He’s In
Fred Thompson has told USA Today that he is going to get in the race. He's planning to run a very, very media – and new media – savvy campaign.
STAMFORD, Conn. — Politician-turned-actor Fred Thompson has been coy with audiences as he flirts with a bid for the Republican presidential nomination.In an interview with USA TODAY, however, the former Tennessee senator not only makes it clear that he plans to run, he describes how he aims to do it. He's planning an unconventional campaign using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties.
"I can't remember exactly the point that I said, 'I'm going to do this,' " Thompson says, his 6-foot, 6-inch frame sprawled comfortably across a couch in a hotel suite. "But when I did, the thing that occurred to me: 'I'm going to tell people that I am thinking about it and see what kind of reaction I get to it.' " ……
……."I feel some of the same feelings that I felt in the latter part of that '94 campaign about what is going on in the country today — only greater," says Thompson, citing public cynicism toward the Republican president and the new Democrat-controlled Congress. "You can't drive the truck all the way across the country, but since '94 other opportunities have opened up in terms of ways to communicate."
A candidate could use the Internet "to cut through the clutter and go right to the people," he says.
And the truck, now parked at his mother's home in Franklin, Tenn.? "You might drive it a few places."
And if you want to see just how devastatingly effective he can be in the new media look no further than this. Any candidate from either party who didn't just get a chill when they heard he's in has some very bad advisers. Thompson will be a very, very powerful contender.
UPDATE: Others: Townhall.com, Scared Monkeys, The Gun Toting Liberal, Professor Bainbridge, Tammy Bruce, Riehl World View, Michael P.F. van der Galiën, CJR, Gay Patriot, QandO, The American Mind, Heading Right, Mark in Mexico, Confederate Yankee, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, State of the Day, Cliff Schecter, Babalu Blog, Central Sanity, Wizbang,
By James, May 30, 2007 @ 3:03 pm
I think more smoke than fire.
Only way for Fred to have a chance in 2008 is to completely break away from all of Bush/Cheney’s policies. Go for the center in a strong way and stay there. He has to reject Bush’s Iraq war, otherwise the next year and ahalf will ruin anyone still clinging to the idea of a win in Iraq; Plus, folks are tired of a Republican President.
My starting position is Fred won’t do it.
By BlogDog, May 30, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
I’m a Fred state voter.
By Purple Avenger, May 30, 2007 @ 5:39 pm
He has to reject Bush’s Iraq war
Why? Because the top democrats aren’t?
By syn, May 30, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
Rejecting the Iraq war is rejecting the war against radicalized militant Islam.
I’m tired of people who want to keep their head in bushhate and not on the ball.
Call me a former liberal mugged by reality neo-con but the American ‘center’ is far more interested in victory than defeat; reason why the Democrat majority won’t defund the war and why they threw Cindy Sheehan off their bus.
I’m a Fred state or a Rudy state, anything but a D’s defeatist state.
By Bill Franklin, May 30, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
> the American ‘center’ is far more interested
> in victory than defeat
You like to make these type of statements with nothing to back them up. Every poll I’ve seen shows the majority of Americans think the Iraq invasion was wrong and wants us out (get this, I include links to back up my assertions!):
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/15922
Nevermind what the average soldier thinks, which we have no hard stats but interviews with military leaders on the ground are saying the vast majority of our soldiers are declaring Iraq a lost cause:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/27/news/delta.php
But then this isn’t the first time you’ve made inaccurate statements boldly asserting them as fact Syn. For example, you stated as fact that Valerie Plame wasn’t covert, and now declassified documents just came out saying she was. And while I’m on Plamegate, Fitzgerald all but said the source of the leak was Cheney, but because of the lying by Scooter he can’t produce the evidence to convict. Score another round for the most ethical administration in history.
Keep supporting these faux conservatives, and their absurd non-conservative agenda.
By syn, May 31, 2007 @ 4:53 am
Bill
The International Herald is an arm of the NY Times which has time and again shown it cannot be trusted as a realible new source. I live in NYC and remember a time not too long ago (1998-2000) when the NY Times was writing editorials which supported Bill Clinton’s 1998 Iraq Liberation Act. Now was the NY Times lying then or are they lying now….tell me what do your polls have to say.
That said, since 2003 I have been sending care packages to the soldiers and the one common theme in every letter I receive back is that ‘the news’ isn’t accurately reporting what is going on. On the contrary, though there are difficulties they believe we are winning but often wonder if Americans at home have the resolve to see through to victory. I have way too many letters to post but perhaps if you send a few packages you too may hear a different story told.
That said, polls are manufactured for the purpose helping journalists drive the story of a particular agenda. If it is a fact that the majority of Americans want to leave Iraq why then will not the Democrat majority defund the war, according to ‘the polls’ you provided they have all the backing they need from the poll numbers, no?
If Democrats really beleive that the majority of Americans want to end the war in Iraq why then did they throw the anti-Iraq war icon off their bus?
Proof in in the pudding my friend not in the polls.
How can you believe Plame when every testimony she has given seems to contradict one another.
I understand you hate bush and republicans but is your bushhatred so overwhelming that your reason is obscured by manufactured propaganda?
By Bill Franklin, May 31, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
> NY Times which has time and again shown
> it cannot be trusted as a reliable new source.
Yeah, I remember the Judith Miller articles too. But seriously, if you can’t trust the NYT, which is widely regarded as the standard for journalism, then, well, you’re only option is to ignore everything and just believe what the politician you like tells you…propaganda.
By the way the NYT supported Bush’s Iraq invasion, thanks to Judith Miller’s administration-guided articles. I don’t follow your point about the Clinton Iraq Liberation Act.
I think it’s great that you send care packages, because frankly I’ve seen first hand how our government treats wounded soldiers. Because we can’t get any scientific polling numbers we’ll never know the opinions of the average solider. Unfortunately your sample size is too low, and your data likely suffers from sampling bias, depending on what letters you include when sending your package. I doubt a soldier doing his time but generally unsatisfied is going to bother to write you back expressing his opinions.
> If Democrats really believe that the majority of
> Americans want to end the war in Iraq why then did
> they throw the anti-Iraq war icon off their bus?
The Democrats?! The real, historic war party? It must kill them to be on the historically wrong side of this issue. They love intervening, doing big government demagoguery. This is the party that got us into, what? WW II, Korea, Vietnam to name a few. And what party always gets us out of war? Republicans (read: conservatives).
On your bashing of polls – Yeah, they’re always biased until they support the view you like, then they can be cited. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. But the fact is, if the poll has a decent statistician involved in creating the questions, then they are pretty darn accurate.
You can bash Plame’s testimony as all lies, but a recently declassified CIA document says that Plame was covert. End of story, she was covert as determined by the only agency that can define this status. She can spew lies 7/24..it doesn’t matter, she *was* covert because the CIA said she was at the time.
> I understand you hate bush and republicans
I like Bush’s tax cuts. I like his environmental policy. I’m luke warm to his immigration policy. But these three issues PALE in comparison to what his administration and the porky pie faux-conservative Republicans have done to the deficit, our troops, and our position it the world. Seriously, it’s a disgrace. Do you know how much good will we’ve lost globally? Torturing prisoners, occupying Islamic holy land (a total Kuran violation, and that’s not an islmofascist interpretation), decimating our national guard so resources can be sent to help foreigners who don’t even want us in their country? Trust me, my reason is obscured by manufactured propaganda. Remember what Limbaugh said after the Dems took control – paraphrasing – “It’s a relief, I’m tired of carrying the water for the Republican party.” Even Limbaugh was sick of trying to manufacture propaganda to cover for the absurdities of the last six years!