Posted on 01/20/2008 7:59:09 AM PST by jellybean
Family ties guide Thompson BY MARGARET TALEV
WASHINGTON -- Fatherhood and ambition.
In Fred Thompson's life, they rise and fall together, a recurring couplet in the nostalgic story of a Tennessee fella who's guided more by life's surprises and others' expectations than he is by any master plan.
Consider:
On the campaign trail, Thompson treats criticism that he doesn't have enough fire in the belly with a father-knows-best attitude.
- The small-town jock called ''Freddie'' and ''Moose,'' who, at 17, upon getting his high school girlfriend pregnant, married her, heeded her politically connected family and made something of himself.
- The divorced U.S. senator, lawyer, lobbyist and actor who dropped out of politics when one of his three grown children died from a prescription drug overdose.
- The unlikely 65-year-old comeback kid, now remarried with a 4-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy, who's running for the Republican nomination for president.
''I've had the worst thing that can happen to a father, and the best thing that can happen to a father,'' Thompson told retirees this fall in South Carolina, in the drawl that's central to his persona. ``I think you come out from the other end of that with a sense of what's important and not important.''
Two of Thompson's most important experiences played out in the public eye: the Watergate hearings and his 1985 movie debut, Marie. But with voters, he talks about parenting as much as he does about politics and acting.
Thompson has children older than his wife, 41, and younger than his grandchildren.
Thompson graduated from Memphis State University and the Vanderbilt University law school while working and raising children.
He read Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative, started a Young Republicans group and worked on a congressional campaign, as a federal prosecutor and for the reelection of Tennessee Republican Sen. Howard Baker Jr.
Baker became a powerful mentor. He gave the young Thompson, whom Richard Nixon once called ''dumb as hell,'' a job as chief Republican counsel on the committee investigating Watergate.
Thompson got national exposure; a book deal and an anti-corruption reputation that drew clients, including state parole official Marie Ragghianti, to his new law practice.
Ragghianti exposed a cash-for-clemency scheme under Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton, lost her job and hired Thompson to clear her name.
There was a book about the case, then a movie with Sissy Spacek -- Marie -- in which Thompson played himself. That launched his career as an actor even as he kept a hand in Capitol Hill.
Celebrity eased Thompson's election to an open Senate seat; he replaced Tennessee's Al Gore, who became Bill Clinton's vice president.
From 1994 through 2002, Thompson got mixed reviews, though he was a reliable Republican vote.
Thompson helped manage Chief Justice John Roberts' confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2005, was chairman of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board and championed President Bush's commutation of White House aide I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak case -- all while taping Law & Order.
When retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said last year he wouldn't seek the presidency, Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., pressed Thompson to get in.
Wamp thinks that Thompson's image and message are selling points, and so is his personal experience of ``raising a second family in a different generation than the first.''
Thompson wins strawpoll at GOP men's club Sunday, January 20, 2008
From staff reports
Huntsville TimesFormer Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson won a presidential primary straw poll held Saturday at the breakfast meeting of the Madison County Republican Men's Club.
The poll was not announced in advance and involved only those who normally attend a monthly meeting of the club, according to Elbert Peters, president.
Voting was by secret ballot and 199 of the attendees participated.
Thompson received 70 votes or 35.2 percent and Mitt Romney came in second with 35 votes or 17.6 percent of the total.
John McCain was third with 25 votes or 12.6 percent; Mike Huckabee received 24 votes or 12.1 percent; Rudy Guiliani got 13 votes or 6.5 percent; and Ron Paul received 11 votes or 5.5 percent.
"Undecided" received 15 votes or 7.5 percent of the total. Four other candidates received one or two votes each for a total of 6 votes and 3 percent.
The presidential preference primary will be held in Alabama on Tuesday, Feb. 5. The Republican ballot will contain the names of 10 candidates plus "undecided," although some on the ballot already have withdrawn from the race, Peters said.
The 10 Republican candidates on the ballot in Alabama are Hugh Cort, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Alan Keyes, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo and Fred Thompson.
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Fred Thompson should stay in the race By Erick (RedState)
With twelve hours passing, I have reconsidered my position on Fred Thompson's need to get out of the race.
I say he should stay in.
There are a lot of us who have found Fred to be our candidate because he is the consistent conservative in the race.
Huckabee is economically populist.
John McCain's major legislative efforts are named McCain-Feingold, McCain-Edwards-Kennedy, McCain-Kennedy, and McCain-Lieberman. Notice a pattern?
Mitt Romney's problem is not his flips, but his flops and his, of late, tax the rich to help the poor rhetoric.
Rudy Giuliani dresses up like a drag queen and wants taxpayer funded abortions.
So doggoneit, stay in the race, Fred. You did better in South Carolina than Rudy or Romney. Your debate performances of late have been fantastic. The crowds are growing at your forums. The money is coming in.
Stay in Fred. Some of us have no where else to go and a lot of us want at least one conservative to talk common sense.
Even If He's Blah Tonight, Why Should Fred Drop Out? Jim Geraghty
The gang on CNN, including Bill Bennett, is talking about Thompson as if his campaign is over.
I realize I've been Mr. Don't-Get-Your-Hopes-Up-Fredheads lately, but even with a mediocre performance tonight, there's no reason for Fred Thompson to leave the race. He's apparently put more effort into Louisiana than the other candidates (they vote Tuesday), and there's a bunch of deep red states he can fight in on Super Duper Tuesday, including his home state of Tennessee.
If there were a clear frontrunner, and this thing was all over, I could see it. But if he really finds some of his other rivals as not-conservatives who are unacceptable to carry the Republican mantle, why not stay in this thing until the end, collect as many delegates as he can, and at the very least, throw them to the one he finds most acceptable at the GOP convention?
I believe Fred should stay in because this race is still wide open. All the folks who think Rudy has Florida in his pocket could be wrong. This stuff about 40% have already voted here in Florida doesn’t say much. If true, 40% of all voters means nothing to me right now. If they said 40% of Republican voters have already voted then that would mean something. In all of the calling I have done to absentee ballot Registered Republicans, none of the folks told me they had already voted. All said they were looking at the candidates and had not decided yet. They all showed interest in Fred and some did say they liked Fred. I know that McCain and Huckabee will fade soon and I see the chance for Fred to make another surge after the debate from Palm Beach this coming Thursday. I am with Fred through Super Tuesday if he is still fighting!
Can sometone tell me why the red truck is gone! Was there this morning when I made another donation. What’s up?
I don’t know and it bothers me.
And I’ll tell you something else.
I feel critical of the people that are helping Fred. Why isn’t there an explanation about the truck missing?
If he’s getting out, which he shouldn’t, something should be said, and then I will know I am not voting!!!
I think his support people are not good enough for Fred.
So.
The regular contribute button still works. They maybe tooling up for another run. That was for SC.
Why should Fred Thompson drop out? In the wake of John Edwards's humiliating showing (4 percent!) in Nevada yesterday, Mickey Kaus asks, "What would it take to get Edwards out?"
Of course, most of the talk of "getting out" is on the GOP side, where it's widely assumed that Fred Thompson will drop out after giving a past-tense-y speech last night in response to his weak third-place finish in his "last stand" state, South Carolina. (Hey, at least he denied Romney the bronze!) But NRO Jim Geraghty makes the case for Fred staying in:
[T]here's no reason for Fred Thompson to leave the race. He's apparently put more effort into Louisiana than the other candidates (they vote Tuesday), and there's a bunch of deep red states he can fight in on Super Duper Tuesday, including his home state of Tennessee.That makes perfect sense. It's clear Thompson isn't going to win the nomination at the polls, but: so what? The punditry is lagging seriously behind the reality here. The MSM really needs to wrap its head around the concept that this is a delegate battle now; it is not about "winning the nomination at the polls" anymore, at least not necessarily. ("McCain has momentum!" Who cares? "If McCain wins Florida, it's over!" Bulls***!) So the mere fact that somebody is stuck hopelessly in fourth or fifth place is not, by itself, enough reason to drop out of the race.If there were a clear frontrunner, and this thing was all over, I could see it. But if he really finds some of his other rivals as not-conservatives who are unacceptable to carry the Republican mantle, why not stay in this thing until the end, collect as many delegates as he can, and at the very least, throw them to the one he finds most acceptable at the GOP convention?
This contest could well end up more like a haggling session in the Israeli parliament than like a "one person, one vote" election. Do the minor parties in the Knesset "drop out" just because they only have a handful of members? No -- they leverage what strength they have, and sometimes they become kingmakers! Why shouldn't the minor candidates in this wildly unpredictable race do the same?
For instance, current Israeli prime minster Ehud Olmert owes his position to both the Shas Party (which controls 9.53% of the Knesset) and the Gil Party (5.92%). If either party left his coalition, he'd be toast. Fred Thompson's percentage in South Carolina was better than Shas and Gil combined! :) And if he stays in the race, there's a good chance he'll rack up at least a Gil-sized share of the delegates. (Tennessee alone would give him 2.3%, if he gets a majority here.) That might be enough to throw the nomination to his preferred candidate. If he drops out now, he suddenly goes from "undetermined, but possibly huge, amount of leverage" to "guaranteed zero leverage." So why should he drop out again?
Oh, right. To be McCain's vice president. But wait -- doesn't he help McCain more by staying in, and thus taking votes away from Huckabee? So again: why? And remember, "he's not going to win" isn't a good enough reason.
“The regular contribute button still works. They maybe tooling up for another run. That was for SC.”
Think you are right. Perhaps putting up “Ticket to the Next Dance” video is just a message that Florida is next. I sure hope so, and hope Fred has plenty of funds to make a good showing here in Florida. GO FRED!
I don’t know, but the “Ticket to the next dance” video is there in it’s place.
If Senator Thompson quits before a state where
Republicans choose their nominee , Jeri should kick him to the curb . (Just kidding) I don’t think there is any quit in the man .
I think we have a ticket to the next dance. ;-)
Gerson on Thompson Jonathan Adler
Last week Michael Gerson wrote a remarkably unserious column in which he suggested Fred Thompson lacked "moral seriousness" because he failed to embrace President Bush's global AIDS initiative with sufficient vigor. Looking at what Thompson actually said, and the context in which he said it, it is clear Gerson either misunderstood or misrepresented what Thompson said. Now in a Newsweek column, Gerson compounds the error, further distorting the content and context of Thompson's remarks.
Others have already pointed out the problem with Gerson's underlying argument, his failure to recognize the nature of trade-offs in a world of scarce resources, and his ridiculous (and quite unconservative) premise that a willingness to spend other people's money is the proper measure of compassion and "moral seriousness." I'm just adding my t[w]o cents here to explain how Gerson's characterization of Thompson's actual remarks missed the boat.
Just to recap: Thompson was asked whether he supported President Bush's global AIDS initiative, "as a Christian, as a conservative." Here is how Thompson reportedly responde.
Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it. The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other. . . .Not only did Gerson fail to note for the last portion of Thompson's response — a portion that undercuts Gerson's representation of the remarks — but he also failed to appreciate that Thompson was responding to the question on the terms the questioner posed: He explained how he, as a Christian and as a conservative, approaches questions of this sort. In this context, it was perfectly appropriate — indeed, it is directly responsive — for Thompson to explain his understanding of the Christian conception of charity and the conservative view on the respective roles of government and the private sector in helping those in need. Not only did Thompson not "criticize" the global AIDS initiative, as Gerson now claims, he did not evince any"callousness" or cynical effort to appeal to isolationist sentiment. He explained something that Gerson apparently fails to understand: In a world of limited resources, priorities must be set.“I’m not going to go around the state and the country with regards to a serious problem and say that I’m going to prioritize that, With people dying of cancer, and heart disease, and children dying of leukemia still, I got to tell you – we’ve got a lot of problems here, and we all may have our one that’s affected us the most, but it’s a broad array. And a president who will tell you the truth is that we have to look across the board and do what we can and what we should based upon the severity of the problem and the chances that our research money will do some good in these areas.
As the CBS account makes clear, but Gerson ignored, Thompson said he would set priorities for health-related funding by looking at "the severity of the problem and the chances that our research money will do some good in these areas." Further, as anyone who's actually paid attention knows, Thompson believes that U.S. efforts to address the spread of AIDS (if properly constituted) meet this test. Apparently it is too much to expect a columnist like Gerson to actually familiarize himself with the positions of candidates he wishes to criticize. (Does this suggest Gerson lacks intellectual and journalistic seriousness?) We may expect this sort of thing from ThinkProgress, but not from someone who purports to explain how the GOP and modern conservatism "lost its way."
It sure looks like it! I don't want to read too much into this, but this is a screengrab of Fred08.com from just a minute ago:It's a video of Fred's speech after Iowa, when he said he had a ticket to South Carolina. The only reason I know for front-paging this today is that Fred feels like he has a ticket to Florida and Super Tuesday today! Go Fred! Now give him some money!
It looks like Fred is going to move on to the next battles. He has strong support in the deep south, MS, AL,LA and TN. Funds are a bit tight but coming.
Looks like it is time to outwit and out last McCain and Huckabee...
Now have done 43 calls here in Florida in the last three days. During calls today, I came across only 7 who have already voted. Two did not share whom they voted for but said they liked Fred and wish him well. One said she did not vote for Fred. The other four said they voted for Fred!
All of the rest had not voted yet. I expect more Fred supporters after the debate this coming Thursday. GO FRED!
Aftermath at Thompson Headquarters
It was not a pretty picture at Fred Thompson's election night party. Following the former Tennessee senator's remarks earlier in the evening and departure for his home state, the crowd at Russell Hall on the University of South Carolina campus grew listless and soon cleared out. Dean Rice, a onetime Thompson Senate staffer who was his primary coordinator in the primary, told me he was coming out to thank the volunteers who came from as far away as Pensylvania and Washington State to help their hero. Thompson, of course, was a distant third behind John McCain (33%) and Mike Huckabee (30%) with 16% of the vote. In thanking his supporters, the onetime star of TV's "Law and Order" gave no hint as to whether he would stay on to fight or call it quits.
"He's left for a while and hasn't said what he is going to do next," Nelson Warfield, who had produced some of the hard-hitting spots the Thompson campaign ran in the twilight of the primary race. Randy Enwright, the Thompson campaign's political director, also said he had no idea what Thompson would do next. Enwright, a past executive director of the Florida Republican Party with strong ties to cultural conservatives, had been expected to be a major player in a Thompson effort in the Sunshine State's GOP primary January 29th.
Almost to a person, the young activists I met from other states--almost all of whom paid their own expenses--who had come here to turn out the vote for Thompson wanted their man to fight on. Laila Shipman of Rome, Georgia told me "I met a lot of good folks here, from Virginia, Minnesota, and elsewhere, and I'm looking forward to seeing them again to help a great man." Judy Davidson of Chester County, Pennsylvania, the Thompson coordinator in the Pennsylvania said "We are all set to go, all organized. We're even selling a new kind of pretzels known as 'Fretzels' on our website. You heard it here first--this is going to a brokered convention (It's starting at CPAC 2008 in three weeks - FlA). Fred has to stay in."
Did Romney Wound Thompson?
With Mike Huckabee's campaign team blaming Fred Thompson for denying their man the conservative votes he needed to overtake John McCain, the Thompson team has begun to hint that their candidate's third place finish (16%) might have been much higher had it not been for a last-minute major media buy by Mitt Romney--who placed fourth with 15%.
One high-placed Republican source who requested anonymity insisted to me this morning that, Mitt Romney's virtual abandonment of South Carolina last week to focus on the Nevada caucuses (which he won handily) notwithstanding, Romney's South Carolina operation nonetheless made a last-minute time purchase for television spots. The time buy, estimated at $300,000, blitzed the Aiken-area 3rd District, where Thompson had the backing of popular Rep. Gresham Barrett, on the even of the primary. According to my GOP source, "this made it difficult and in some cases impossible for the Thompson campaign to purchase key times to air his commercials in the end."
It is, of course, impossible to say whether the votes that went to Romney in the end would have all gone to Thompson and put him closer to second place. When I talked to Thompson media maestro Nelson Warfield, he said he was aware of the Romney media buys and said "anytime someone gobbles up time on the airwaves that hurts because it is time you could have used for your candidate."
Posted for FlAttorney by TAB
I am sure Fred needs funds to get ads out in Florida. The donations for the past two hours (9:00-11:00PM) was $620. Not bad considering the play-off game and the red truck donation link not on the home page of Fred’s site. We will know more tomorrow but Fred is still in this race and will do well in Florida following the debate Thursday! GO FRED!
https://www.fred08.com/Contribute.aspx?CampaignID=redpickup
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