President Thompson

Conventional wisdom is hardening around the proposition that Fred Dalton Thompson is too lazy, ill-prepared, tired, old, lackluster, inexperienced, inconsistent and bald to make a successful run for President.

Of course, conventional wisdom rarely gets anything right. When it does, it's only by accident.

In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons.

John McCain's candidacy may not be dead, but then again, neither is Ariel Sharon. McCain has been at war with the Republican Party for a decade. The idea that he could win the GOP's presidential nomination was never more than a fantasy. His presence in the race will soon become an embarrassment, if it isn't one already.

Mitt Romney oscillates between the low teens and single digits in national polls. He does better in Iowa and New Hampshire where he has spent a great deal of time and money in the hope that he can ride a wave of early momentum to victory. It won't happen.

The only evidence that Romney can generate significant support comes from states where he has campaigned essentially unopposed by kicking his effort into high gear months before anyone else. In the last few weeks before the voting starts the political landscape will be very different and much more crowded.

Romney can't sustain the support he currently shows in Iowa and New Hampshire unless he can make himself considerably more appealing that he has managed to be so far. Even his greatest admirers usually concede that he is too slick and too packaged to seem entirely trustworthy. As the polling data so far indicates, the great majority of Republican voters are going to choose somebody else when they judge him alongside their other choices.

Oddly, Mitt Romney gives me new insight into Bill Clinton's career. I always used to wonder how much of Clinton's appeal, such as it was, depended on his flaws rather than his strengths. Could Clinton have been so charming to so many without the selfishness, the total lack of self-discipline, the sexual incontinence, the dishonesty, the flabby physique and the swollen nose? Did he depend on his repulsive and dysfunctional traits to humanize him?

Romney's struggle to connect with voters suggests that he did. Sorry Governor, the voters just don't warm to guys who are classically handsome, athletic, rich , intelligent, decent, and also ambitious enough to be supple about their political principles. You could try taking a personal interest in some interns, but that probably won't work for a Republican.

Romney would do better, despite his slippery persona, if he could only learn to communicate without dropping into MBA speak. Everything for Mitt is a PowerPoint presentation to potential investors. Consider his approach to the central problem facing our war planners - what to do about Iran? He has a five point plan:

- Fourth, make it clear that while nuclear capabilities may be a source of pride, it can also be a source of peril. The military option remains on the table.

- Fifth, integrate our strategy into a broader approach to the broader Muslim world--including working with our NATO allies and with progressive Muslim communities and leaders to build a partnership for prosperity.

The fourth point is supposed to be a threat, but it sounds pro forma. The rest of it is perfect nonsense which leaches away any impact the anemic threat might have had. There are no meaningful sanctions to tighten. We can't impose diplomatic isolation on Iran and if we did the Iranian government wouldn't care. Arab states can't do anything to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions and even if they could they wouldn't dare. As for number five, what is he talking about? Dumping money on an Arab world already awash in petrodollars?

If I were one of the mad mullahs I wouldn't be losing any sleep for fear that Mitt Romney might be the next Commander-in-Chief. As a voter, I can't see any reason to entrust my family's safety to him. He plainly isn't the guy to inspire a nation at war.

What about America's Mayor? After the McCain campaign went on life support, conventional wisdom converted from the belief that Republicans would anoint McCain because it was "his turn" to a new and equally irrational faith. The catechism goes something like this: Republicans are probably doomed in 2008. Their only chance lies in swallowing hard and nominating Rudy Giuliani who can, supposedly, compete with Hillary for votes in left-leaning states like New Jersey , New York, Pennsylvania and California.

This argument is a hardy perennial of conventional commentary, and it is utterly inane. You can't win by appealing to people who won't vote for you under any imaginable circumstances at the cost of alienating your core supporters. Trading a perfectly good cow for a handful of beans only makes sense in fairy tales.

The Democrat Party was once the dominant political force in American life. It lost that position for two reasons. First, because the electorate discovered that Democrats, beholden as they are to leftist, anti-American supporters, can't be trusted to defend the country. Second, because voters also discovered that Democrats lacked the strength and the wisdom to defend our culture against all sorts of bizarre social experiment.

Democrats have worked very hard to draw the camouflage nets over their irresponsible attitude toward national defense. Republicans have been extremely timid about exposing it. The point of distinction between Republicans and Democrats which works most strongly in the GOP's favor is that Republicans fight back when vandals try to deface fundamental social institutions and Democrats stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the vandals. Nominating Rudy Giuliani would neutralize this advantage.

With Rudy on the ballot millions of "values voters" would stay home. Millions more who are beguiled by socialism's promise of something for nothing but often vote for Republicans anyway because Democrats are just too weird, would vote for the Dem. With Giuliani as the candidate Republicans would limp into the fall of 2008, both feet riddled with self-inflicted bullet wounds.

Giuliani's supporters like to complain about the petulance of "single issue" voters who would ignore their man's many sterling qualities and help elect Hillary merely because they have some serious disagreements with the former Mayor. This complaint is a waste of time and energy. A Giulliani nomination would hurt Republican prospects. This is as predictable as the tide and just as impervious to argument. If Giulliani's supporters insist on shattering the Republican coalition and, as a result, Hillary wins, they should blame their own arrogance not the petulance of others.

Giuliani had a clear chance to unify the Republican coalition and step forward as it's natural leader. If, at the outset of his campaign he argued forcefully that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and needs to be overturned, Republicans could have had confidence that he would stand with society's defenders and against the vandals.

Henry Clay once said he would rather be right than President. Giuliani would rather be wrong about Roe than President and by now his choice is irrevocable. Apparently Rudy doesn't understand that Roe is a travesty, which puts him squarely on the wrong side of the culture war. For both moral and political reasons, Republicans can't choose him as their nominee.

But isn't Rudy so tough on terrorism that voters will flock to him? No, he isn't. Giuliani has given no indication on the campaign trail that he has an especially clear understanding of our strategic situation. Nor has he given any indication that he will be particularly forceful in dealing with our enemies. Once again, the acid test is what he has to say about dealing with Iran. Rudy flunks that test even more dramatically than Romney does. At least Romney is talking about the subject, however ineptly.

When Giuliani talks about the "War on Terror" he says we need to "stay on offense," which presupposes that we have been on offense. We haven't. We have been trying to fight a limited proxy war in Iraq and avoid taking the fight directly to the enemy's center of gravity. That isn't offense. It isn't smart either but that's another subject for another time.

When Rudy mentions Iran at all he gives no hint that he understands that, one way or another, the road to victory leads through Tehran. He says, as does George W. Bush, that Iran can't be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Like the President, he never says how we are going to stop Iran from getting them.

Giuliani has very little foreign policy experience and he seems to be in thrall to the same establishment groupthink on the subject that has largely paralyzed the Bush administration. Giuliani was level-headed on September 11. That doesn't make him a latter-day Patton, or LeMay.

Fred Thompson is quite different from the other candidates. The conventional critiques of his candidacy all say much more about his strengths than his weaknesses.

Dick Morris complains that he is too lazy to prepare well-scripted answers to questions about local issues. In Florida, for example he deflected a question about the Terri Schiavo case saying he wasn't familiar with the details but in general he preferred local answers to local questions. To a question about oil drilling in the Everglades he said that he wasn't aware of major oil resources there but that we couldn't be in the business of putting energy resources off limits.

Each of these answers was perfectly reasonable and part of a package that is likely to have broad appeal. Neither shows a lazy candidate. They both show a mature and sensible candidate who isn't willing to pander. Thompson, unlike all the others, has important themes to project and can't be bothered to pick up a few supporters here and there by promising to serve the interests of those few at the expense of the many.

This isn't politics as usual in 21st Century America, but it is likely to sell. When it does, it will make a mockery of Dick Morris's entire career, which was grounded on the idea that pandering conquers all.

What about Thompson's experience? He never ran anything. Mitt was Governor of Massachusetts and a successful business executive. Rudy was Mayor of New York. Shouldn't those qualifications trump a lawyer who is also an actor and used to be a senator? They would if we were hiring a manager in chief, but we aren't.

We have gotten so used to speaking of the President of the United States "running the country" that most of us no longer notice how unrealistic and unAmerican that expression is. The whole point of the American Revolution was to establish a country without anyone to run it. We don't want or need a president who is inclined to run things. We need a President who leads and inspires. Fred, with his non-managerial background, is the only candidate of either party who seems to get this.

Much ink has been wasted making the obvious point that Thompson is not an "outsider." After a long career in Washington as a staffer and Senator, as a lawyer and a lobbyist Fred Thompson is as well connected as any "insider" here. But for his entire career Thompson has stood outside the bipartisan consensus that, when it comes to government activity, more is better. His commitment to governmental modesty is most often expressed as concern for the principle of federalism. That commitment put him on the short end of some very lopsided votes as a Senator.

Thompson's view on the proper scope of federal government activities is neither shallow nor passing. It has deep roots and he can defend them against heavyweight attacks. At National Review Online last spring, Ramesh Ponnuru challenged some federalist positions Thompson took as a Senator. Thompson wrote a response hich dismantled Ponnuru's arguments. Ponnuru's reply was both snarky and beside the point. It came as close to sputtering incoherence as it is possible to come in print. Ramesh Ponnuru is no fool. The man who can beat him like a rented mule in a battle of the keyboards throughly understands the subject of their dispute.

Thompson's commitment to governmental modesty makes him the only serious candidate for president who isn't part of the bipartisan Party of Government. He is the only candidate qualified to build on the success of Ronald Reagan and the only candidate who can counter the Democrat drive for more socialism, particularly as it applies to health care.

Reagan turned America away from the socialist morass of the 1930's and reconnected us with our deepest political traditions. He reminded us that we don't want a government, let alone a President, to run the country. Unfortunately, his successors never understood this essential pillar of Reagan's success. When George W. Bush perpetrated the atrocious statement that "when somebody hurts government has got to move," the Republican break with Reagan was complete.

Fred Thompson isn't Ronald Reagan. But he can restore the Republican Party to Reagan's default settings. He can make the GOP once again the party of the American Revolution and distinguish it sharply from the party of the French, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions.

Does Thompson have the rhetorical skills to be the leader we need? Let's put him to the same test both Romney and Giuliani just flunked. Does Thompson understand that our problem with terrorism is now primarily an Iranian problem? Can he face that problem and discuss it in terms most Americans will understand?

Thompson's reaction to General Petraeus' recent testimony before Congress suggests that he can. Before Petraeus said a word everyone knew that our efforts in Iraq have become vastly more successful under his command. Everyone understood that Al Qaeda and Iran's proxies will probably be humiliated in Iraq unless they can adjust to the tactics we are now using with such success. The $64,000 question was this: What is Iran doing to forestall humiliation in Iraq and what will we do to stop them?

General Petraeus dropped some very interesting hints on this subject and Thompson zeroed in on them. His statement on the subject was simple and direct: "Gen. Petraeus' report also leaves me even more concerned about Iran's role in Iraq. Iran is headed down a dangerous path, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must understand that."

Thompson reinforced this barely veiled threat with his reaction to a controversy over Ahmadinejad's request to visit Ground Zero while he is in New York to address the UN. He said "I wouldn't let him in the country." He went on to say , according to the Dallas Morning News, that "the Iranian regime was a threat to Americans and should be dealt with accordingly."

At last a candidate who understands that Iran is at war with us and who is willing to speak as though we are at war with Iran. It's a bonus that he speaks in clear declarative sentences and that everything in his manner and appearance demands that you take him seriously.

When Thompson speaks the chattering class often sputters that he is too laid back, even soporific. People who have never seen him speak themselves often adopt this critique and endlessly repeat the same clichés on various conservative websites - "lackluster," "underwhelming," "tired," "old," "no fire in the belly." Conservatives are hungry for a Hillary slayer and many of them fear that a thoughtful, deliberate senior statesman can't possibly play that role. They are wrong.

Watch a Thompson speech that was widely panned as dull. Just because Fred talks slowly doesn't mean he's stupid, or uninspiring. Notice that he is saying important things and saying them well. How many politicians can talk about Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind in terms which indicate that he has both read and understood it?

Consider that Fred's calm, sensible demeanor permits him to say things that would terrify many ordinary voters coming from someone who seemed less steady. Thompson can say radical things and nobody turns a hair. If any other candidate talked about overhauling social security and the tax code while we fight a global war of which Iraq and Afghanistan are mere outcroppings, a substantial part of the electorate would faint dead away. Try to wrap your mind around the reality that coming off like an old coot having a conversation as he whittles next to the pot-bellied stove down at the country store is an excellent way to attract most American voters.

Political strategists aren't known for consensus, but they all agree that the public loathes passionate and polarized politics. Attacking Hillary with self-righteous zeal like St. George all set to slay the dragon would be a tactical mistake. The best way for a Republican to beat Hillary is to talk to the American people calmly, simply and sensibly, and let her be the poster child for all the bitterness and anger of the last decade. Fred is just the man to do that.

After a recent Thompson speech in Iowa a member of the audience called out: "Kill the terrorists, secure the border, and give me back my freedom." Thompson replied "you just summed up my whole speech."

No other candidate could have carried off that quip because no other candidate is capable of delivering a convincing speech focused on those powerful themes.

Certainly Hillary's theme - A kinder, gentler America at home and abroad - can't compete. Socialism never had the electoral appeal in the United States that the chattering class expects it to have. Nowadays it is painfully passe. Segolene Royale couldn't find a socialist wave to ride into power even in France.

Besides, Hillary is indelibly stained by her close association with Moveon.org and the other moonbats of the pseudo-pacifist left. When the calendar reads November, 2008 the world is likely to be much less hospitable to anti-war tomfoolery than it is today. By that time either Iran will have had to cede control of Iraq to the United States giving us an historic victory, or our conflict with Iran will have broken into the open. Either way, the defeatists and obstructionists aren't likely to be in good odor. Hillary will try to cut them loose, too late.

Senator Fred Thompson is the only major candidate that gets it. He makes decisions based on principles. Principles don’t change. You have to stand for something and not change who you are based on the polls. That is what Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have done and all of the Democrats do it. Give me a leader that will stand by his principles anyday versus someone that stands for everything.

I know many, many Republicans that will stay home if Rudy Giuliani is the candidate. He does not represent our values as Conservatives, and never will. Mitt Romney is a RINO (though a very nice man) that simply has everything else and nothing to do. “I guess I’ll just try to buy the presidency”. Conservatives will simply stay home and the Democrats will pick up additional seats in the House and probably get the 60 seats in the Senate they need to completely destroy our Country. Nice picture huh?

However, I think Fred can bring America back together, if that’s even possible. America needs a rebirth of patriotism and honor. Republicans also need a rebirth. President Reagan was our last rebirth and he can never be duplicated. Fred Thompson will bring his own down-to-earth common sense to this Country and strength back to our party. A little of the good old days of faith and family would do well for this Country. If a Conservative runs as a Conservative, he will win!

Think of it this way: Eight years of another Clinton White House? Now if that is not a sufficient enough reason to pull together as a party, as a Country, and fight this socialist liberal takeover of our government, what is? It is not impossible to take back the House and the Senate. We are winning in Iraq—they know it. The best they can do now is stop our progress and choose defeat, just like they did during Vietnam. We lost because Congress chose defeat. History repeats itself when not learned from.

Folks, we are in for the fight of our lives, just as our young men and women are fighting for our freedoms in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must fight for our Country right here and now! I truly believe Fred Thompson is the one man who can pull this party and nation back together! Rudy Giuliani will just tear us apart as a party. Liberal is liberal every day of the week.

Really tick off the leftist democrats and contribute to Fred Thompson: https://www.fred08.com/contribute.aspx?RefererID=c637caaa-315c-4b4c-9967-08d864cd0791

J. Peter Mulhern writes cogently like the lawyer he is. More, he writes in a style that is persuasive without being pretentious. He says things that most of us agree with. I for one have long concluded that we enjoy the happy coincidence that Fred Thompson is both the best man and the most likely man to win the nomination and therefore I have posted my support for Fred Thompson months ago.

But all of this is not to say that Mulhern's arguments are dispositive of the nomination, especially when it comes to the stubborn and remarkably coordinated campaign waged by Mitt Romney. Romney is emerging as the Energizer Bunny of the primary season. His campaign reflects his biography. No campaign today, not even Rudy Giuliani's and certainly not Fred Thompson's, can match Romney's applied organizational skills. And it is in this zone that Mulhern tries to slip us an inside curveball. It might be good conservative theoretical doctrine to say that we conservatives do not seek a manipulator in chief. It might even be reassuring to point to Ronald Reagan as the beau ideal of the detached president who sets the larger goals and refrains from micromanaging. But one might also be made somewhat uncomfortable when we reflect that this practice nearly cost Reagan his presidency when his inattention permitted the Iran-Contra debacle. Who can say in the wake of Katrina that the American public should not be very mindful to select a man they believe can actually make government work for a change.

Giuliani's entire campaign to Republicans, apart from name recognition and his heroics on 9/11, has been expressly grounded in the argument that he is a chief executive who has actually been in control of government and that he has made it work by cutting taxes and cutting crime. In fact, Rudy's stump speech and his book couple this with a how-to version of running the government. This strategy got Giuliani to the top. Mulhern can say what he will but Rudy's message got him to number one in the polls.

In reading Mulhern's piece one must be careful because he bobs and weaves between criticisms of Giuliani-which are well-received on this forum-and criticisms of Romney which are inapposite. For example, Mulhern claims without citing a shred of evidence that, "Even his greatest admirers usually concede that he is too slick and too packaged to seem entirely trustworthy." This is utter rubbish. We are picking a candidate here and it is not upon this sort of nonsense that are decisions ought to be made.

Mulhern takes two arguments in favor of Thompson. The first is that he is inevitable by virtue of a process of elimination. He is persuasive that Rudy Giuliani will be eliminated by the social conservatives which dominate the Republican base but he is far from persuasive when he sees the elimination of Romney as being inevitable. The second is that Thompson is the ideal man for the position and here too we must be careful not to accept Mulheren's assertions just because he makes them. As I have already pointed out, there is no evidence that America is looking for a hands-off administrator in the oval office. In fact in the wake of Katrina and the botched post invasion occupation of Iraq, the opposite conclusion seems more likely. Finally, there is nothing in Mulhern's remarks which persuade us that Thompson will be better at setting a conservative agenda than Romney and especially when one recalls that Thompson has had his problems with the vital issues of immigration and abortion.

I have long posted that this nomination process will come down to Thompson and Romney with Thompson the probable victor. I have also long been posting in the teeth of much opposition that neither man can win if he does not find a way to dramatically change the entire course of the election. So far, neither man has shown any real disposition to do so perhaps because neither man has articulated any evidence that he believes that to be the case.

Barring a dramatic incident between now and election Day, this election belongs to the 'rats. On a state-by-state geographical breakdown the Republicans are in serious trouble when all the border states and even (gasp) Virginia were lost in the last election. We just lost Ohio, gone the way of Pennsylvania, likewise Missouri, and we simply cannot win the presidency without Ohio and Missouri and Virginia. By November we will have held office going on eight years and that indicates a problem for the incumbent party. But at the end of the day, the real problem is Iraq. Unless we can fix that mess we will lose the presidency and even more of the House and Senate.

But a year and a half in politics is, as they say, a lifetime and we may yet see some intervening events like 9/11 which stands everything on its head and opens the gate for the Republicans to hold on. I do not think it will be enough merely to put the Democrats fingerprints on the war and blame them for a Vietnam like ending. This is the Republicans' war and how it goes will probably determine the next election. But how it goes will not be determined objectively but by a media determined to stop the war and destroy the Republican Party. Remember, the media has already convinced enough Americans before the last election that 3000 fatalities were too much to bear and that the war was lost.

In the face of this grim prospect, Fred Thompson is the only candidate who is acceptable to all parts of the Republican spectrum and who also has requisite personal gravitas to make incursions into independents and Reagan Democrats needed to hold the states mentioned above as well as the Southwest which is cracking as well, and even Florida.

This previous post is not quoted merely to show that I have long supported Thompson, but to emphasize that the Republican Party is desperately vulnerable and so far Fred Thompson has not shown the spark which can carry us free of the crushing burden of Iraq. Mulhern's prediction to the effect that Democrats will be nailed to the cross of Iraq is wildly optimistic and hardly the stuff upon which to risk the future of the party. Without going into long detail, the surge has so far shown only military fruit, the political situation if anything has deteriorated. Moreover, our ultimate vulnerability in Iraq-that our destiny is not in our own hands by in the hands of the Iraqis themselves-remains, unfortunately, true. Only a fool would that an American presidential election on the behavior of the Iraqis.

The issue with Fred Thompson is not so much whether he has the fire in his belly but whether he is the man, like Lincoln in 1860, Roosevelt in 1932, Reagan in 1980, who can by the force of his persona bring the American people to see a new way because the Times are no less dramatic than these other turning points in our history. Although I do not think Roosevelt was the right man in 1932, no one can dispute that he captured the imagination of the people. Can Fred Thompson do the same in the cause of conservatism and in the salvation of his country?

One thing is clear, if the Republican candidate does not capture the popular imagination on a once in a century scale, he will not get the opportunity to demonstrate what he can do for party and country.

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