After stretching the
patience of even his most fervent supporters to the breaking point, former
Tennessee senator Fred Thompson announced last week that he will finally
and formally announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination
this week.
Typically for a
candidate who has always wanted to do things his own idiosyncratic way — which
is to say, according to a relatively relaxed pace and with some unexpected
innovations — Thompson’s announcement with come this Thursday via video on his
Web site (ImWithFred.com),
following which he plans to embark on a five-day swing through several
early-voting primary states.
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In a statement
released with the announcement of the announcement, Thompson said: “I believe
that there are millions of Americans who know that our security and prosperity
are at risk if we don’t address the challenges of our time; the global threat of
terrorism; taxes and spending that will bankrupt future generations, and a
government that can’t seem to get the most basic responsibilities right for its
citizens.
“The response that
we’ve received makes me confident that we have an opportunity to change politics
in Washington and across the country, and take on these challenges the way every
generation of Americans has faced the challenges of their time — with unity,
hard work and a belief that we will come out on the winning side.”
Simultaneously, NBC, the network which carries Law and Order, the
long-running crime-detection show on which Thompson has figured for the last few
years as the unflappable D.A. Arthur Branch, defied some expectations by making
its own announcement — namely, that it would not stop showing reruns of the
show, regardless of whether Thompson figured in the installments chosen for
broadcast. [Note corrective update from ‘B’ in coments below./jb]]
Ah well: So much for our own pet theory, that the thespian-pol’s procrastination
had been based on contractual obligations to the program or to individuals
associated with it and that his protracted wait for announcing had to do with
the conclusion of summer reruns from last season.
So maybe he is lazy and slow to get started, as detractors and even some
allies have always maintained. He certainly seemed to be in that mold during his
first major race — against Democrat Jim Cooper for the Senate in 1994.
Starting slow that year, he finally hit upon the device of a symbolic red
pickup, which, in simulated good-ole-boy style, allowed him to make his
political pit stops in the several corners of Tennessee.
In any case, he peaked about when GOP guru/later Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich‘s” Contract With America” formula did, and Thompson surged
ahead of Cooper in a late move that may in fact have been ahead of the national
curve that year.
And that’s the counter-argument for the Fred-is-lazy crowd: He seems to know
what he’s doing, and, despite the general Beltway consensus that Thompson will
toe some pre-ordained conservative line, that ain’t how he did it in the Senate.
Thompson quite frequently took positions at odds with his party leadership —
notably during his politically even-handed investigation of campaign-finance
irregularities — and it was entirely appropriate for him to become campaign
chairman for the 2000 presidential campaign of (then) maverick colleague John
McCain.
Has Thompson, like McCain, redesigned himself this year with more conventional
Republican views? Maybe, but I still remember the extended interview he gave me
in 1994, when he deviated from his party’s norms of the time and delivered an
extended and closely reasoned philippic against what he called the
“criminalization” of politics.
This was at a time, remember, when the Whitewater investigation of Democratic
president Bill Clinton was already being pushed by congressional
Republicans toward the political equivalent of a star chamber and a hanging
judge.
so unexpected were the Thomson’s remarks that his own P.R. guy in Nashville immediately moved to deny them and to mount a protest that his candidate must have been misquoted. A transcript of the conversation and Thompson’s own confirmation put a stop to that.
Though as an office-holde, Thompson would move somewhat toward his party’s punitive agenda when
the Monica Lewinsky affair flared up, he pointedly voted for only one of the two
impeachment resolutions in the Senate — and that one in the most pro forma
manner possible.
All of that is one good reason why the label factory — which turns out
appellations like “conservative” or “moderate” or “liberal” — won’t serve to
describe this new presidential hopeful. What the camera picks up in him is
something much more ineffable.
Or maybe I’m just reacting to the fact that he graduated from the University of
Memphis backaways. Shhhhh! — on the same day as me.
POSTSCRIPT: And maybe, too, I’m bending too far backward. Here’s this
explanation for the late start from ABC’s Jake Tapper on his “Political Punch”
blog:
If Thompson
waits until September 6 to formally declare his candidacy, he wouldn’t have to
disclose any of the cash given to his campaign until January 31 — after many
major contests are over, including the Iowa and Nevada Caucuses, and the New
Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida primaries.
Hmmmm.
