with one of Fred’s Tennessee aides, who laughed at the charge and said she QUIT because it was killing her trying to keep up with Fred’s pace.
From John Fund:
Indeed, it is his need to wake up at 5 a.m. the next morning, so he can tape three Harvey segments before returning to the “Law and Order” set for a long day of shooting, that prompts Mr. Thompson to close out our chat. “With my current schedule I might have more time to myself if I gave all this up and did start a campaign,” he says as he dons a sports coat and heads for his car.
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Every profile I’ve read on Thompson contains references, by the typical unnamed coward sources, to him being “lazy”, his Senate career lackluster, and gasp, there’s not a piece of legislation with his name on it! (Well gee, Teddy Kennedy has his name on a bunch of bills - and that’s made the nation a better place, n’est ce pas?)
My experience with Senator Thompson dates to when I was the public affairs chief for GAO, the Government Accountability Office, a legislative branch agency providing oversight of the feds. Thompson was chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the complementary panel to GAO. It’s kind of a backwater committee, with not the visibility of say, Foreign Affairs, or Armed Services, or Appropriations. But the committee is essential to investigating the mechanics of government - and how those gears can be made to work more efficiently.
So yeah, Thompson was a big show boater - a huge proponent of the Clinger-Cohen Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996, doncha know; which required that the “government information technology shop be operated exactly as an efficient and profitable business would be operated.” Then there was his support for the President’s Management Agenda, announced in the summer of 2001, “an aggressive strategy for improving the management of the Federal government…focusing on Expanding E-Government: Improved Service Delivery for the American People Using Information Technology and Expanding E-Government: Partnering for a Results-Oriented Government.” Yowzah, man, hot Hot HOT! Front page baby!
...So now I hear the stories about Thompson, which are typical of 1. Opponents who want to drag him down, which is the way it works, and 2. A lazy press corps who but for a few stalwarts, didn’t cover this subject matter when Thompson was preaching at the wind.
Now, I’m too much of a nothing burger to have any say in this race. But Thompson, whatever his faults, is not getting a fair shake. When you’re waxing on about OMB circulars and Clinger-Cohen’s e-billing protocols, you’re not exactly lazy or lackluster. In fact, you’re actually doing what government is supposed to be doing, which is trying to do better.
- Jeff Nelligan, The Coastmaster..., June 8, 2007
http://coastmaster.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-slacker-big-fred-grinds-it-out.html
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Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, said he saw Thompson as a thoughtful lawmaker able to reach across party lines.
“He worked plenty and he absorbed plenty,” said Ornstein.
Thomas Ferraro, Capitol Hill Blue, June 2, 2007
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/2619
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In interviews, several of his former Senate aides expressed surprise at suggestions by unnamed critics that their old boss might be lethargic.
“Whoever says this man is lazy never worked for him,” said Bill Outhier, a former aide who recalled the campaign finance staff “working until midnight” because the senator was still in the office.
- Julia Malone, Cox News Service, May 11, 2007
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As Robert Novak reported last week, the rap againt Thomspon is that “he was not a hard worker during his eight years in the Senate.” Yet I’m told by a source who was there that Thompson was a reasonably diligent member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In any case, this rap is unlikely to hurt Thompson with voters outside the beltway.
What will matter is whether Thompson is prepared to campaign diligently for the nomination. If so, he likely will represent a force to be reckoned with.
- Paul Mirengoff, Power Line, March 25, 2007
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017150.php
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The rap on Thompson is that he was “lazy” when he was in the Senate. This is precisely the same sort of rap that Leftists made about Ronald Reagan. In fact, this is strength. Because Thompson acts from principle, he does not need to engage in the Machiavellian machinations which pass for “work” in Washington. The reality is that it is absurd to consider Thompson, who has worked during his life in more real jobs than almost any politician in Washington and who today stars in two television programs as well as being the substitute for Paul Harvey and a frequent commentator in conservative periodicals is “lazy” at all. Like Reagan, he probably works harder than anyone in Washington.
- Bruce Walker, Intellectual Conservative, March 22, 2007
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/03/22/yes-the-next-reagan
I realize that summer months are dead political months, so I am willing to cut him a little slack. But I must say I am an extremely observant political hack, but policy papers do not impress me. This is in no way Freds fault, and I know that it is my "responsibility" to learn the facts, but my point is, if I don't take the time to read them, will the general public? Let's face it, whether we like it or not, we live in a visual age. I have access to every single thing that Fred, and other candidates have written, yet I do not search it out.
My fear is that if I don't do it (someone who is a political junky) will others? I hope that Fred doesn't rely too much on his position papers, and his guest editorial too much, and gets out their and does some real visual campaigning.
I only bring this up in regards to Fred (who is not my candidate) because he is the one that said he would run a more internet based campaign. I do look forward to seeing what he has to say.
You forgot Romney’s mythical yarn about the friend-who-died-from-a-back alley abortion being why he is pro-abortion.
Yeah, that’s true.
And I dated a supermodel, in Canada, over the Summer, at camp.
What a novel concept: Fred has waited too long.
Im voting for fred in the primaries, but if romney ends up getting it...then i’ll vote for him.
I think Romney will act like a conservative while in the whitehouse, whether he has flipflopped in the past or not.
But I am 100% sure Hillary will be a liberal menace.
I would vote for a monkey over Hillary.
LOL. yeah, I had writer’s cramp. :)
Me too. We want the nominee to earn the nomination, not wait to have it handed out.
Speaking of Reagan, Romney apparently didn’t like Ronald:
“I was an independent during the Reagan years. I do not support their policies, and I do not want to go back to those years!”
Your memory is incorrect. Reagan was considered the frontrunner and skipped nearly all of the GOP debates and straw polls in 1979. George Bush campaigned heavily in these and as a result won in Iowa. THAT’S when Reagan got serious about campaigning.
But, as you yourself said, you weren’t a Reagan fan, so nobody should expect you to like Thompson either.
“I think Romney will act like a conservative while in the whitehouse”
I wished I could believe that, but I can’t.
He, like our current President, doesn’t have the backbone to stand up for conservative values in the face of the dems when it most needs to be done.
This is especially true, since he has proven he really doesn’t believe in them, himself.
How can you expect, or even ask, a man to go to bat for something he doesn’t believe in???
I’m jus’ sayin’...tha’s all!
There’s a lot of Reagan bashing going on around here these days. I guess it shows who the real conservatives are and who are just Republicans trying to get the conservative “foot off the throat” of the GOP.
Sorry, I am not impressed. I don’t demean or deny his success, but it does not translate to CEO of the largest enterprise in the world. Yesterday, I was reading his 2001 report on governent reform which is coming out as a book. Like every article he writes, it describes problems without giving solutions. To me he is a bland background man, not an out front leader.
Um, isn’t that what an objective “report” is supposed to do?
I just think your mind is made up, like mine, and you aren’t about to change it, barring some earth shattering event, also like me. LOL
Peace.
I think it is way too soon to make up our minds. You may have, but you can’t make your case.
I, and others, "made the case" for FRed, more than 100 times here on FR. Have you read ALL of the posts regarding FRed? Going back to January?
It doesn’t matter. Socrates could make the case before you on bended knee, and you still wouldn’t believe it.
But again, it doesn’t matter. I’ve made the case AGAINST all others, except Duncan, and Tancredo. And that’s good enough for me.
Again, peace.
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