November 12, 2007 12:34
You Remember Fred Thompson
The Los Angeles Times on the actor's sliding campaign. As I suspected, Thompson's candidacy is this year's Wes Clark...and an object lesson for future latecomers: It's hard to jump full-speed into a presidential campaign, even an interminable one...and impossible if you're lazy. The early months of a campaign are crucial for fund-raising, yes, but also for getting your stump act together--and for figuring out which of your positions are suicidal within your party. In Thompson's case, his honorable and intellectually defensible position that abortion should be a matter of (local) legislative action rather than federal judicial action is a killer with the evangelical sorts who were sorta, kinda hoping for a Cindarella to fit into the glass slipper of their restrictive ideology. No deal with Thompson.
In any case, who'd be surprised if this guy slipped out of the GOP top tier?
Update: Silly me. It appears that National Right-to-Life will endorse Thompson on Friday. But then, this is the year that moral relativism has overtaken the GOP's interest groups. File under: Robertson endorses Giuliani
About Swampland
Ana Marie Cox is the founding editor of Wonkette and the author of the novel Dog Days. Read more
Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. Read more
Karen Tumulty is TIME's National Political Correspondent and has also covered the White House and Congress. Read more
Jay Carney is TIME's Washington bureau chief. He has covered the Clinton and Bush 43 White Houses as well as Congress. Read more
Jay Newton-Small has covered the Bush 43 White House and Congress since the DeLay era. Read more
Michael Scherer is a TIME Washington bureau correspondent covering the 2008 presidential campaign. Read more
Mike Murphy is a GOP consultant and was a senior strategist for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. Read more
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Reader Comments (11)
In any case, who'd be surprised if this guy slipped out of the GOP top tier?
Boy it's a laugh riot here today!
I don't know, Joe. Why don't you explain how he slipped into the top tier before he announced, before he'd raised any money and before he'd made a single stump speech? While all along Ron Paul was steadily accumulating money, followers and buzz.
But there is an upside. If you guys decide that Grandpa Fred is no longer top tier, then whoa!!, there's room for McCain to slip back in again.
Posted by jayackroyd
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November 12, 2007 12:48 PM
It is neither honorable nor intellectually defensible that women's liberty - which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment which rather clearly states that "No state shall" deny liberty - can be destroyed by individual state action. If it were, then it would also be honorable and defensible that individual states could also allow slavery. The U.S. fought a very destructive civil war on the issue of federal primacy regarding liberty and the outcome was the enactment of the post-Civil War amendments. I think Mr. Klein should actually read the 14th Amendment before opining further.
Posted by patroclus | November 12, 2007 1:01 PM
How the Hell is it "honorable" to force women to give birth?
Posted by EricJaffa
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November 12, 2007 1:36 PM
The media just does not like him because he does not work they way they have told cantidates to. He will be endorsed by the National Right to life commitee this week and it will all start gaining traction from there. Rudy is going down because of his driver Kerick and Romney will go down because of his flipflopping and Thompson and McCain will be left and once again like Howard Dean the media will be left scratching their heads
Posted by Modern Day Publius | November 12, 2007 1:45 PM
...hoping for a Cindarella to fit into the glass slipper of their restrictive ideology...
More like Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes. No wonder the GOP has such winners for candidates...
Posted by J.J.
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November 12, 2007 1:56 PM
When you say that it's honorable to hold that local governments can deprive women of federally guaranteed rights, you're using "honorable" in the same ironic way that you use it with regards to Petraeus, right?
Right?
Posted by Mike M. | November 12, 2007 2:36 PM
Joe,
I think for all the Hype your assessment of his laziness and seemingly indifferent attitude toward the race is his undoing. He is not entirely dead but, he needs CPR right now. I rarely see him campaigning or anything. Just doesn't seem to really want it.
Posted by Judgement | November 12, 2007 2:57 PM
Fred who?
Posted by BrendanB | November 12, 2007 4:27 PM
Joe, you're still carrying Fred's water, by even pretending he cares.
Why should he? He's a millionaire.
Stop pretending that these endorsements matter, please. Only in the land of Republicanism, where folks need to be told whom to support, is this even a factor.
Bring on Fred. If we elect him, he'll be a lot more sane than Rudy, which is admittedly a low bar to clear, since, among other issues on which you could say he's been exposed to "reality," you just know he likes teh Gay, having worked in Hollywood so long.
But he's cooked and done.
Posted by John O
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November 12, 2007 7:37 PM
For the last couple of hours I've been reading posts about Thompson this or that and I seriously was thinking "Who are they talking about? Didn't Tommy Thompson dropped out of the race a couple of months back?"
LOL
Fred. I totally forgot about Fred.
Posted by JoyousMN2 | November 12, 2007 11:11 PM
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Posted by scorpionnn | July 28, 2008 3:24 PM