Fred Thompson Not Taking the Bait
Fred Thompson is bringing something new to the ’08 Presidential scramble, and it may just work.
The former Senator/actor is raising cool to an art form and, at a time, when voters are hearing too much from too many, his detachment has lifted him to the top of the Republican polls and may just keep him there.
Take, for example, his demurral to participating in the Values Voter crowd scene next Monday:
“Debates are important, but let’s don’t let the tail wag the dog here. Standing up there 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for someone to throw you the next fish is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people. I’m not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish. I just don’t want to do it all the time.”
On the campaign trail, Thompson keeps sniffing at some of the fish and finding them too stale. Yesterday, when he has asked about the Terri Schiavo case, pushed by his fellow Tennessean Dr. Bill Frist, he declined to bite.
“I can’t pass judgment on it.†he said. “I know that good people were doing what they thought was best. That’s going back in history. I don’t remember the details.”
Staying out of the race until this month was a winning strategy. Now that he is in it, Thompson as a campaigner is doing the next best thing. Playing off the eagerness of Giuliani, Romney and McCain may be just the ticket to success.
Cross-post from my blog
For more on the Thompson campaign, click here
8 Responses to “Fred Thompson Not Taking the Bait”
Wow. The next election really is going to be the actor vs. the quarterback’s girlfriend. What a travesty we have let the election process become. Either will be a huge leap in leadership compared to Bush though I guess.
Could it be that “aw shucks Fred” is really just “kinda slow Fred”? Ignoring issues and refusing to respond because he “can’t remember” (Schiavo, Social Security, etc) may appeal to his key demographic (age 70+) but is already wearing very thin with the rest.
I’m not sure if this is Fred “playing it cool” so much as Fred doesn’t want to give much thought to these things. It strikes me that there is an air of presumption about him, that he’s simply above bothering to campaign for the White House. As part of that approach Fred doesn’t bother to pay attention to the issues people care about. And yes, people do care about things like the Terri Schiavo case (on both sides). What a surreal campaign. And underwhelming too.
Sounds like he’s a natural politician- he understands when to say – “I don’t recall”, and makes recent events like the Terry Schiavo incident sound like ancient history.
In reality, Fred knows this is a hot potato for the Republican party, that many thought the federal government should have stayed out of it and let the courts decide Ms. Schiavo’s fate.
Actually I think Thompson’s strategy is pretty smart- stay above the fray, not offer any specifics, stay away from debates and present a likeable image. There may not be much substance behind him but if the American people are tired of politicians as usual then Thompson’s strategy is smart. If he doesn’t offer an opinon or only offends a few people (probably people who would never vote for him anyway) then no one can pin anything on him. Personally I prefer my leaders to have intelligence, ideas, values and substance. So I think Fred Thompson, with his lack of substance is totally offensive. It would be interesting to see if this has been his stategy in the past. I see it as a close mimicking of Bush’s strategy.
I’m not sure how long he can get away with this non-substance strategy. And I don’t know his debating skills. Personally I think he would be worse than Bush as President. The Republicans (not just Bush) reward loyalty and Thompson would need a lot of support from Republicans to get elected. As such Thompson would owe a lot of people a lot of favors that they would only be too glad to collect once Thompson is in the White House. We all know what happened when Bush rewarded key positions in government to his friends.
He does remind me of Bush- both men recreated themselves as down-home folksy types who were Washington outsiders. Thompson rented a red pickup truck and Bush bought a Texas ranch. Its sad that in this country, image counts for everything. Thompson lacks substance because he doesn’t really know why he wants to be president.
Holy CRAP! What a bunch of drool!
Schiavo was about a despicable “husband” unwilling to sign-off his financial benefit to her parents who were not ready to say goodbye to their daughter. Why the chad counting idiots of Florida didn’t know about King Solomon or be able appreciate the concept on their own is, without question a local matter.
As always, once a reasonable person fully researches the many issues Fred comments on immediately understand exactly what he is saying….and he’s right on the money.
The above drooling responses have yet to put any effort at all towards that goal because they live in denial. Wise-up and smell what you’re shovelin’ clowns.
Winghunter, I’m always willing to keep an opn mind and examine the facts. The main point in my above posting is that Fred does not have substance. So I thought, in response to your posting, I would go to Fred’s website and see what substance he has. First I wanted to see where he at least stood on the issues. I could not find any place where he lists his positions, except on one: under the link, “Principles” there is only one other link, “Federalism”. This is a long article in which Thompson gives his views on Federalism but it’s often not clear and there is not a lot in there about what he would do, other than put in place a law that would require federal agencies, when formulating policies, to respect states’ rights in accordance with the Constitution.
I could not find any links as to where he stands on issues and what he would do to further his causes (whatever they may be).
I thought I’d visit three other Presidential candidates’ websites and see if I could locate their beliefs on the issues. I went to Ron Paul’s, Obama’s and Hillary’s. In each case I was able to locate the page with their beliefs on the very first link I clicked on (I think it was the “Issues” link for all three). I assume that the other candidates also have their issues and beliefs on their websites.
What Thompson says is general enough that he doesn’t offend many people. As an example, (and I am not attributing this quote to Thompson) it’s like saying, “I support a reduction in crime” (which we can all agree with) but then not offering a plan on reducing it. I actually went to Thompson’s website to see what he said about crime and I couldn’t find anything.
There are lots of links on his website- a nice photo gallery and links to articles that Fred likes including one titled, “Thompson finds crowd to his liking” in a Florida paper. There’s also a link to “Ask Fred”. However you need to be a “Friend of Fred” to even view the comments. Seems like Bush, restricting access to certain people. Granted that the access is probably free but I don’t see why I have to become a member of “Friends of Fred” to see the comments that he leaves for his supporters He’ll probably release statistics that show he has “X” number of supporters signed up as “Friends of Fred”. I do not want to be counted as one of Fred’s supporters because I’m not.
So, after some research I still stand by my original point, that Thompson does not have any substance. But I’ll also add that Fred appears to be elitist because he only allows certain people full access to his website (Friends of Fred). Sounds more and more like Bush: folksy image, no substance but ultimately elitist.