ping
Funny how experience as a Senator is good enough for every other candidate (R) & (D) in the race, but Fred "has no real experience".
Lamar is wrong.
Fred’s top asset is that he is a conservative.
Years ago, Congressman and medical doctor Larry McDonald was working late in his Capitol Hill office when an old friend from medical school knocked on his door. Larry rose and greeted his guest and, after exchanging the usual pleasantries, looking a bit dejected, his friend slumped into a chair.
Larry asked him what was wrong.
With a little sigh, his friend said “Every few years, a group of us have to take time away from our practices and jobs and come all the way up here to meet with our representatives and senators to try to head off some new effort to trash the Constitution. And I often get the feeling that these guys up here just aren’t listening.”
Laughing, Larry offered, “You do know, don’t you, that there’s a better way?”
“What’s that, Larry?”
“You and your friends ought to get together at home and find a House candidates who shares your values and get behind him with support and resources and REPLACE those guys who aren’t listening. And if there is no candidate with those qualifications, go out and CREATE one – maybe even run yourself! And if, down the road, the new guy stops listening to you, work to replace HIM. The beauty of the House of Representatives is that the Founding Fathers designed it so that these folks have to come home every 24 months to get their tickets punched by the voters. And as we both know, the taxing and spending occur in the House. If the lower house refused to fund some liberty destroying or unconstitutional agency or program, it just won’t happen.”
“But, Larry, how do we convince the rest of the voters that the incumbent needs to be replaced?”
“That used to be a real challenge since poll after poll asking folks what they thought of congress usually got very negative answers. But when asked how they thought THEIR guys were doing up here got responses indicating that THEIR guys were doing a good job. There’s a new program called Tax Reform Immediately (TRIM) that uses only one yardstick for its quarterly rating of every member of congress – the United States Constitution.” (http://www.trimonline.org)
“Does it work, Larry?”
“One of my favorite stories about that is the 16 year-old paperboy out in the Midwest who every quarter paid to have 10,000 TRIM Bulletins printed and threw them on his route and in another 9,500 lawns in his district – FROM HIS BIKE! After 3 quarters of that, the incumbent was ousted for someone who more closely represented the views of the voters. On election night, the red-faced loser was interviewed on TV and, waving a TRIM Bulletin, sputtered that it was a right-wing plot to “get him.” It was GREAT TV.”
“A ‘plot’ by a 16 year-old paperboy.” Larry and his guest laughed.
“And it’s happening all over the country – even in my state, Georgia. My supporters down there are keeping the voters in the 7th informed about my votes up here. Since my only standard is the Constitution, they keep sending me back. So it works both ways: The good guys get reelected and the bad guys get sent home – or hang around as lobbyists.” Another chuckle.
“But what about the presidential election?”
“While important, if we had 300 or so decent representatives up here on the Hill, they’d take back much of the power they’ve shipped down to 1600 over the past years and the 4 year beauty contest would become far less important than it now is. A metaphor for these elections for president, representatives and senate is a 3 card Monte game: While everyone is focused on the card marked with the “P,” the “R” and “S” cards are largely ignored.”
Larry’s friend returned home, got his friends and neighbors up to speed with TRIM – and within a year, had a new and improved representative.
So, Mia, you don’t like Hillary...but yet you don’t support the most likeable, electable conservative we have either?
Who do you support?
Lamar is picking the right guy, but has the reasoning wrong.
Have you noticed McCain lately?
I think his melanoma is back. The left side of his face appears mighty swollen to me. And his face overall is gaunt.
Mia T, I presume you wrote the title: “EARTH TO LAMAR: FRED THOMPSON LOOKING THE PART AIN’T ENOUGH (41-second video fries Fred)” Perhaps you need to elaborate that smear line and explain to me how idiot Lamar’s comments to Left-freakin’ Matthews fries Fred Thompson. What a strange lead line, Mia.
Thanks for the ping! Good Post!
I would rather the oval office be held by an inexperienced-but-good person than by an evil person with all the experience in the world
Precisely, Gracey.
Back to RealityBut still. Mr. Thompson is a candidate without an exploratory committee, a campaign war chest or a full-time staff. Apart from a few close friends, Mr. Thompson has, as yet, no real inner circle and no coterie of trusted advisors guiding his campaign.
At a time when most G.O.P. Presidential hopefuls are putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the Bush administration, Mr. Thompson has made a point of fund-raising for Scooter Libby's defense fund.
And in terms of his actual policy positions, Mr. Thompson is hard to identify. He has supported drilling for oil in the Arctic, and is a supporter of gun-owners' rights. But in other ways, he takes after moderate Republican Howard Baker, his old boss on the Congressional committee that investigated Watergate.
He supported campaign-finance reform and opposed tort reform. He doesn't support gay marriage, but would still leave the issue up to the states rather than banning it outright. His position on abortion, while officially pro-life, can best be described as a work in progress.
And he supports some immigrant guest-worker programs.
It's too soon to know whether his ideological squishiness will be a problem. But given the irrelevance of actual details this far into Mr. Thompson's cinematic Presidential bid, maybe it won't matter.
"Fred Thompson--well, he's not Ronald Reagan," said Mr. Keene. "But he's done enough, and is well enough liked. He's a fallback."
The perfect role.
The Mysterious Appeal of Fred Thompson
BY REBECCA SINDERBRAND
The New York Observer