No, That would have been Hunter.
NRTL endorsement
NRTL has been known to back people their base abhors for the purposes of political expediency. Go wander around some of the Life blog sites and see what they have to say about those endorsements.
Fred dissed Dobson and the Value Voters debate because "he's his own man". Fred came out against the RTL Amendment and the Marriage Amendment. Fred authored and defended McCain-Feingold which severely limited the participation of Christian organizations in the political process. Fred was divorced, and proclaimed himself non-church-going.
As much as y'all like to waive these things off, they matter big time to the Christians. Big_time.
Also shepherded Bush judicial nominations through the Senate.
A sure sign of a moderate, and a tie to the Bush administration.
Supported Bush tax cuts and FURTHER tax cuts.
Yep, Fred's got those fiscal creds.. though somewhat offset by his "constitutional earmarks" for the TVA...
[...]and strong on 2nd Amendment. Strong on defense spending, supports our Iraq efforts, doesn’t want to close Guantanamo, doesn’t whine about waterboarding.
McCain kicked his butt with the vets in southern SC because McCain is a vet. Thompson, for all his good works in this area doesn't know what war is, anymore than I do. McCain just played better with them.
SUMMARY:
Reagan Coalition:
Strong Defense
Fiscal Conservatism/libertarianism
Social Conservatism
Thompson wins on "Fiscal Conservatism/libertarianism", Though weak on libertarianism because of McCain-Feingold.
Thompson is weak on "Strong Defense" because he has no military service.
Thompson flat lost the Social Conservatives as Hunter's core here, and Huckabee's rise attests.
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Just plain dumb. U.S. Grant was one of the worst presidents in our history. Reagan's "military service" consisted of making movies and he was one of our best. Carter was a veteran and a disaster. John McCain served and he's a lunatic.
There's zero correlation between serving in the military and being an effective CiC.
Hank