Posted on 09/22/2007 7:51:59 PM PDT by Josh Painter
Can't excerpt article due to copyright considerations. Read it here.
Fred Thompson plays pretty well to this UAW member. And to many of my co-workers as well so I think he will do good in Mich.
I’m not a Thompson supporter and I think the notion that he’s in any way “Reaganesque” is preposterous. I like Fred but he’s just a Beltway politician. He’s a compromiser on such issues as illegal immigration (Tancredo and Hunter received an A+ by two nonpartisan evaluators while Fred received a mediocre and undistinguished “C.”)
The political reality is that the last to enter the primary automatically receives a “bump” in the polls. In other words, he’s the newest and unchallenged contender. Unchallenged, because he’s avoided any participation in the national televised debates. His very questionable activities as a lobbyist for VERY questionable causes will soon be examined and exposed.
Worse, from a conservative perspective, is the near-universal view that he’s never had any “fire in the belly” for ANY issue. In my opinion, this makes Fred a nice guy but a typical Beltway “get along” sort of fellow. That’s OK when we’re not at war and struggling to defend our borders against an illegal invasion that’s destroying our culture and national security. Now, however, we need a lot more than Fred’s personality, rhetoric, and legislative record offer us. Present demands and conditions call for much more than a “yesterday’s nice guy.”
Doing better than Mitt Romney in Michigan will be the main challenge of all of the other GOP Presidential candidates. Like it or not, the Romney’s have a very strong and a very long connection with Michigan.
“Worse, from a conservative perspective, is the near-universal view that he’s never had any “fire in the belly” for ANY issue.”
All the “fire in the belly” talk is way off target. We don’t need a president who’s so tied up in wanting the job that it becomes the main focus of life, e.g., Hillary for the past 25 years or so, and we don’t need a president so concerned about one or two issues that he’s spent his past dealing exclusively with those issues.
What we need is someone who knows where he stands, and who stands for the things the average American stands for (and MoveOn.org members are in no way reflective of that, incidentally) so that we can elect him and trust him to remain true to the principles he ran on.
The problem with D.C. today is that most of the people there do have “fire in the belly”.....to get elected and stay elected, and to that end, once they get there they’ll say and do anything to stay. They completely abandon the principles on which they were elected, assuming they ever had any in the first place.
If Fred Thompson would really rather not be president, but feels a person with his particular principles is needed at this time, that’s a huge plus, not a negative. I want president willing to serve, not one desperate for the job title and the power that comes with it, a la Hillary.
I think perhaps your understanding of “fire in the belly” and mine are different. I don’t understand that expression to mean some sort of overweening ambition or ‘win at any cost’ but rather the passionate conviction that some issues are so important to our nation that they elicit a genuine and sincere enthusiasm in candidates. For example, Tancredo and Hunter have the “fire” for the illegal immigration crisis. As I said, I like Fred but based on his Senate record and his political persona I don’t see anything of the sort emanating from his candidacy.
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