You're entitled to think what you want, but you are proving to be less than educated on the subject.
I realise that for a strong conservative, that would be considered “negative” since it makes some other conservatives question him. But it helps build him up as electable when the media says he’s not an “ideologue”.
Fred Thompson is a conservative, but he isn't an ideologue. Perhaps that's why people find to paint him that way. It's almost impossible to do so. Apparently, since you remain largely ignorant even about candidates that you support, you haven't bothered to do any research on Fred Thompson either. So, you just assumed that he was a hardline bible thumping ideologue, which to you, in your 'I like the NE liberal who pretends to be the best conservative' mentality, means that he isn't 'electable'. Well, the flaw here is in your thinking, not in Fred Thompson, or even in ideologues.
Further, as the FredHeads will attest, they LOVE Fred’s position on his religion for example, so it’s hardly “negative reporting” when the media tells us Fred doesn’t regularly attend church. I mean, some evangelicals don’t like it, but most of the Fred supporters have explained that this makes Fred more likeable and believable.
The 'FredHeads' this and the 'FredHeads' that. Aren't you capable of discerning what is going on yourself? The press reporting that Fred doesn't go to church regularly IS an attempt to stop him from getting evangelical support. It's a stupid and ignorant method of doing so, but a method nonetheless.
In this respect, many of us do find it refreshing that he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve. Many squishy moderates were turned off by Bush's use of religion on the stump, because they found it phony. Fred, should appeal to evangelicals because he's on their side, while succeeding in not turning off the moderates by thumping bibles.
And I see very little in the paper about how large blocks of people won’t vote for Fred. Instead, the most negative they get is to QUESTION why some groups aren’t supporting him.
Yeah, nothing negative about questioning why groups that are largely supporting Fred are not supporting Fred. Maybe you should take your head out of that paper and breath some air. Maybe, while you're at it, you should read some online news, rather than your local paper.
I'm not going to even bother quoting and responding to the rest of your silliness.
Suffice it to say that if you want to see some hitpieces, open your friggin eyes and read the articles here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=fredthompson
There are new ones every day. You can then read the comments and go back to cussing the 'FredHeads' again, because they simply refuse to back your stealth liberal, slimy, gay activist judge appointing, medicine socializing, state funder of abortions, candidate.
Uh, “FredHead” is the name the Fred Thompson Supporters have chosen for themselves on this blog. I fail to see why using their chosen name would now be considered an attack, although I guess you are seeing attacks everywhere.
Fred Thompson is no ideologue. I’ve never said he was. I never dreamed he was a “bible-thumping” one.
YOUR premise was that the Media was attacking him. I pointed out that they didn’t call him an ideologue. You responded by saying “but he isn’t one, so why would they call him one?”
My response is, THEY WOULD CALL HIM THAT IF THEY WANTED TO ATTACK HIM. So you concede that at least in this instance, the media did not attack him, but rather truthfully covered him. Can you also admit that being shown to be a non-ideologue, not beholden to the “extreme evangelical wing” of the party, makes a candidate more acceptable to moderates and independents?
On the other hand, you say that the media saying Fred doesn’t go to church regularly is a negative attack, only to say that “many of us do find it refreshing that he doesn’t wear his religion on his sleeve.”. Which is exactly what I said, that the Fred supporters were pleased to learn this about him — kind of an odd thing then to call something a “negatve attack” when you think it is a positive.
Maybe next week the media will report that he cut taxes — oh the horror, what evil thing will the media truthfully report next about our candidate that we love about him?
The next one is actually a little harder: I said “the most negative they get is to QUESTION why some groups aren’t supporting him.”, and you responded “Yeah, nothing negative about questioning why groups that are largely supporting Fred are not supporting Fred.”
Your response was the opposite of what I said, which is the first problem. I said the media is asking why groups that are NOT supporting fred don’t support him, and you said sarcastically “groups that are largely SUPPORTING Fred”.
Further, your sarcasm is misplaced. It is NOT negative when the paper argues that groups that don’t support your candidate SHOULD be supporting him. I think that should be clear. It’s like all the articles that note some conservatives don’t support Rudy, and then wonder why, and show all the “conservative” things he did.
But I guess that’s a half-empty/half-full thing. If the paper says “For some reason, Fred isn’t catching on with “group A”, which seems odd since he’s exactly what “group A” would want in a candidate, I think most candidates would think that was a GOOD thing. But if you were a nervous nellie, you might instead think that was negative, because others like group A would ignore what the paper said and think “If group A isn’t happy, I shouldn’t be either”.
All in all, I find your response was unpersuasive. Fred’s gotten a lot of good press, and it’s helping his “electability” numbers. We should all be cheering, because we need to supplant Rudy.
But the Fred Thompson Supporters, looking for a cloud in every silver lining, have chosen to paint this as some big negative “we are managing to scrape along even while the media is saying all sorts of bad things about us, telling people the truth about our candidate that makes us really happy but it’s still bad of them to do it”.
Whatever. It’s bad enough when supporters delude themselves that it’s the media that keeps their candidate down. To see supporters complaining about media coverage when it’s boosting their candidate just seems a bit psychotic to me.
But if that’s what you all want, go ahead. I choose to look at this as a good thing, happy that for whatever reason we are supplanting Rudy.
BTW, the first article in your “list of hit pieces” was the article that gives the results of the Value Voters straw poll.
Is reporting the results of a straw poll normally consider a negative attack on your candidate, or just this one?
More seriously, I looked down the list of the “hit pieces” you posted, and of the 1st 13, only one could possibly be considered negative, the rest were all positive Fred pieces, including positive headlines from mainstream media sources.
I suppose if I looked at all 50 I’d see a few more negative ones, but the ratio of good to bad proves MY point, not yours.
I KNOW there are bad things said about Fred in the papers. But his coverage is mostly positive, as your link showed.
Actually, coverage of FRC is proving my point as well.
THe overall score which included all members of FRC (voting online), Romney 1st, Huckabee 2nd, Paul 3rd, Thompson 4th.
The attendee vote: Huckabee 1st, Romney 2nd, Thompson 3rd, Tancredo 4th.
So what is the mainstream media story? According to you, they will all be talking about how terrible Fred Thompson did. But a quick reading shows nobody is talking about Thompson.
Instead, the story is Romney. But in the mainstream media, it’s not that ROmney won the overall poll, or that he came in 2nd beating Thompson at the conference.
No, there are multiple stories about Romney manipulating the vote, about how nobody clapped when he was announced as winning, etc.
In other words, attacks on Romney for the FRC conference, and mum’s the word on Thompson who Romney beat at the conference.
That’s how the media helps Thompson and hits Romney.