Memo to readers: With his superb performance in
Wednesday’s debate in Iowa, Fred Thompson has made a monkey out of
me. By early afternoon on Tuesday, the column that appears below,
one which posits that Thompson’s presidential campaign might still
find a way to win, was ready in exactly the form it appears here.
But I thought the column would still remain exactly on target
throughout the week, so (for various reasons) I aimed for a Friday
release. At the time, I thought that until Thompson began his Iowa
bus tour on Monday the 17th, my contention that he “ain’t dead” yet
would seem noteworthy for its boldness.
Then Thompson ruined it all by so clearly running away with the
laurels in Wednesday’s debate — and in particularly Reaganesque
fashion. Just as Reagan did at the famous Nashua, N.H. debate in
1980, Thompson used the unfairness of the debate moderator as a
foil in a way that justly earned the candidate plaudits as a
no-nonsense kind of guy. Now everybody is taking a second
look at Thompson’s chances. Deservedly so.
But of course a debate performance like that should not
have been a surprise. As my column reports, pollster Frank Luntz
said even before Wednesday’s debates that Thompson was hitting his
stride and connecting with audiences at earlier debates.
Anyway, without further ado (but with more commentary
afterwards), here is my column as originally written — in what I
thought would seemed a fairly bold analysis, but which now seems
unremarkable — as an object lesson for those of us who think we
understand political timing. Just as pundits, myself included, were
having a high old time criticizing Sen. Thompson for the timing of
his efforts in this campaign, he somehow succeeded in stealing a
march on us. Maybe Good Ol’ Fred knows what he is doing after
all.
******
The original column:
Don’t count out Fred Thompson for president just yet.
Two years ago, then-U.S. Sen. George Allen of Virginia was
generally seen as the most likely Republican to emerge as the
conservative consensus candidate for president in 2008. Today, he
is intimately involved — especially in making pitches to major
donors — with the candidacy of his former colleague Fred Thompson
of Tennessee.
Detractors might say Allen’s involvement is fitting, considering
that Allen badly crashed in his own Senate re-election campaign,
just as Thompson has been falling in the polls since his belated
official announcement in September. But there’s another way to look
at it. Just as Allen was once thought to be the only candidate
solid on all three legs of the conservative stool — social,
economic, and defense/foreign policy — Thompson is now hoping that
each of the other major candidates’ apostasies in at least one of
those areas will drag them down, one by one, until Thompson is the
only contender left standing.
All along, Thompson’s campaign has banked its hopes on what
Allen calls “the integrity, the genuineness, the authenticity” of
Thompson as the “consistent, commonsense conservative.”
Pollster Frank Luntz says it still may work.
“He does well [in focus groups],” Luntz told me on Dec. 7. “He
has an especially good opportunity still to do well in southern and
border states where his laid-back style is not only appreciated but
embraced. His best message is about immigration and anti-Washington
spending. The way he communicates those things is very credible;
people believe him.”
Not that Luntz is predicting any particular victor. “Too many
variables,” he said. “States come [to the polls] too quickly. I
have no pattern; I have seen too many candidates rise and
fall.”
But that’s exactly Thompson’s point. “You remember President
Howard Dean, don’t you?” he frequently asks, rhetorically, about
the December campaign favorite four years ago who quickly flamed
out.
Thompson could also remind people of how another conservative
actor with a maddeningly languid early campaign pace, Ronald Reagan
in 1979-80, allowed the elder George Bush to grab the “Big
Mo”mentum from him — before just a few weeks of earnest,
person-to-person campaigning by Reagan stopped Bush cold.
The Thompson-Reagan comparison has been made far too often, but
in one respect the likeness is valid: Just as Thompson appears to
do today, Reagan had a notable tendency to coast along until
seriously challenged. Reagan, though, could turn on his jets just
in time for maximum impact. Can Thompson do likewise? Thompson
plans a rigorous 15-day bus tour through Iowa before the caucuses
there, and seems confident in his retail campaigning abilities.
But Thompson refuses to be hurried. He also refuses to change
his stripes. In an exclusive interview Dec. 6, when asked whether
he needs to make a new, big splash in order to recapture voters’
imaginations, he insisted that “you should not expect dramatically
different messages from me or dramatically different behavior from
me…. I will not change what my message has been since 1994.”
On substance, that message has just about everything to make the
old Reagan coalition swoon. Tax cuts and simplification?
Check. Record of fighting wasteful spending?
Check. More money for the military? Check.
Returning power to the states? Consistent votes against abortion?
Support for solidly conservative judges? Almost-visceral support
for Israel? Support for private gun rights? Check, check,
check, check, and check.
In recent weeks, Thompson has added depth to those conservative
bona fides. His series of detailed papers on defense, taxes, and
Social Security have earned widespread praise from conservative
outlets, including the Wall Street Journal’s editorial
page. On the politically risky issue of Social Security, Luntz says
his focus groups show that Thompson uses effective language: “The
way that he looks at it is that we have to protect our children
from ourselves. It is an intergenerational approach and it is very
popular among Republicans.”
But what really animates Thompson is the battle against
terrorism. On this topic, his obvious passion equals that of his
friend John McCain. Indeed, it is difficult for an interviewer to
get him off the subject.
“I understand the nature of the threat we are facing
internationally in large part because of my service on the
intelligence committee and my travel around the world meeting with
foreign leaders,” Thompson said. “Also, my service as chairman of
the government affairs committee dealing with issues of nuclear
proliferation, and finally on the international security advisory
board for the State Department. Condoleezza Rice asked me to chair
that board….”
Thompson was just getting started.
But he can’t put that passion for a strong military posture into
action if he doesn’t first catch political fire again. Yet nothing
can budge him from his belief, no matter what the polls say, that
he is on the right course as the only candidate acceptable
simultaneously to all facets of the old Reagan coalition while
exhibiting none of the sharp edges that scare voters in the middle.
It’s the same sort of campaign George Allen seemed poised to run,
the sort of campaign many thought would make Allen a solid winner
until he forgot to focus first on being re-elected in Virginia.
“I think Republicans are going to want someone who can unify the
Republicans and who can appeal to independent votes in November,”
Thompson said, leaving no doubt that he thinks only he can fill
that bill. Meanwhile, Fred Thompson just keeps ambling along.
*****
So there you have it. Even in noting Thompson’s many strengths, I
sort of hedged my bets. But here’s the deal: As Mitt Romney, Rudy
Giuliani and Mike Huckabee savage each other about immigration,
abortion, religion and everything else under the sun, Thompson just
keeps plugging away while being poised to pick up the pieces. And
as Huckabee finally receives the long-overdue scrutiny for his bad
record on clemencies (see my colleague Philip Klein’s excellent
piece) and ethics (as reported most recently by NBC’s Lisa Myers), the
Arkansas governor’s lead in Iowa is likely to fade. Now, just who
is it, polls already were showing even before Wednesday’s debate,
who was the second choice of the largest percentage of Huckabee’s
tentative supporters? None other than Fred Thompson.
Amazing, isn’t it, how much ground the solidly conservative
Thompson can make up, just by ambling along?
