Fred Thompson , the one who can win.
Yes I think Fred Thompson is the one who can win and I fear he is the only one who can win. Barring a dramatic incident between now and election Day, this election belongs to the 'rats. On a state-by-state geographical breakdown the Republicans are in serious trouble when all the border states and even (gasp) Virginia were lost in the last election. We just lost Ohio, gone the way of Pennsylvania, likewise Missouri, and we simply cannot win the presidency without Ohio and Missouri and Virginia. By November we will have held office going on eight years and that indicates a problem for the incumbent party. But at the end of the day, the real problem is Iraq. Unless we can fix that mess we will lose the presidency and even more of the House and Senate.
But a year and a half in politics is, as they say, a lifetime and we may yet see some intervening events like 9/11 which stands everything on its head and opens the gate for the Republicans to hold on. I do not think it will be enough merely to put the Democrats fingerprints on the war and blame them for a Vietnam like ending. This is the Republicans' war and how it goes will probably determine the next election. But how it goes will not be determined objectively but by a media determined to stop the war and destroy the Republican Party. Remember, the media has already convinced enough Americans before the last election that 3000 fatalities were too much to bear and that the war was lost.
In the face of this grim prospect, Fred Thompson is the only candidate who is acceptable to all parts of the Republican spectrum and who also has requisite personal gravitas to make incursions into independents and Reagan Democrats needed to hold the states mentioned above as well as the Southwest which is cracking as well, and even Florida.
If the Republicans lose the grip on the presidency as well as the legislative branch, I fear the party will be eclipsed for a generation."
On June 11th I posted this:
"Clinton, Romney Top New Hampshire Poll
Posted by nathanbedford to Vigilanteman; Prokopton; Clemenza
On News/Activism 06/11/2007 2:30:11 AM EDT • 15 of 15
As I posted three weeks ago, the field has narrowed to two, Thompson and Romney, and Thompson will eventually take it, although he might stumble if he fails to assemble a staff which can cope with the professionalism which the Romney team enjoys. McCain, as I stated three weeks ago, is finished and Giuliani is utterly unacceptable to the broad base of the party. Newt Gingrich will enter the race only in the unlikely event that he sees daylight in September, but he has no chance. The second-tier candidates are essentially running for vice president.
Thompson has the virtue of being acceptable to both the Goldwater and Rockefeller wings of the party. He is sound on the three fundamental issues which can disqualify a Republican hopeful: abortion, immigration, taxes and spending. He can plausibly run as an outsider, certainly one who's largely untainted with a Bush legacy. He has gravitas and a folksy charm, a rare combination. He does not terrify independents or Reagan Democrats and even has a chance of garnering a few of them. He is our best candidate who can hold the base with one hand and raid Democrat territory with the other.
Mitt Romney is an exceptional individual who has demonstrated in his private and public careers that he is a winner. Only a fool would underestimate him. As I predicted the an August 2006 on these threads, Romney will successfully move to the right and become generally acceptable to the Republican base and, because of his television charisma, he will be able to attract women and independents. His organizational skills are extraordinary. He has already demonstrated a phenomenal ability to raise money. He knows how the game is played and he is spending that money in the right places. Fred Thompson must move rather quickly or Romney could foreclose him in the first three states by dint of his organization and television presence. Nevertheless, Thompson has the edge over Romney because he is more sound on the issues and therefore more attractive to the base which nominates our candidates. Thompson also offers a less button-down more folksy persona than does Romney. Will Romney take second place on the ticket? Will he play George H. W. Bush to Thompson's Reagan?
Whichever of these two men is nominated matters little if they cannot find a way to reshape the campaign and wrest it away from the control of the media who will move heaven and earth to put a Democrat in the White House. The press and the Democrats will run this election on Iraq and healthcare. The Republicans will tend to campaign on taxes, immigration, and the war on terror,-as opposed to the war in Iraq. This will not be enough. Republicans must find new issues and new ways of expressing those issues if they are to avoid paying the price for getting it so politically wrong on Iraq. Simply put, Republicans will lose across the board if this election becomes a third referendum on Iraq. To avoid that calamity which confronts us, the party needs the ideas of a man like Newt Gingrich. He has the right ideas but he cannot be the messenger. Will either Thompson or Romney (or both if they run as a team) have the wit to see that they must change the rules of the game this cycle or lose? "
And finally, more recently:
"Fred Can Win
Posted by nathanbedford to kevkrom
On News/Activism 09/07/2007 2:18:43 PM EDT · 15 of 21
I agree with your analysis and I've come to the same conclusion by a similar process of elimination, Fred Thompson will and should be the nominee. His weakness appears to be an absence of executive experience and indications that he lacks managerial ability. Too bad Mitt Romney cannot be drafted to manage the nuts and bolts of his campaign because Romney has demonstrated throughout his entire career that one thing he can do is manage a turnaround and so far he has run a splendid campaign. If the nod does not go to Thompson I predict Romney will take it.
Fred Thompson is the one candidate who can hold the conservative base with one hand and reach out to moderate independents at the same time with the other. Reacting to his appearance on Jay Leno, I wrote yesterday:
Substance aside, Thompson did not mangle his syntax, he spoke horse sense, he oozes gravitas, he was witty without being silly, American now knows he will not embarrass them, he was charming without pandering, he offended no one.
What's not to like?
However I'm afraid I have to piss on our parade. For the reasons I expressed in another post I believe that Fred Thompson cannot win unless he radically changes the debate:
... one sees confirmed what I have been preaching for months: the Democrats are secure and virtually impregnable in their blue states while we Republicans on the other hand are extremely vulnerable in the border states and the Mountain states. Demographic changes in Florida are making that state increasingly vulnerable. Ohio was lost in the last election and there is no reason to believe it will not stay lost for the foreseeable future. Virginia was also lost and is extremely vulnerable to us for both the Senate seat and the presidential electoral count. If we lose any one of these three states we will have absolutely no chance for the presidency. If we lose a large chunk of the border states, or even only Missouri, we will have no chance for the presidency. If we lose a large chunk of the Mountain states we have no chance for the presidency.
We have no realistic chance under any of these scenarios because the only hope we have of poaching in blue state territory is Wisconsin and this alone is not enough to offset the losses we will sustain in the border mountain and Midwestern states.
This is why I have been saying the Republicans are foredoomed to lose this presidential election unless we change the rules of the game. There is some evidence that Fred Thompson intends to do exactly that (emphasis supplied). If he does not do so he cannot win, in fact, no Republican can win, Rudy Giuliani least of all because he will not have the support of the base of the party.
In my view the race for the nomination will come down to Thompson and Romney and Thompson will probably get it. I say again, our nominee must run on a whole new series of issues or the mainstream media will beat us to death if we do not seize the agenda and take it away from them."
Rudy Giuliani
