California Conservative

Lately, I’ve worried that the Thompson campaign was losing momentum, that it hasn’t capitalized on its initial popularity. Thanks to Peter Mulhern’s post, I’m now looking forward to Thompson’s debate debut. It should make for some interesting watching. Here’s the first salient point from Mulhern’s post:

Thompson’s view on the proper scope of federal government activities is neither shallow nor passing. It has deep roots and he can defend them against heavyweight attacks. At National Review Online last spring, Ramesh Ponnuru challenged some federalist positions Thompson took as a Senator. Thompson wrote a response which dismantled Ponnuru’s arguments. Ponnuru’s reply was both snarky and beside the point. It came as close to sputtering incoherence as it is possible to come in print. Ramesh Ponnuru is no fool. The man who can beat him like a rented mule in a battle of the keyboards thoroughly understands the subject of their dispute.

This summer, I wrote about Thompson’s interview with Peter Robinson. During that interview, I noticed something different about Fred Thompson than with other conservative politicians: an underpinning or framework from which all of his policies flowed from. When King Banaian and I talk about such stuff, we talk about underlying philosophies. When a politician has that, he’ll likely get our undivided attention.

When Fred Thompson talked about reading Barry Goldwater’s ‘Conscience of a Conservative’, I knew that I’d stumbled across an intellectual, Reagan/Goldwater-style Republican, something that’s clearly missing from Mitt Romney. I don’t even think that Rudy has an underlying philosophy, though it isn’t that important with him because he’s got such a well-defined set of goals to accomplish.

Here’s another important observation about Sen. Thompson:

Thompson’s reaction to General Petraeus’ recent testimony before Congress suggests that he can. Before Petraeus said a word everyone knew that our efforts in Iraq have become vastly more successful under his command. Everyone understood that Al Qaeda and Iran’s proxies will probably be humiliated in Iraq unless they can adjust to the tactics we are now using with such success. The $64,000 question was this: What is Iran doing to forestall humiliation in Iraq and what will we do to stop them?

General Petraeus dropped some very interesting hints on this subject and Thompson zeroed in on them. His statement on the subject was simple and direct: “Gen. Petraeus’ report also leaves me even more concerned about Iran’s role in Iraq. Iran is headed down a dangerous path, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must understand that.”

The thing that makes Fred Thompson a good communicator is that he’s plain-spoken. When I first started paying attention to him, I was impressed with his answer about illegal immigration, saying that “It’s still our house and we get to decide who we invite into our house.” Talk about speaking plainly and saying what GOP activists want to hear! That was delivered with perfect pitch and with a cadence and enunciation that no other presidential candidate, from either party, could’ve delivered.

In this instance, Sen. Thompson told Ahmadinejad that he’s in Thompson’s crosshairs and that he wouldn’t tolerate any of Ahmadinejad’s shennanigans. Rest assured that Ahmadinejad doesn’t want Fred Thompson as the next US president. He’s the last guy Ahmadinejad wants sitting in the Oval Office. (I suspect that the only candidates Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn’t want sitting in the Oval Office are Sen. Thompson and Mr. Giuliani.)

Sen. Thompson has an uphill battle but he passes the gravitas and likeability thresholds to be considered a serious presidential contender. His next real test is his performance in next Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate. We’ll see how that goes. I won’t be surprised if he does better than expected in it.

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, Giuliani, Ahmadinejad, Illegal Immigration, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Hillary, Immigration, Iran, Iraq, Military, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.