Posted on 09/10/2007 2:07:23 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Good old boy Fred Thompson relaxed with Fox News' Sean Hannity this week and talked on TV about how some unnamed bad guy was trying to blackmail his media consultant wife about an old boyfriend.
Mr. Thompson, a self-confessed former Washington playboy, acknowledged very seriously to his right-wing host that it's probably just the beginning of the mud-slinging season.
You see, Mr. Thompson's presidential campaign (unbelievably announced the prior evening on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno) has begun ramping up.
Freddie Dalton Thompson (his given name), all folksy and self-assured, told the fawning Mr. Hannity that this kind of negativism, unfortunately, has become a way of life in American politics.
"It's kind of like gnats swarming around the war horse," the tough guy said. "They aggravate you sometimes, but in the end, it's not that important."
Freddie Dalton Thompson dropped the "ie" from his given name back in the late 1960s when he became an assistant U.S. attorney. But even a lifetime spent in Washington and L.A. as a corporate lawyer/lobbyist/movie actor, hasn't caused Fred Thompson to drop the Tennessee drawl.
He still calls on it regularly when railing against "gov'ment insiders." It's as useful as the beat-up red pickup truck and flannel shirts this longtime member of the Washington establishment ordered from the prop department when he first ran for the Senate in 1994.
None of this is really a big problem for Mr. Thompson, or the tough-talking district attorney, Arthur Branch, as he is known on TV's popular criminal justice show "Law and Order."
Ronald Reagan proved a long time ago that Americans like a tough guy in their president, even if it's mostly a regular guy acting like a tough one. (Remember, Mr. Reagan spent World War II acting like a soldier — not being one.)
And in case you think Americans have gotten over their penchant for tough-guy politicians, think about Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.
"The governator" has gotten more than a little mileage out his tough-guy routine. Remember Democrats as "girlie-men." Yeah, Arnold. "Hasta la vista, baby!"
You really can't blame voters for any of this. Americans, and probably most of humanity, are hard-wired for it.
We like leaders who are laconic, tough guys, whether or not they're acting the part or really living it.
Have you ever seen Scott Lang at a speaking engagement?
We've all heard the mayor's macho monotone just after he takes off that Columbo raincoat: "Ah, yah. Let me say this about that."
We voters love politicians who say they're going to clean up Dodge City. We like them tough, whether their name is George W. Bush or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the final analysis, after all, a Muslim tough guy playing to the crowd is not that much different from a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant doing it.
What we really want in a leader is Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, whether we live in Taunton or Tehran.
Don't get me wrong. I want a tough guy or tough gal president as much the next guy. I just a want a real tough guy. And I'm not sure that's possible in an era of big media.
The nature of big media demands coiffing and primping, pre-prep and scripting. It conspires against machismo, real or imagined.
But Fred Thompson is not without the ability to take a punch and land one, on TV or otherwise. He can think on his feet, a quality that really is part of being a tough guy.
By no means would I count him out as the next president of the United States.
Here's a prediction: The 2008 presidential election is not going to be decided by who's right or wrong about the war in Iraq. And it's not going to be decided by debates about national health care or Social Security or the price of oil or any other of any of the other very important issues.
It's going to be decided by who Americans decide is the toughest, tough guy or tough gal.
That's why Hillary Clinton is currently doing well in the polls.
Like "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, she has an ability to come across, for lack of a better word, as a tough "broad." No insult intended to any of my feminist friends, here. It's meant as a compliment not an insult.
Being a tough guy is also the key to Rudy Giuliani's popularity.
Whether he's been married three times, his kids don't speak with him, or he supported gay rights in New York City, he's still a tough guy. And people like that.
So don't pay attention to anyone who tells you Fred Thompson can't win because he's too late, too old or too sick.
And don't think it matters to conservatives whether he once lobbied for the Teamsters or once supported campaign finance reform.
As with Mr. Guiliani, it doesn't even matter that he once represented a client who wanted pregnant women referred to clinics that include abortions among their services.
It's not about that. It's about who's the toughest tough guy.
And so far it looks like Rudy, Fred and Hillary are in the lead for that honor.
And in the coming months, we're going to see who's really a tough, tough guy. Or gal.
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Jack Spillane's column runs on Mondays and Thursdays. Contact Jack at jspillane@s-t.com
Jack Spillane gets the award for voicing the post-Thompson victory Conventional Wisdom first.
After Fred Thompson wins the Presidency, all of the Liberals are going to be running around wondering how it could have happened. In 2006, they blamed the Evangelicals. But Hillary! made token moves to pander to Evangelicals, thus that factor must be neutralized (Liberals really do think like this). Therefore, there must be some other explaination.
So they are going to posit a "Toughness Gap", and chalk it up to the fact that the American voter is just too simplesme to understand that Democrat positions are just as tough, but in a squishy feckless way, or (quel horror!) they were afraid of strong women.
Thus, they can continue to lie to themselves, and tell themselves that Americans support their positions on wanting to lose the war in Iraq, or nationaling health care, or expanding Social Security or putting government price controls on oil. So, instead of admitting that most Americans are Pro-Victory/Pro-Free Market/Pro-Small Government, they will just say we wanted somebody "tough".
Usually I disdain a politician who changes his name. I figure it is hard to trust any man who has to temporize when you ask “what is your name?”
But I am going to forgive Fred Thompson for dropping the “Freddie”.
We could have had the spectacle of the Democrats spending all their money and tearing each other to shreds all Spring and Summer, but "Tough Guys" like Giuliani, McCain and Rommey stampeded to announce last January, instead of waiting for the traditional Labor Day, because they were afraid of being left behind.
Sounds to me like Jack Spillane is having his own gay fantasy about “tough guys” and projecting it on to others.
None of these guys are tough, because they are afraid to debate in the Values Voters debate:
“Finally, please call and e-mail the following
candidates and request they participate in the event
(These have not confirmed yet).
Rudy Giuliani 212-835-9449 and e-mail
mikeduhaime@joinrudy2008.com and
DanMeyers@joinrudy2008.com
Mitt Romney 857-288-6400 and e-mail at
http://www.mittromney.com/CommentForm
John McCain 703-418-2008 and e-mail jpblack@mccain08hq.com
Fred Thompson 615-390-9944 and e-mail at
http://www.imwithfred.com/Contact/Contact.aspx “
(from my e-mail)
This English reporter writes with such dripping, condescending haughtiness that we, in this century, have an idea of how George III came across.
Blimey, so many words to say so little. So much bias and bile, his predictions are not worth reading. No offense Second Div. Vet.
I didn’t know he was English, but the paper is in Massachusetts. We need to see the good and the bad to understand how the dems and the media (am I being redundant?) will try to define our candidates and shape the public’s opinions. As a soldier (Intelligence Analyst) in the U.S. Army, it was called “Know Your Enemy” and it is vital to practice it constantly.
I would think that their reason for not participating, is that their is a chance that they might not win, something no politician would want. The voters at the Value Voters debate are no-doubt dedicated conservatives, who know the difference between professing it and actually doing/living it.
At least, he didn't say he dropped the "die" from his given name.
How is Congressman Duncan Hunter doing in the latest polls?
2ndDivisionVet is “Fritzie!”
2ndDivisionVet is “Fritzie!
We’ll never let you live it down now! :>D
Hahaha! Better than some other things I’ve been called! LOL
I’m sure Mr. Hunter is proud of your obscene, offensive language. The Hunter crowd here is something else—and it doesn’t include “classy.”
Two thoughts:
1.) We’ll see “Freddie” in print way, way more than we’ll see “Hussain” Obama, and;
2.) This guy from the Seagull Times in New Bedford, MA is used to writing about the Sodomite pols from that town - Jailbird George Rogers, George Leontire, etc. A real man like “Freddie” is a new concept for him.
another report-in-print from the “castrati generation”
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