Posted on 05/26/2007 11:44:02 PM PDT by Doofer
Is Fred Thompson dithering about running for president, or just running out the clock on his NBC contract?
They take polls about the dumbest things.
One that fits that category is an online survey inviting folks to predict when Fred Thompson will declare he's running for president.
Thompson, of course, is the flavor of the month for Republican activists in Chatham County and around the state.
For the moment, the former U.S. senator from Tennessee has the best of both worlds.
He's using blogs, podcasts and other such stuff to send his unfiltered message to prospective supporters.
Because he's not a declared candidate, he's avoided critical scrutiny and political potshots from the declared GOP candidates.
Lately, though, he's been taking flak for being a little too coy about whether he's really in the hunt.
Run Fred, run, or sit down and shut up, some folks are saying. It's not fair to the guys who are out there running and taking their lumps. Or so the argument goes.
Notice, however, that no one's saying such stuff about former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who also says he might run.
That, of course, is because, outside of Georgia and maybe South Carolina, Newt's not locking up much support that otherwise might go to other candidates.
In contrast, as Thompson has gone up in recent polls, support for the GOP frontrunners has slipped or remained flat.
In any case, waiting for a "draft" orchestrated by friends and supporters might be a winning strategy.
There's an obvious risk: He'll have to play catch-up as he tries to raise the tens of millions of dollars it will take to run a national campaign.
All that might miss the point, says U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Savannah, who's not picked a horse in the GOP race.
It's all a matter of law and order, so to speak, Kingston and others say.
As in "Law and Order," the NBC series on which Thompson plays the district attorney and which recently aired its season finale.
Thompson's contract with NBC bars him from running for office, says Kingston. That, by the way, is an assessment consistent with some published reports.
It's not that the network folks don't like Thompson.
Rather, Kingston says, they're worried that if he's a candidate and appears in re-runs, they might have to provide free air time to other candidates.
It's said to be one of the murky requirements of the so-called federal "Fairness Doctrine" for television programming involving candidates.
No one seems sure exactly what triggers the requirement or to what shows it applies.
Some stations quit running Ronald Reagan's movies when he ran for governor of California and later for president.
The same thing happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks when he ran for governor of the Golden State in 2003.
Anyway, Kingston says, Thompson's NBC contract runs out at the end of the month, presumably making him a free agent.
Kingston says Thompson's using his high-tech approach as a form of "guerilla warfare" until he's free to formally enter the fray.
He thinks Thompson is waging it well, reaching out not just to Republicans but also to nonaligned apolitical types.
Thompson isn't answering questions about this or much of anything else.
NBC isn't commenting.
And Mark Corallo, spokesman for the prospective candidate, isn't returning phone calls.
Still, this hypothesis is subscribed to by some people supporting Thompson.
Moreover, it does seem to connect some of the dots.
And at worst, it provides Thompson some cover - convincing or otherwise - for the rest of the month.
After that, it might not matter.
...none so blind as they who will not see.
He’s running an Andrew Jackson style campaign.
I think he'll announce on Paul Harvey News around July 1.
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Actually the Wide Wide World of Web covers Australia and we aren't that far behind you on the news cycle (really 15 hours ahead - well 14 now)
Oh, I know that. :-)
I just won’t have computer access for 2 weeks, wah! I’m sure I’ll see newspapers and tv though—just not the same getting my news from somewhere besides FR!! [pout]
Has anyone found a Fred Thompson widget for blogs, websites, etc.? I was looking through the recently-released Facebook widgets/applications and found that Obama has one (videos, campaign news, etc.) The 24,000,000 users of Facebook need to see & hear Fred.
Um...there are internet cafes in the cities. Are you planning on being in the outback the whole time?
Love that photo - thanks for posting!
If my husband has his way, probably, LOL!
Me, I’m all for hanging out in Sydney and seeing the air conditioned sites, forget the roughing it bit. :-)
It’s my hometown although I left when I was 6 a long time ago. A couple of suggestions....try to have lunch at the Park Hyatt for a great view of the opera house...also head north of the city to Palm Beach and explore the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park area.
Thanks for the ideas—I’ll run them by the husband! :-)
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