A campaign that isn’t Fred Thompson’s wants the world to notice comments Michael Reagan said about Senator Thompson in an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto:
“When you went to a Ronald Reagan speech, and you listened to it, if you listened to one of them or all of them, you always felt the speech he just got done giving was the greatest speech he had ever given. And you would follow him to the moon if he’d have led you there after the speech – and I’m not seeing that in Fred Thompson at all. I see no call.” “When people hear Fred speak, I’m still not getting that ‘wow’ factor – ‘Wow’! Fred Thompson’s going to lead us where?” “You have a great group, I think right now, to choose from. I don’t think Fred Thompson is going to add much to it except he’s an actor, maybe a good autograph.”
Interestingly, this campaign is not one of the ones Reagan mentions that he likes, moments before the ‘autograph’ comment:
“In fact, I think the lower-tier probably is more than what the conservatives are looking for. They’re looking for Fred Thompson to do what? I don’t know what. Where you’ve got Duncan Hunter who has been building fences, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Michael Huckabee, who was the Governor of Arkansas.”
Michael Reagan’s comments knock Thompson on a couple of points – no specifics, not enough optimism, and too “monotone.”
On the specifics, if Thompson doesn’t have them in the weeks after he rolls out his campaign formally, then fine, whack away at him. But he’s decided that he debuts in autumn, and it seems a little unfair to criticize him for not putting out white papers before his announcement speech. We do have four months before the voting starts, barring any state doing some crazy leapfrogging into December or even November.
On optimism, I’m reminded of a couple of comments in the Corner after the first debate. First, Andy McCarthy:
Optimism is a major problem if it causes one to discount huge difficulties (see, e.g., the sunny assumption that democracy will quickly take hold in the Muslim world because we are all supposedly hard-wired to love freedom) or becomes an excuse to avoid confronting huge difficulties (see, e.g., the sunny assumption that diplomacy will make Iran stop building nukes, stop promoting terror, stop destabilizing Iraq, etc.). I am not an optimist in these regards, and I would prefer if my next president isn’t either.
I love, love, love Reagan and I love, love, love optimism…but someone out there is going to gag on Reagan/optimism comments after a while.
Lots of members of the GOP base are pissed-off. They’re pissed-off about runaway spending and the size of government, they’re pissed off (fairly or not) that we aren’t fighting the war on terror with both hands, they’re pissed off that Republicans seem (again, fairly or not) so meek in the face of criticism… Meanwhile, Giuliani seems to have forgotten why he’s the front runner. Optimism is nice, hooray for cheeriness. But what the base wants to here is proof that he’s going to be the “tough S.O.B. — for us.”
Finally, we ought to note that Thompson himself has never been egomaniacal enough to call himself the next Reagan; that comes from overeager supporters who want to see one former actor fill the shoes of another. None of the guys running are Reagan, and sometimes I wonder if Reagan has become such a flawless icon in conservatives’ minds that not even the actual Reagan would live up to the image of Reagan.
Comments