Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
Please FReepmail jellybean if you want on/off this list. WARNING: This ping list is EXTREMELY active.
Posted on 06/05/2007 12:25:52 AM PDT by Politicalmom
In the early days of American politics, no man would dare openly run for President of the United States, zig zagging across the country trying to drum up support. It was considered unseemly and self-aggrandizing for a politician to be seen grasping for power in such a naked way.
So the putative candidate would run what was commonly known as a “Front Porch Campaign” where party leaders and supporters from across the country would show up at the candidate’s home and appear to plead with him to accept their support. The candidate, humble and diffident, would gratefully acknowledge their activities on his behalf and usually mouth some platitudes about some issue or give a stem winding, patriotic oration about America. Of course, the more important the party leader (or his representative), the bigger what passed for a 19th century feeding frenzy by the press. It was in this way that the American people became acquainted with the major candidates.
It was all a political Kabuki dance. Everyone knew that the candidate was dying to be President. The 1896 race between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan was a case in point.
While Bryan was on the hustings, making more than 600 speeches (If there was a man in American political history more in love with his own voice, I am unaware of him.), McKinley, after locking up the nomination appeared dormant, sitting at home entertaining Republican party luminaries looking for all the world as if he couldn’t really care if he became President. Meanwhile, a shady operator by the name of Mark Hanna was generously spreading money around he raised from his big business friends who were absolutely terrified of Bryan’s populist campaign and most especially his advocacy of basing the dollar on both a gold and silver standard (“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”).
McKinley ended up winning the election by allowing Bryan an open field to scare the beejeebees out of just about everyone except his farm/labor base. And that points up one of the oddities in politics; a sitting target is harder to hit than a moving one.
Senator Fred Thompson has developed a strategy so at odds with that of his rivals in the Republican race for President that it may be studied very carefully by future campaigns for lessons in how to win a nomination. At the moment, Thompson is third in national polls trailing Mayor Rudy Guiliani and Senator McCain and leading former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But the former Tennessee Senator isn’t even an official candidate yet. Just this past Friday, he formed a finance committee to raise money for his campaign. But he has yet to spend any money on advertising. He has precious few paid staff members. And his organization is light years behind those of his main rivals.
While the front runners and also-rans have been criss crossing the country and frantically working the phones trying to raise money, Thompson has set himself down on his ole’ front porch, relaxing on the settee writing a bit, blogging some, and occasionally venturing out to give a speech to the faithful. He has used the internet to generate a “buzz” about his campaign – much like sophisticated marketers today use the net to spread the word about a new product. He has no official website. But articles like this one, talking about the Senator and his campaign serve the purpose of circulating his name and getting people to think about him.
Of course, it helps that Thompson has been appearing on television for years as the no nonsense DA in NBC’s Law and Order. But in establishing a presence on the web and fleshing out his ideas through some very well placed op-eds designed to give him maximum exposure to conservative audiences, Thompson has emerged as bona fide conservative alternative to the front runners.
Thompson will not participate in this Tuesday’s Republican debate in New Hampshire. A pity - that. But no matter how you look at it, Thompson is now ready to take his campaign from his front porch into the living rooms of the American people. How he handles that transition will say much about his abilities as well as how far he might go in the race for the nomination.
Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
Please FReepmail jellybean if you want on/off this list. WARNING: This ping list is EXTREMELY active.
Exactly!! I was reminded of the front porch campaigns of the 19th and early 20th centuries when I saw how Fred was playing this. Let Rudy McRomney and the seven dwarves run themselves ragged and knife one another in the back while a statesman stands above the fray. BRILLIANT!!
There has got to be a good bumpersticker in that one..
The front porch meets the 21st century. We’re watching history being made. The keyboard porch campaign:)
Amazing analogy. Great article.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Nice to see a real man with a real plan!
GO FRED!
This article is a little too breathless when you remember that it was the Democrat candidates who initiated prematurely what is already a too long, too expensive election campaign. Many of us were still hungover from 2006. Twenty years ago, Fred’s entry wouldn’t be delayed at all. God save us from perpetual campaigns.
Anyway, Bryan aside, the last successful front porch candidate was nominated from far down the list of possible nominees in the dark, smoke-filled room that gave rise to the cliche.
He was also a Senator who did little notable and went along to get along. He ran a front porch campaign from his Ohio home and was elected, beloved, and vilified by history. Let’s hope Fred ends up better remembered than Warren G Harding.
If there is, I also expect the Democrats to split, so we can have a complete rerun of 1860.
Hey, give Harding some credit. He did have the courtesy to die and allow Calvin Coolidge to rise and become one of this country’s most underrated Presidents.
Harding was many things, even a precursor to Bill Clinton. Harding was banging a friend’s wife in Ohio and a young woman in the cloak rooms of the White House under the nose of his hatchet-faced wife, the Duchess.
The girl later wrote a book called The President’s Daughter, claiming Harding had fathered her child. In the absence of an internet to deliver salacious material, copies of the book were hawked door to door.
The definitive, IMO, biography of Harding, “Shadow of Blooming Grove,” has deleted sections where letters from Harding’s back-home lover were slated to appear. Even at this late a date, the Harding family strangles attempts to be candid about Warren.
My choice for the John Bell of 2008 is Rudy Giuliani, with Joe Lieberman in the role of Edward Everett.
The idea that abortion is killing but should be a free choice is the same notion that gave rise to the Bell-Everett ticket - slavery is an abomination but people should be free to choose, because the Constitution says so.
Interesting analysis and it sure would be an interesting race. Bush is well on his way to creating a new party. Let's just call a spade a spade here, and name the new party, the RINO party. What's left of the Republican base can create or redefine the [old] Republican party, essentially taking it back to its roots.
But I guess I hadn't really thought about the Dem side of things. Wow, I can't even begin to think what that would like. The commie wing, versus the socialist wing, versus the fascist wing?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.