Another dispatch for the “really silly campaign coverage” file (there are a few Washington Post entries, aren’t there?):

The phonetics of the name seem integral to its image problem: On Urbandictionary.com, a “Fred” is defined as “a person who does stupid, annoying, or idiotic things” (Fred Flintstone, Fred Mertz). The best-case descriptors a Fred can hope for are terms like well-intentioned, predictable, benign (Fred Rogers).

It continues:

Maybe he’s ugly-sexy, like Mick Jagger?

And:

The love of Fred Thompson is like the comfort food renaissance — a longing for green bean casserole. If the name Fred were popular now, we wouldn’t be able to long for it. Because it would be here already. But it’s not, so we do, and ordinary “Fred” seems as exotic as Mick Jagger.
Fred Thompson is not ugly-sexy. He’s stodgy-sexy. He is that onomastic combo of unique yet familiar. We once had Freds. We want them back.
Will that be enough to win him the nomination? We can’t say. Daniel, that hopeful proponent of all things Fred, only knows this: “We haven’t seen anything like him since Fred Astaire.”