Posted on 06/19/2007 8:47:01 PM PDT by Reagan Man
Startlingly, Fred Thompson has managed to emerge as a top-tier candidate for the Republican Party’s 2008 presidential nomination without either declaring himself a candidate or spending much money.
As a result, the former Tennessee senator is now in the process of assembling a campaign team, testing the waters and preparing for what everyone believes will be a formal announcement sometime this summer.
If it works, he’ll be able to say, “I seen my opportunity—and I took it,” because he appears to be in the right place at the right time and could benefit from the almost palpable craving among many Republican base voters for an alternative to the three current top-tier candidates, whom many Republicans, for different reasons, are reluctant to embrace.
Each of them—former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney—has his supporters, but none of them has come close to closing the sale with rank-and-file Republican voters.
McCain was considered the front-runner in the early betting and has the largest personal base within his party. He attracted the early money and hordes of Washington establishment types who joined up because they wanted to be with the man they thought would blow away the competition.
What they and he have discovered, however, is that while he has a base within the GOP, many Republican voters simply don’t like him and won’t support him. The strategy he followed required him to solidify and expand his support early, and it turned out he just couldn’t do it. He doesn’t appear capable of moving much beyond what he had when he announced, isn’t comfortable running the sort of campaign he’s been forced to run this time, is letting his notorious temper show and is beginning to slip badly in most polls.
As a result, his money is drying up, some of those who hopped on board early are looking for a way out and he’s beginning to come across as a tad too strident and desperate. He can hang on, of course, because he’s a fighter and does have a base that won’t desert him, but his best days are behind him.
Mitt Romney is a slick performer and is doing well in targeted markets, but he’s having a difficult time gaining traction. He’s viewed by too many as a tad too slick and just a bit too flexible on matters of principle. It’s not too late and it’s conceivable that he can use Iowa and New Hampshire to get things going, but he has yet to connect with voters in any meaningful way.
Rudy Giuliani has very different problems, and they are likely to prove even more devastating in the long run because he doesn’t have the base support McCain can fall back on or the upside potential of Romney. He’s taken his post-9/11 image as a celebrity tough guy about as far it’ll go. He’s been betting that he can use the “war on terror” and his tough leadership image to trump the social-issues positions he’s taken over the years—as well as the cultural resistance to a New Yorker—but it doesn’t seem to be working.
If his positions on abortion, gay marriage and guns were his only problems, he might be able to finesse them, but his real problems run much deeper. He is, after all, a man who as mayor of New York went ahead and appointed a friend police commissioner after having been warned that he had suspicious Mob ties, later tried to foist him off on the White House as a perfect candidate to head the Department of Homeland Security and then told reporters he didn’t remember being told the fellow might be “mobbed up.”
He remains the putative front-runner only because McCain is dropping like a rock and Romney isn’t gaining much traction, but every day more and more Republicans are realizing that Rudy was never really “America’s Mayor.” He was New York City’s mayor and has proven quite different from the image that attracted many to him at the outset.
All of this adds up to an opening for someone like Thompson who has tenuous support right now as “none of the above.” The question, however, is whether the former senator will be able to take advantage of the opening.
Those expecting the second coming of Ronald Reagan are apt to be disappointed, but there are no Reagans out there. A consistent conservative who can connect with voters and convince Republicans that there could be more to 2008 than simply opposing Hillary Clinton will draw a lot of support.
The bottom line is that if Thompson doesn’t disappoint those desperately seeking a viable alternative to the Big Three, he could take it all.
[David Keene is the chairman of the American Conservative Union and a managing associate with the Carmen Group, a Washington, D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm.]
You know why?
Because he isn't a candidate and hasn't spent much money.....
Think about it.
No one knows whether Thompson might, in some sense, be “another Reagan.” Who knew in advance how great Reagan would be? How many recognized it at the time?
you would almost think he was a hollywood celebrity or something...
Sounds similar to Howard Dean in 2003 except with the Democrats.
It's not an issue of like. McCain killed his chances with McCain-Feingold. Conservatives rightly viewed that as an attack on the First Amendment, and conservatives won't vote for a guy who will toss the bill of rights.
Fred is the man.........
Go Fred!!
Anyone who listened to him speak at the 1976 convention.
raises hand.
Fred is all over you tube, has recently appeared on several news and talk shows, just went overseas to meet Thatcher and speak at the Policy Exchange in London.....I wouldn't call that "hardly saying anything."
Sorry but I cannot imagine Thompson talking like that.
Maybe "I HAVE seen my opportunity".
Sorry, I really don’t see the similarity. Seller’s character, Chauncy the Gardener (Chauncy Gardner) was a simpleton who came out of nowhere and becomes a presidential advisor through Forrest Gump like chance occurences. He says random things about the garden and the press takes them as deep metaphors.
Thompson has been a well known public figure for decades, with a Senate record to look at. He says specific things about specific issues that basically reflect the common sense beliefs of most Americans. Of course some people will read what they want to into his statements, but that’s true of anybody.
Not looking for another Reagan. Just looking for the above. If he turned out to be another reagan, great. Right now all I want is a proven conservative that will defend conservatism in a manner the less political can identify with and won't go around calling me names after I get him to the oval while slapping kennedy's back.
Conservatives won't be disappointed if he's not reagan. they'd only be disappointed if he turned out like Bush and Mccain.
Actually, it was the eve of election day, 1964, Goldwater vs. LBJ. Reagan made a televised speech and stole the show.
It’s set up perfectly for him with Hitlery and King Bloomberg splitting the independent and looney left wing votes.
If he doesn’t accidentally spike himself, the Oval Office is his for the taking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.