By Peter Hannaford on 10.10.07 @ 12:07AM
Fred Thompson has waited too long.
Conservative voters waited, thinking he would combine the best
of Giuliani, McCain and Romney. They waited because he would be the
true heir to Ronald Reagan. He would galvanize the party. They
waited through the spring, then the summer. All that time they
waited for Fred Thompson. What they got, finally, was Mr.
Yesteryear.
On the stump he has an "aw, shucks" persona, but he dwells on
the long-ago triumph of 1994 when Newt Gingrich and his troops took
control of the House of Representatives.
When he gives a podium speech, chances are he hasn't rehearsed
it (example: his presentation to the Veterans of Foreign Wars which
should have been a slam/dunk, yet he muffed his lines and obviously
was unfamiliar with the text). No Ronald Reagan there. Reagan
rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed. No wonder he connected so well
with his audiences.
The other day in Florida, after a lot of hand-shaking and
generalized stump remarks, he settled down in a sofa for a brief
television interview. The trouble with settling down for a relaxed
interview is that it shows a Fred Thompson who looks very old and
very tired.
There is the impression in the air that he waited too long to
get in the race. For many conservative/Republican voters an
invisible line was crossed this summer, probably in August when
reports began to accumulate that the "surge" in Baghdad and the
detente with Sunni tribal chiefs in Anbar province were working.
Then, two respected Brookings Institution scholars -- both
Democrats -- reported back from Iraq in the New York Times
that this was "a war we could win." This had a strong effect on the
political dynamics of the issue in Washington.
General Petraeus's report shortly after Thompson entered the
race spiked for now the Congressional Democrats' efforts to
legislate defeat. Voters began to understand that the presidential
race would turn on who could best lead the nation in an on-going
war declared on us by a band of radical Islamists intent on
imposing their totalitarian ideology on the world.
Hillary Clinton, once she has sewn up the Democratic nomination,
will almost certainly attempt to make strength on national security
the centerpiece of her campaign. True, she unveiled her universal
health care plan -- a pastiche of Hillarycare c.1993 and various
private sector elements -- but she understands that this and other
domestic issues are secondary to the big one.
To counter this the Republicans will need a candidate who
presents can-do credentials better than hers and who communicates
decisiveness, energy, and passion.
Will that be Thompson, who had his first chance yesterday in
Dearborn, Michigan to debate his fellow candidates? He showed good
humor, but got off to a slow start on many of his answers. It is
said he spent nine hours in rehearsal. Perhaps he was
over-rehearsed, but in a campaign moving at the speed of this one,
there is no room for a slow start. To his credit, he understands
that the war in Iraq is, as he put it, "a front in a much larger
war." Against Giuliani's optimism and zest for battle, and Romney's
full-throttle prescriptions for national success, Fred Thompson
came across as likable, but still Mr. Yesteryear; the man who left
no footprints when he departed the Senate and was a star in a
television series now fading from memory.
topics:
Health Care, Hillary Clinton, Television, Islam, Iraq, Energy
