Maybe he is an actor, but he isn’t Ronald Reagan. Is that a good – or bad – thing? Jeff Koopersmith looks at Thompson's positions and prospects.
I wrote – months ago, before the mainstream media picked it up – that former Senator Fred Thompson would be running for the Republican nomination for president. I also wrote that he might be doing it as the Vice President of the United States – appointed when Dick Cheney resigned for "health reasons."
This may yet be the case, I am not sure – but my source was good when I wrote it, and has not changed my mind during a recent conversation.
Regardless, Thompson is running now, so I must believe that he will not be in the easy-to-replace shoes of Dick Cheney, since Thompson’s appointment after he has already declared would be awkward at best for Bush.
However, remember that Mr. Bush is most likely to do discomfiting things. He always does – for example, his latest embarrassing behavior, this time in Australia . Let us wait and see on that one.
The pundits, including Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, think that Thompson is positioning himself as the new Ronald Reagan.
Of course, this is ludicrous. What Thompson’s people are doing is hooking the two together in some ways – the lovable ones – and going their own way on other substantial policy matters. While Thompson did feature a film of himself and Reagan when he announced yesterday, he has no reason to push the Reagan comparison – after all, the mainstream is doing it for him. Why? They want a horse race – and thus far there isn’t a candidate on either side of the aisle that can make it one for sure.
Thompson is arguably the first. And against Hillary, Barack, or John, Thompson might be formidable.
Despite his conservative pose (real or not), Thompson is a likable and bright man who will be the front-runner for the GOP nod by next week, if he is not already. He is intelligent enough not to go too far with Neocon insanity. And much to the chagrin of Mr. Giuliani and "Angry Boy" Mitt Romney, Thompson will outshine them both.
Romney is a candidate about whom few voters (save the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire) really know a thing about – and the more they learn, the more they will realize that Romney thinks he’s owed the White House by virtue of his family name and heritage alone. That’s how he became the Governor of Massachusetts. Born March 12, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan, Mitt Romney is the son of losing 1968 presidential candidate George Romney and losing 1970 U.S. Senate candidate Lenore Romney. Romney. was named after hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, his father's best friend, and Milton "Mitt" Romney, a relative who played football for the Chicago Bears. While he won his election for Governor, he lost a race against Ted Kennedy for the Senate earlier – by a lot.
Giuliani looks like the skeletal remains of times past, nothing more than big city mayor with lots of ethical problems who just happened to be able to shine during the days following 9-11 – as, it should be pointed out, anyone in a similar position would have shone.