Posted on 09/05/2007 7:56:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
After spending months testing the waters for a presidential run, Sen. Fred Thompson has made his candidacy official.
"I am running for president of the United States," he said during a taping of NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," drawing applause and cheers from the audience.
Thompson will also talk about his decision to join the race for the Republican presidential nomination in a webcast scheduled to go online early Thursday.
A five-day campaign tour will follow Thompson's announcement, sources said last week.
Thompson will stump in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Then it's on to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee -- his hometown -- for a "homecoming" on September 15, the sources said.
Political observers say Thompson may be late entering the race. The first voting is only four months away and the others have been in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond for months.
"Expectations are sky high, which means he better perform flawlessly out of the box or a lot of people are going to start grumbling that he's not the great savior we thought he was," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
Thompson created a fundraising committee that allowed him to begin raising money for a possible presidential campaign on June 1. He's angling for a conservative base that hasn't coalesced around one candidate.
During his speeches this summer, he has promised his commitment to outlaw abortion is more than lip service.
"I don't think as the president you can do anything halfway," Thompson said in August.
On Iraq, he's in no rush to talk about bringing troops home. "Right now we need to make every effort to make sure that we don't get run out of there with our tails between our legs," Thompson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Why is the word “president” lower-case early in this brief article? Whatever happened to “grammar-checkers” before articles go before the general public? Both “grammar” and “facts” have been a problem for the mainstream media for several years now, and political correctness is to blame for the lack of both “grammar-checkers” and “fact-checkers” from within the mainstream media for several years now and counting.
Why do you guys run around posting this stuff verbatim?
Find an original phraseology and maybe you'd be mildly entertaining.
I normally don't disagree with you much. But I disagree here.
I think a lot of people realize that the current political situation is untenable. But no politician has the stones to basically go all in on these issues. Fred apparently is willing to make the ultimate bet. Time will tell if he has properly calculated the odds, but I think he realizes that the time is right for some political castor oil to be administered to the body politic.
Yawn..another Neo con.
“Yeah, he was reelected, right?”
Yes, but...
He pushed privatization after that reelection. Remember his “I’m going to use my political capital” speech? One of the odd ball things about that debate is there was no bill, yet he kept urging passage of it. The bill was a ghost. There were strange times he was blaming Democrats for not offering a bill in response to the ghost bill.
I think what might have happened is that when the dice were cast the brokerages backed out, realizing the additional scrutiny and regulation from the government would be when the government was turning over funds to them. Also there is a Hillary-Care-type dilemma which favored certain HMOs over others. The brokerage losers would create an ad campaign against the privileged winners, like happened with Hillary Care.
A funny chapter - Schwab vocally dropped its support for any such bill. Months later the Dems staged a protest at Schwab headquarters. They didn’t get the message.
Habemus Papam.
I agree on Iraq. I want to win, bigtime, and I think Fred is ready to take it to the terrorists. That (I hope) will be his main focus. Shutting down illegal immigration is a huge part of clamping down on the terrorist threat.
I just don’t agree that privatization of SS is going to be one of his huge “talking points”, but I do believe he is sincere about it and it is an important issue to younger voters.
So eh, it’s early and we’ll see how the strategy evolves. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
I enjoyed his gonzo show in the ‘80s, but he’s just a sorry spectacle today. He needs to hang it up.
LOL. Layoffs and red ink may be responsible.
Calling me ignorant in one breath and friend in the next. You are one piece of work.
BWAAAAAHAHAAAAHAHAAAAAAHAHAAHAHAHAAA!
gosh, i wonder if we’ll have any 2,000+ posts on threads of
fred’s church?
/s
His timing is odd for this announcement. On the same day the other Republican candidates are debating he sits on Leno and announces. He should have delayed it at least a day.
WOOOHOOOO!!!
He has Hodgkins Disease.
btt
Yes, I know that was an understatement. Verbosity is not his strong point.
The CFR is global in nature...we live in a global society. We do business globally.
The CFR does not advocate a one-world government nor does it advocate the USA giving up it's sovereignty. I really suggest you spend a few hours reading about the CFR at http://www.cfr.org
Although my age doesn't allow membership at this time I will become a member in the future.
On FR, we’re nerds debating politics 14 months away from an election.
How many people were watching Leno compared to the Republican debates?
I believe he reached millions more this way and there’s plenty of time to get his message out.
Like it, or not, people watching Leno vote too. (Not that I like it much after catching “Jaywalking” a couple of times.) LOL
A conservative getting airtime is not a bad thing.
No, it didn't. Reagan was never a member.
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