Tag: Fred Thompson

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Jimmy Carter and Fred Thompson: A Worthy Pair

A pair of circumstances this week reminded us that — current cynical views of our political system notwithstanding — honorable individuals do seek public office, manage to gain it, and behave honorably while doing so.

Former President Jimmy Carter

One reminder came on Monday, with the visit to Memphis of 91-year-old Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, who, accompanied by his wife Rosalynn and country singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, were here as volunteers with Habitat for Humanity to begin construction on a new home for a North Memphis resident.

It was, said international Habitat CEO Jonathan Reckford, who was on hand for a press conference noting the event, the 33rd such work project performed for Habitat since 1984 by the Carters, who began home-building efforts of their own almost immediately after leaving the White House in 1981.

When completed, the new Memphis house will be part of some 99 projects in Shelby County that will have been brought to completion by Habitat using volunteer efforts for its completed projects, which beneficiaries pay for with low- or no-interest loans. 

President Carter noted the democratizing effect of Habitat’s efforts this way: “It breaks down the barrier between the wealthy and the poor. Habitat opens up a way for people to work alongside poor people and get to know them personally. Those people are just as smart as I am, just as hard-working, and have the same values.” 

Carter, who sounded and looked strong, minimized the effects of the metastasized melanoma for which he is currently receiving treatment.

Reckford was candid in saying that the selfless efforts of the irrepressible Carters had put Habitat on the map, allowing it to have reached a total of some 360,000 completed projects all over the world. The former president isn’t through with Memphis; he promised to be back for more home-building on Habitat’s behalf next year.

Former Senator Fred Thompson

That’s one kudos we owe. Another goes to not-quite-native son Fred Thompson, a Middle Tennessean who graduated from then Memphis State University in 1964 and then began a rise that saw him become a player of note in both national politics and the entertainment industry.

Thompson’s strong, authoritative persona made him a natural in such movies as Days of Thunder, The Hunt for Red October, and Die Hard 2, and in his running role as District Attorney Arthur Branch in TV’s Law & Order series. These thespian efforts were woven into a life that included service as Republican counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee of 1973, as U.S. Senator from 1994 to 2003, and as a declared candidate for the presidency in the 2008 election cycle.

It was Thompson whose questioning for the Watergate committee elicited the fateful news of President Richard Nixon’s incriminating taping system. As a Senate candidate in 1994, he raised eyebrows in his party, then engaged in a full-fledged fishing expedition against Bill and Hillary Clinton, known as Whitewater, by condemning what he saw as an increasing tendency to gain political ends by criminalizing the opposition.

Like Carter, Thompson maintained a sense of ethics in office, and both deserve our heartfelt appreciation.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: New Mayor, New Council?

CREDIT: jb

Naming “crime, cronyism, and corruption” as major issues in
this year’s mayoral election, candidate Carol Chumney addressed the
Germantown Democratic Club Monday night, pledging if elected to “get a good
team” in order to bring renewed efficiency to Memphis city government.

Subsequently, city council member Chumney fielded at least
two questions from the membership (which includes several Memphis voters who
live in Cordova) about her reported difficulties with the mayor’s office and
fellow council members.

One member asked: What about her “relation building” and
“leadership style”? Would these be obstacles?

Chumney responded that she had developed good relations
with fellow legislators while a state House member for 13 years and said, “City
government has been a little different because there’s been quite frankly some
corruption. Many times I would be the only one who would stand up and say
anything. Some folks are going to get mad at you. I’m a strong leader, I will
tell you that.”

When another member followed that up by asking if the city
council would back her proposals if she were elected mayor, Chumney said, “We’re
going to elect a new city council.” Noting the virtual turnover of membership in
the county commission in last year’s elections, she expressed confidence that
city voters would follow suit. “It’s going to happen here. They’re going to vote
and vote in a new team.”

Pledging to renew cooperation between city and county
law-enforcement teams, Chumney said, “It’s disrespectful to expect the police to
go two years without a pay raise while asking them to risk their lives for us.”

She repeated her objections to Riverfront Development
Corporation proposals, including the recently approved Beale St. Landing
project, and called both for the city’s retention of The Coliseum and for
“something classy” in the downtown Pyramid.

Chumney said she’d heard “disturbing rumors” about the past
management of Memphis Networx and reported plans for its pending sale and
promised “to get to the bottom of it.” She said the council’s authority over a
prospective sale was uncertain but said she was seeking authoritative word on
that from the state Attorney General’s office.

  • Germantown is becoming an important campaign venue for
    candidates running for office in adjacent Memphis. A week or so earlier members
    of the Republican Women of Purpose organization heard a presentation at the
    Germantown Public Library from Brian Stephens, city council candidate in
    District 2, the East Memphis-suburban seat being vacated by incumbent Brent
    Taylor

    Stephens has been active in an effort to strengthen laws
    regulating sexually oriented businesses (S.O.B.’s in the accepted jargon) and
    specifically to make sure that veteran topless-club entrepreneur Steve Cooper
    does not convert a supposed “Italian restaurant” now under construction in
    Cordova into an S.O.B.

    He discussed those efforts but offered other opinions as
    well, some of them surprising – a statement that “consolidation is coming,
    whether we like it or not,” for example – and some not, like his conviction (a
    la Taylor) that tax increases are not necessary for the city to maintain and
    improve basic services.

    In general, Stephens, who seems to have a head start on
    other potential District 2 aspirants, made an effort to sound accommodationist
    rather than confrontational, stressing a need for council members to transcend
    racial and urban-vs.-suburban divisions and expressing confidence in the ability
    of currently employed school personnel to solve the system’s problems.

  • Also
    establishing an apparent early lead over potential rivals is current school
    board member Stephanie Gatewood, running for the District 1 council seat
    being vacated by incumbent E.C. Jones. Gatewood’s fundraiser at the Fresh
    Slices restaurant on Overton Park last Thursday night drew a respectable crowd,
    and her membership in Bellevue Baptist Church on the suburban side of District 1
    provides an anchor in addition to an expected degree of support from the
    district’s African-American population.

  • One night
    earlier, Wednesday night, had been a hot one for local politics, with three
    more-than-usually significant events, and there were any number of dedicated
    and/or well-heeled visitors to all three:

    –Residents of the posh
    Galloway Drive area where U of M basketball coach John Calipari resides
    are surely used to long queues of late-model vehicles stretching every which way
    in the neighborhood, especially in election season when Calipari’s home is
    frequently the site of fundraisers for this or that candidate.

    But Wednesday night’s event, a $250-a-head fundraiser for District 5 city
    council candidate Jim Strickland, was surely a record-setter –
    out-rivaling not only Calipari’s prior events but most other such gatherings in
    Memphis history, including those for senatorial and gubernatorial candidates. A
    politically diverse crowd estimated at 300 to 500 people showed up, netting
    Strickland more than $60,000 for the night and bringing his total “cash on hand”
    to $100,000.

    –Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Herman Morris attracted
    several hundred attendees to the formal opening of his sprawling, high-tech
    campaign headquarters on Union Avenue – the same HQ that, week before last,
    suffered a burglary – of computers containing sensitive information, for one
    thing – a fact that some Morris supporters find suspicious in light of various
    other instances of hanky-panky currently being alleged in the mayoral race.

    — Yet a a third major political gathering took place Wednesday night, as Shelby
    County Mayor A C Wharton was the beneficiary of a big-ticket fundraiser
    at The Racquet Club. Proceeds of that one have been estimated in the $50,000
    range – a tidy sum for what the county mayor alleges (and alleged again
    Wednesday night) is intended only as a kind of convenience fund, meant for
    charitable donations and various other protocol circumstances expected of
    someone in his position.

    Right. Meanwhile, Wharton declined to address the most widely speculated-upon
    subject in Memphis politics: Will he or won’t he enter the city mayor’s race? As
    everybody knows, and as the county mayor has informally acknowledged, he is the
    subject these days of non-stop blandishments in that regard, and there’s very
    little doubt that these have accelerated since a dramatic recent press
    conference by Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton alleging “the 2007 Political
    Conspiracy.”

    While some of
    Mayor Wharton’s intimates at the Wednesday night affair were keeping to the line
    that the chances of his running for city mayor were minimal to non-existent,
    their answers to inquiries about the matter were delivered after what we’ll call
    meaningfully inflected pauses. The door may be shut for now, but it clearly
    isn’t padlocked.

    jb

    Chumney in Germantown

  • NASHVILLE
    — The name of McWherter, prominent in Tennessee politics for most of the latter
    20th century, will apparently resurface in fairly short order, as Jackson lawyer
    and businessman Mike McWherter, son of two-term former governor Ned
    McWherter    , is making clear his plans to challenge U.S. Senator Lamar
    Alexander    ‘s reelection bid next year.

    Apparently only one thing could derail Democrat McWherter — a renewed Senate
    candidacy by former Memphis congressman Harold Ford Jr., who last year
    narrowly — lost a Senate race to the current Republican incumbent, Bob
    Corker    . “I don’t think I would compete against Harold. But I don’t think he
    will run,” McWherter said in an interview with The Flyer at Saturday’s
    annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Nashville.

    The 52-year-old activist sees Alexander as a slavish follower of President
    George W. Bush.

    “With one or two exceptions, he’s done everything the president has wanted him
    to do. He’s toed the party line,” said McWherter, who has recently paid courtesy
    calls on ranking Democrats, both in Tennessee and in Washington, D.C., informing
    them of his interest in running next year and soliciting their support.

  • Keynote speaker
    at the Democrats’ dinner in Nashville was presidential hopeful Bill
    Richardson    , whose situation somewhat paralleled that of former Massachusetts
    governor Mitt Romney, who earlier this month had been the featured
    speaker at the state Republicans’ Statesmen’s Dinner, also in Nashville.

    On that occasion, Romney – who had been invited before the entrance of former
    Tennessee senator Fred Thompson became likely – was a de facto lame-duck
    keynoter, and, mindful of the attendees’ expected loyalty to favorite-son
    Thompson, cracked wanly, “I know
    there’s been some speculation by folks about a certain former senator from
    Tennessee getting into the presidential race, and I know everybody’s waiting,
    wondering. But I take great comfort from the fact than no one in this room, not
    a single person, is going to be voting for — Al Gore.”

    That bit of verbal bait-and-switch got the expected laugh, and so did a joke
    Saturday night by New Mexico governor Richardson, who uttered some ritual praise
    of native Tennessean and former presidential candidate Gore and then, when the
    crowd warmly applauded the former vice president, jested, “Let’s not overdo it.
    I don’t want him in this race!”

    jb

    • Categories
    Politics Politics Feature

    GOP Candidates Slam Huckabee on Sunday Talk Shows

    The Washington Post does a weekly roundup of the Sunday morning political talkshows. This week, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was getting hit from all sides. Tennessee’s Fred Thompson fired a salvo, and so did Mitt Romney.

    From the Post: Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, surging in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination, faced criticism by two rivals yesterday.

    Fred D. Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, said, “Liberal is the only word that comes to mind, when he was governor.”

    On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Thompson criticized Huckabee for his positions on illegal immigration, tax policy and Cuba, and for his belief that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be shut down.

    Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney criticized Huckabee for a recent Foreign Affairs article in which he called the Bush administration’s foreign policy “arrogant.”

    “Mike Huckabee owes the president an apology,” Romney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

    “I think he needs to read the article. It would really help if he would do that. Because if he did, he would see that there’s no apology necessary to the president,” Huckabee responded on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

    For more, see the Post‘s website.

    Categories
    Opinion Viewpoint

    The Understudy

    Earlier in the year, local Republicans, like their counterparts elsewhere in Tennessee, were jumping ship from other presidential campaigns to make known their allegiance to former Senator Fred Thompson. That was back when Law & Order star Thompson, presumably on the strength of his Nielsen ratings, was considered the answer to GOP prayers.

    The lanky, rawboned actor/lawyer/lobbyist, a native of Lawrenceburg in Middle Tennessee and a University of Memphis graduate, had ample cachet. A protégé of former Senator Howard Baker, who in 1973 made him minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, Thompson had by 2007 been in the public eye for a full generation.

    His acting career in the movies as well as on TV, plus eight years in the Senate, had made him a figure familiar enough to be a formidable trump card. But when he got turned up on the table — or, more to the point, when he began standing side-by-side with his GOP rivals on the debate sage — something seemed to be missing.

    Maybe it was age (some thought Thompson looked unexpectedly thin and ravaged), maybe it was conviction (what was his role supposed to be? moderate? arch-conservative? Bushite? critic?), or maybe it was the candidate’s well-known laissez-faire attitude toward exertion. Whatever the case, the Thompson boom went from bang to whimper in record time.

    Meanwhile, another Mid-South candidate has been auditioning well on the road. That’s Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and, as has been pointed out ad infinitum, a native of Hope, hometown of two-term former Democratic president Bill Clinton, another up-from-nowhere sort.

    By now, Huckabee has actually taken the lead among Republicans in Iowa, whose caucuses will be held in early January. His dramatic arrow up parallels Thompson’s going down. And, whereas Thompson had never quite defined his character in the ongoing campaign drama, the folksy but articulate Huckabee has his down pat: He’s an unabashed pro-life social conservative but also an economic populist who raised taxes for social programs as governor and who regularly denounces “Wall Street” in the manner of a latter-day FDR.

    As such, Huckabee performs the improbable feat of yoking two points of view that have been politically sundered for well over a generation. In some ways, he’s a throwback to the old Southern Democratic model. He’s a former Baptist preacher who can also play a mean bass guitar on “Free Bird” — a feat he performed alongside current Shelby GOP chairman Bill Giannini’s lead guitar at the local Republican “Master Meal” last year.

    Huckabee’s plain-spoken oratory was also a huge hit at that event, and there’s no doubt that the seeds for a mass following have been planted in these parts.

    Tracy Dewitt of the Northeast Shelby Republican Club is a dedicated supporter, as is Paul Shanklin, the local businessman and successful impressionist who does all those politicians’ voices for Rush Limbaugh. The Arkansan’s national campaign manager, moreover, is Chip Saltzman, an ex-Memphian and a graduate of Christian Brothers University.

    When the East Shelby Republican Club, one of the GOP’s local bedrocks, had an informal straw-vote poll at its regular monthly meeting last week, Thompson still had the residual strength to come out well ahead. Huckabee was down among such relative also-rans as New York’s Rudy Giuliani and Massachusetts’ Mitt Romney.

    But that, as club president Bill Wood acknowledges, was then. Now is something else. “That was before Huckabee got a front-page article in USA Today and all this other recognition.” If the same straw vote were held today? “Oh he’d go up like a bullet. There were already a lot of people here who liked him. Now they’re starting to see how he’s doing in the rest of the nation.”

    Indeed, it is probable that, if Huckabee should hold his present numbers and win Iowa, you couldn’t build a big enough bandwagon to accommodate his supporters locally.

    One caveat: Thompson could still come back. There are many political observers who remember his lackadaisical start in 1994 against Democratic Senate opponent Jim Cooper, whom he trailed at one point by 20 points in the polls — the same number he would eventually win by against Cooper.

    But for the time being, the man from Hope has center stage.

    Jackson Baker is a Flyer senior editor.

    Categories
    Politics Politics Feature

    Who Is This Huckabee Mug Anyhow, and Why Is He Stealing Fred Thompson’s Thunder?

    Earlier in the year local Republicans, like their
    counterparts elsewhere in Tennessee, were jumping ship from other presidential
    campaigns to make known their allegiance to former Senator Fred Thompson. That
    was back when Law and Order star Thompson, presumably on the strength of
    his Nielsen ratings, was considered the answer to GOP prayers.

    The lanky, rawboned actor/lawyer/lobbyist, a native of
    Lawrenceburg in Middle Tennessee and a University of Memphis graduate, had ample
    cachet. A protégé of former Senator Howard Baker, who in 1973 had made him
    minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, Thompson had by 2007 been
    in the public eye for a full generation.

    His acting career in the movies as well as on TV, plus
    eight years in the Senate, had made him a familiar figure enough to be a
    formidable trump card. But when he got turned up on the table – or, more to the
    point, when he began standing side by side with his GOP rivals on the debate
    stage – something seemed to be missing.

    Maybe it was age (some thought Thompson looked unexpectedly
    thin and ravaged), maybe it was conviction (what was his role supposed to be?
    moderate? arch-conservative? Bushite? critic?), or maybe it was the candidate’s
    well-known laissez-faire attitude toward exertion. Whatever the case, The
    Thompson boom went from bang to whimper in record time.

    It is not just that his finances are hurting or that the
    national media is beginning to write him off or that his numbers have dwindled
    to single digits in Iowa, whose caucuses are coming up within a month’s time.

    The real problem is a rival area candidate who has been
    auditioning well on the road. That’s Mike Huckabee, the former governor of
    Arkansas and, as has been pointed out ad infinitum, a native of Hope, home town
    of two-term former Democratic president Bill Clinton, another up-from-nowhere
    sort.

    By now, Huckabee has actually taken the lead among
    Republicans in Iowa. His dramatic arrow up parallels Thompson’s going down. And,
    whereas Thompson had never quite defined his character in the ongoing campaign
    drama, the folksy but articulate Huckabee has his down pat: He’s an unabashed
    pro-life social conservative but an economic populist who raised taxes for
    social programs as governor and who regularly denounces “Wall Street” in the
    manner of a latter-day FDR.

    As such, Huckabee performs the improbable feat of yoking
    together two points of view that have been politically sundered for well over a
    generation. In some ways, he’s a throwback to the old Southern Democratic model.
    He’s a former Baptist preacher who can also play a mean bass guitar on “Free
    Bird” – a feat he performed alongside current Shelby GOP chairman Bill
    Giannini’s lead guitar at the local Republican “Master Meal” last year.

    Huckabee’s plain-spoken oratory was also a huge hit at that event, and there’s
    no doubt that the seeds for a mass following have been planted in these parts.

    Tracy Dewitt of the northeast Shelby Republican Club is a
    dedicated supporter, as is Paul Shanklin, the local businessman and successful
    impressionist who does all those politician’s voice for Rush Limbaugh. The
    Arkansan’s national campaign manager, moreover, is Chip Saltzman, an ex-Memphian
    and a graduate of Christian Brothers University.

    When the East Shelby Republican Club, one of the GOP’s
    local bedrocks, had an informal straw vote poll at its regular monthly meeting
    last week, Fred Thompson still had the residual strength to come out well ahead.
    Huckabee was down among such relative also-rans as New York’s Rudy Giuliani and
    Massachusett’s Mitt Romney.

    But that, as club president Bill Wood acknowledges, was
    then. Now is something else. “That was before Huckabee got a front-page article
    in USA Today and all this other recognition.” If the same straw vote were
    held today? “Oh he’d go up like a bullet. There were already a lot of people
    here who liked him. Now they’re starting to see how he’s doing in the rest of
    the nation.”

    Indeed, it is probable that, if Huckabee should hold his present numbers and win
    Iowa, you couldn’t build a big enough bandwagon to accommodate his supporters
    locally.

    One caveat: Thompson could still come back. There are many
    political observers who remember his lackadaisical start in 1994 against
    Democratic Senate opponent Jim Cooper, whom he trailed at one point by 20 points
    in the polls – the same number he would eventually win by against Cooper.

    But for the time being, the man from Hope has center stage.

    Categories
    Politics Politics Feature

    Clinton-Thompson Race Would be Close in Tennessee, Survey Says

    CREDIT: FreakingNews.com

    Tennesseans tend to pick Republican favorite son Fred Thompson when asked which 2008 presidential hopeful they support, but in hypothetical head-to-head contests, Democrat Hillary Clinton runs very close behind him and ties national Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, a new poll by Middle Tennessee State University shows.

    Thirty-two percent of Tennessee adults choose Thompson when asked whom they most favor in the 2008 election. Clinton attracts 25 percent, while Giuliani and Illinois Democratic Sen. Barak Obama draw 9 percent each. Nine percent name Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, and the rest choose someone else.

    In a hypothetical head-to-head contest, though, Thompson garners 50 percent to Clinton’s 42 percent, with 4 percent choosing neither and the rest unsure. Considering the poll’s error margin (plus or minus four percentage points), Thompson’s lead over Clinton is small, and the two could even be tied.

    Pitted against Obama, Thompson wins more handily, drawing 55 percent compared to Obama’s 34 percent, with 7 percent choosing neither and the rest unsure. In a hypothetical race between Clinton and Giuliani, meanwhile, the two tie, drawing 43 percent each with 11 percent saying they’d vote for neither and the rest not sure.

    “In sum, a Thompson-Obama contest would be the best-case scenario for Tennessee’s Republicans under present conditions,” said MTSU poll director Ken Blake.

    Categories
    Politics Politics Feature

    Fred Thompson Vs. The Moonshiners

    In what it’s billing as “Defining Moments: A series of articles on events that shaped the presidential candidates”, The Los Angeles Times took a look at former senator Fred Thompson’s career as a Tennessee assistant prosecutor.

    An excerpt: The case appeared to be open and shut.

    The county sheriff had been caught selling an illegal whiskey still from the back of the county jail. The buyers were a federal informant and an undercover federal investigator. The sheriff, to elude honest police, had even escorted the illegal still out of town.

    But for Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Thompson, few cases would prove easy.

    Today, as a Republican candidate for president, Thompson is cultivating an image as a tough prosecutor who, like the character he played on TV’s “Law & Order,” battled powerful criminals during his three-year stint as a prosecutor.

    He was “attacking crime and public corruption,” boasts a video played at his campaign events. During a candidate debate this month, Thompson said he spent those years “prosecuting most of the major federal crimes in middle Tennessee — most of the major ones.”

    But a review of the 88 criminal cases Thompson handled at the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville, from 1969 to 1972, reveals a different and more human portrait — that of a young lawyer learning the ropes on routine cases involving gambling, mail theft and, in one instance, talking dirty on CB radio …

    Read it all here.

    Categories
    News

    Advice for Thompson

    Wonkette has some important campaign advice for Tennessee’s Fred Thompson.

    After gossip gal Cindy Adams reported that Thompson’s favorite comedian was Jackie Mason (and that Thompson visits backstage when Mason’s on Broadway), Wonkette pointed out that may be political poison.

    “Now, Fred, do you remember 1989? No? You were probably too busy laying down your Southern Mojo on Dana Delany on the set of China Beach. And, hey, we don’t blame you. She’s hot! … But that was the year Jackie and Rudy were banging around New York together. The two were totally BFFs until Mason called then-New York Mayor Dinkins ‘a fancy schvartze with a mustache.’ Not cool.”

    Categories
    Politics Politics Feature

    Fred Thompson Announces Campaign Chairs; “Macaca” Allen and Liz Cheney Among Them

    From Politico.com: Fred Thompson’s campaign will announce this morning their “National Campaign Leadership Team.”

    Among the four chairs — former Sen. George Allen (VA).

    The one-time presidential hopeful has had warm things to say about Thompson since the Tennessean first considered a bid this summer, and recently had his former colleague on while guest-hosting a radio show in Richmond.

    It’s fitting that Allen would back Thompson. They occupy much of the same space politically — folksy Southern mainstream conservative — and Fred got in the race in no small part because Allen’s absence created a vacuum for a candidate with such qualities.

    Read more    .

    Categories
    Politics Politics Feature

    Fred Thompson is Not Boring, Dammit

    The New York Times has a new story up today about former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson on the campaign trail, and it ain’t pretty:

    Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred D. Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”

    Then he stood face to face with a silent audience.

    “Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter.

    “Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.

    Read all of Adam Nagourney’s story.