Fred Thompson

I don’t know a lot about Fred Thompson. I know he has a nice of way of keeping his name in the news even though he is not an official candidate for President yet. He gets credit for being media savvy.

Another thing, he has charisma. He doesn’t come off like a typical politician, but seems “comfortable in his skin.” This can be important for politicians, especially among people who don’t notice politics until, as I like to put it, they look up from their bong in late October to ask, “What’s all this I hear about an election?” Many voters will choose Thompson simply because they like him without understanding any of his stands on the issues.

If Thompson’s opponent is Hillary Clinton, we can call the election now. Senator Clinton, I am as certain as I can be, would lose big. Biggest landslide since 1984. Clinton lacks charisma as much as Thompson has it. Her voice is shrill, her character suspicious, angry and humorless, her past scandal-ridden.

Furthermore, the Democrats have come to depend too much on character assassination to win. They will get dirty in October, 2008, of that you can be sure. I get the impression that such attacks will fall off Thompson like water off a duck's back.

Clinton will join a long list of Democrat losers, including McGovern, Hart, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry. The addition of her name to this list will doubtless feed the left’s paranoia that American democracy is undermined by capitalist greed and right-wingers saying lies that poison stupid American minds and entice Kansans to vote against their self-interest. (As if socialism were in anyone’s self-interest!)

I must say I like this about him:

As for his ambivalence about running for president until age 64, he jokes that voters may like someone "who hasn't lusted for the job since they were student body president." He maintains that "if a person craves power for the sake of power, if he craves the office for the sake of holding the office, he's got his priorities mixed up. It [should be] a desire to do something not be something."

I could not agree more.

I have no doubt that if he gets the nomination and as we then learn more about him, he will disappoint us time and again. He must because he is a Republican. I think there is a rule in the Republican by-laws that candidates must compromise their principles, appease statists and do their best to demoralize individualist voters. If they didn’t, then things would be too easy and Republicans would be too popular. By self-destructing they stave off the evil eye of envy.

UPDATE: Politics and Pigskins looks at Fred Thompson’s stands on various issues in two posts.