Fred Thompson has played the coy suitor to Republican voters in this primary campaign. The fact that his is the most conventionally conservative and with some personal cache (hey, this dude was in Hunt For Red October) had Republicans (including this author) begging him to run to make up for the lack of these credentials amongst the then announced candidates. But his apparent lack of zeal for the presidency and his lethargic campaigning have turned off some of the very voters who this past summer were begging him to run.
Thompson has recently addressed this issue in a way that is compelling. The late Eugene McCarthy once said that the very desire to be president should disqualify a candidate for the job. Thompson, in the vein of Cinninatus and George Washington, is the reluctant candidate. He does not burn with a passion for power, yet he believes he has the capacity to wield it well and his sense of duty to his posterity drives him to do what no ordinary person does, namely run for president. The attractiveness of Thompson, besides what one may think of his policy prescriptions, is that he has contempt for a contemptuous process. The current system, for reasons beyond the purview of this post, degrades candidates by encouraging them to announce far before the first votes are cast, creating an interminable campaign doomed by its very length to become tedious and to turn on the most trivial of matters (e.g., was that a cross or a bookshelf behind Mike Huckabee in his Christmas video). Thompson's contempt was seen in the famous "hand show" episode in the recent Iowa debate. The virtues of Fred Thompson include his unwillingness to pander for votes by making promises that he can't keep and we couldn't afford if he did keep them. He speaks about reforming entitlements when no other candidate will touch the subject for fear of offending any voters. Not being consumed with ambition he makes himself more to be trusted with power. As Peter Robinson points out, Thompson is actually talking to voters as if they are adults, asking them to think and look to the long term. This stands in ready contrast to the many candidates who see the voters as children who need to be taken care of or given goodies so they will stop crying and be content. Like John McCain, Thompson tells people things they don't want to hear. That is highly admirable in a candidate.
Thompson has made a video for his last appeal to Iowans before the caucuses. Another sign of Thompson's seriousness is that his appeal is not a 30 second ad that amounts to little more than an image appeal, but a seventeen minute speech. It takes some time, but is worth watching.
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