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Labels: Florida, fred thompson, mittcast, Nevada

Labels: fred thompson

Conservatives unhappy with our Republican presidential candidates seem to be drifting aimlessly toward Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee in the misguided belief that these candidates are more conservative than Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. This is like breaking up with Bobby Brown so you can date Phil Spector.

On illegal immigration, Huckabee makes George Bush sound like Tom Tancredo. He has compared illegal aliens to slaves brought here in chains from Africa, saying, "I think frankly the Lord is giving us a second chance to do better than we did before."

(I just realized why Mike Huckabee can't run for president as a Democrat -- they've already got Mike Gravel.)

In 1999, Sen. Fred Thompson joined legal giants like Sens. Jim Jeffords, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to vote against removing Bill Clinton from office for obstruction of justice.

Thompson, whom President Nixon once called "dumb as hell," claimed to have carefully studied the Constitution and determined that obstruction of justice by the president of the United States did not constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors." He must have been looking at one of those living, breathing Constitutions we've heard so much about.

...

Only a handful of Republicans voted against all law and reason to keep Clinton in office, and only one of them was from Tennessee.

This isn't the time to be toying with any Republican who had a Clinton in his sights and ended up shooting himself in the foot.

If you're bored with our top candidates, go see a slasher movie. Don't take it out on a presidential election.

Labels: ann coulter, fred thompson, huckabee

Labels: fred thompson

You, sir, have a serious responsibility to fulfill. When there were a number of other conservatives considering whether they should try to fill the void in the Republican presidential field, you stepped forward and said you were the one. You said you had the fire in the belly. You sucked all the air out of the atmosphere on the right. In doing so, you pledged to run a different kind of campaign.

But if you are going to be the big man on the right, you can't be lazy. Yet you have been so. You have a responsibility to bone up on basic local issues of national import. Any old moron should know, for instance, that you can't go into Florida without having at least thought about what you would say if asked about Terri Schiavo or about the Everglades.

What catalyzes this letter is a campaign phone call I received last night. A bright young woman calling on behalf of your campaign in northern Virginia asked if I would mind listening to a message from you. Well, certainly. And then your voice came on. You said you wanted to return power to the people, to good old regular folks like me. You said it was time to take the power away from the politicians in Washington. You said we needed to return to a government of common sense. You said something about emphasizing our conservative values. And you thanked me for listening.

And that was it. There was as much substance as cotton candy, except that it was like stale, three-week-old cotton candy because the phrases were so pathetically hackneyed.

Labels: audio, fred thompson

Labels: fred thompson

Thompson told a crowd in Jacksonville that Bush's signature education program isn't working and that he would provide federal education money with fewer strings attached.

"We've been spending increasing amounts of federal money for decades, with increasing rules, increasing mandates, increasing regulations," Thompson said. "It's not working."

He added that there are problems with Bush's No Child Left Behind program, which requires annual testing and punishes schools that don't make progress.

December 18, 2001

Thompson Praises Final Passage of Education Bill
WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) today voted for final passage of The Leave No Child Behind Act, legislation based on President Bush's education reform proposal.

"The Leave No Child Behind Act sets an important new direction for federal education policy," Thompson said. "The combination of flexibility, accountability, and choice provided by the Act is a significant step towards ensuring that all of our students receive a quality education.

When he says he would have opposed adding the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, "a $17 trillion add-on to a program that's going bankrupt," he is fighting the bipartisan judgment of the last Congress.

Voted YES on funding GOP version of Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Vote to pass an amendment that would make up to $300 billion available for a Medicare prescription drug benefit for 2002 through 2011. The money would come from the budget's contingency fund. The amendment would also require a Medicare overhaul.
Reference: Bill H Con Res 83 ; vote number 2001-65 on Apr 3, 2001

Thompson seems to have taken particular pleasure in mocking global warming.

"It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto. . . . This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle," he wrote.

... Scientists who insist that global warming is ruining nature, he said, are like those true believers four centuries ago who insisted that the Earth is flat. "Ask Galileo," he said.

…a couple of young environmentalists asked him very well-rehearsed questions about global warming…He told the global warming guys that climate change was real and that the United States needed to address it. He mentioned working with other nations to find solutions, but he had no specific agenda. (Afterwards, the activists said they were not satisfied with his answer.)

Labels: fred thompson

Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?... He has no passion, no zeal and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!

James Dobson, one of the nation's most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson. In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives. … The founder and chairman of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, Dobson draws a radio audience in the millions, many of whom who first came to trust the child psychologist for his conservative Christian advice on child-rearing. … Some Christian right leaders have pinned their hopes on Thompson, describing him as a Southern-fried Ronald Reagan. But others have voiced doubts in recent weeks about some of the same issues Dobson highlighted: his position on gay marriage and support for the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. Dobson and other Christian conservatives support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would bar gay marriage nationally. Thompson has said he would support a constitutional amendment that would prohibit states from imposing their gay marriage laws on other states, which falls well short of that.

Labels: fred thompson, james dobson, social conservatism

[Thompson will] take some heat for that but the larger issue for social conservatives may be this: If California start to have legislatures endorse gay marriage and have a liberal Governor sign it into law then what Thompson is saying is that he'll live with that because it didn't come from an unelected judge but rather elected representatives. How will that go over with conservative pro-family groups?

One would hope that on the fundamental, driving issue of national security -- the issue that is driving so many as we head toward 2008 -- having to backtrack on the very basic issue of what to do with Osama would be unnecessary.

The first Thompson statement was a tacit endorsement of the Clinton policy this nation repudiated after September 11th.

And at this stage in the game, even Hillary Clinton has answered more competently on that subject that the Thompson campaign's first stab at it.

That the campaign required a second stab at that basic question makes me shudder with disbelief.

Fred Thompson's plunge into the presidential pool -- more belly-flop than swan dive -- was the strangest product launch since that of New Coke in 1985. Then, the question was: Is this product necessary? A similar question stumped Thompson the day he plunged.

...

"Right now"? He has been living "up there" in that upscale inside-the-Beltway Washington suburb, honing his "Aw, shucks, I'm just an ol' Washington outsider" act, for years. Long enough to have noticed that McLean is planted thick with churches. Going to church is, of course, optional -- unless you are aiming to fill some supposed piety void in the Republican field.

New Coke was announced on April 23, 1985, with the company's president piling on adjectives usually reserved for Lafite Rothschild -- "smoother, rounder yet bolder." Almost 80 days later, the public having sampled it, the company pulled the product from stores. Perhaps Thompson's candidacy will last longer than New Coke did.

It is not entirely clear what Thompson believes. When he was Senator he seemed to support an open-borders approach to immigration. In recent speeches Thompson has not supported President George W. Bush's comprehensive immigration reform bill, which was soundly defeated.

...

If the Thompson balloon were launched high but then returned to earth, with Thompson falling behind other candidates, that would mean the several-month tease in the form of his exploratory committee would have been for naught.

When it comes to overhyped underperformers, Fred Thompson's entry into the presidential race was right up there with Britney Spears at the MTV awards.

The Republican Party's great tall hope announced his intentions on Jay Leno's show, and timed it to coincide with his avoidance of the candidate debate in New Hampshire. That was supposed to send the message of - what? A fear of crowds? A preference for answering questions only while seated? His performance certainly could not have been more low-key. You do not often hear somebody say "I'm running for president" in the same tone Jay's guests use to announce that they've signed on for the next season of "Dancing With the Stars."

Labels: fred thompson

The buzz among the press at Fred's kickoff event is all about the small-ish size of the crowd. I believe the campaign is circulating an official number of 450 people, but it looked to be considerably fewer than that. I'd guess more in the 250 range, and a decent percentage of folks in the room (perhaps 20-25%) were members of the media.

I asked David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register how Fred's crowd compared to the size of crowds pulled by other top-tier candidates at recent events. Yepsen said he thought Romney could come to Des Moines any weekday afternoon and generate the same sized crowd.

Fred Thompson’s announcement speech Thursday in Des Moines was underwhelming.

The former U.S. Senator and movie actor formally announced his long-awaited candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination at the Des Moines Convention Complex. It wasn’t very impressive.

The crowd of a few hundred didn’t seem enthused. Thompson’s oratory didn’t soar but was somewhat rambling.

Labels: fred thompson

Is it just me or does it go to the issue of Fred Thompson’s judgment that his announcement of the most important decision is made on a comedy show? What Fred Thompson is telling us is that in his judgment the single most professional way to announce that he is running for President of the most powerful nation on earth (The United State of America) is on a comedy show. Why would you do that?

Labels: fred thompson

Labels: fred thompson

Labels: fred thompson

• From abortion to nuclear pork projects, Thompson's lobbying record leaves much to be desired for conservatives. Kenneth Vogel over at the Politico has the extensive details on the nuclear blemish on Thompson's bona fides.

• Rich Lowry says it's quittin' time for Sam Brownback.

• "It sounds like an effort by Giuliani to make himself seem like a hawk on immigration when, in fact, he's been a dove all along," the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, said. More here.

• So how is Huckabee taking advantage of his surprising second-place straw poll finish? Apparently courting the media instead of voters.

Labels: brownback, fred thompson, Giuliani, news

Labels: fred thompson

Labels: fred thompson, fundraising

But many Republicans have turned queasy as Thompson has ousted part of his original brain trust and repeatedly delayed his official announcement, which is now planned for shortly after Labor Day, in the first two weeks of September.

Some are already saying a prospective Thompson run is a flop. “I just don’t see it anymore,” said a key Republican who had been extremely enthusiastic about a Thompson candidacy.

"That number is really underwhelming. There were indications it could be double that. They've been saying that people were waiting for Fred, and the money was going to pour in. He looks like he's already losing momentum."

“There has been some criticism that the testing-the-waters committee is not such a testing-the-waters committee and that he’s running some sort of campaign,” said a Thompson adviser.

“He’s raising enough to test the waters, not run a full-fledged presidential campaign. He’s not a candidate.”

Labels: fred thompson, fundraising

... worked as a lawyer who argued against the government's authority to regulate drug paraphernalia or to search a boat packed with 14 tons of marijuana.

Once, two decades ago, he urged that more witnesses refuse to testify before grand juries by invoking their constitutional right against self-incrimination, boasting that "I start on the assumption that my client will not testify." And over the years, lawsuits he filed helped a state worker win reinstatement to her job while exposing a parole bribery scheme and won money for the family of a Marine pilot killed by a helicopter blade when the family could not sue the Defense Department.

"We viewed him as someone we could work with, particularly given he had been an advocate in court for individuals and corporations, and had an innate understanding of what went on in a civil jury," explained Linda Lipsen, the chief lobbyist for the American trial lawyers lobby group that Republicans often pilloried for opposing tort reform during the 1990s.

Unlike many Republicans during the 1990s, Thompson easily collected large sums of political donations from lawyers during his Senate career -- more than $1.5 million over eight years. The trial lobby's political action committee gave him maximum $10,000 donations during each of his two Senate campaigns.

In the Senate, Thompson routinely voted against legislation aimed at shrinking the size of fees that attorneys could collect and rejected limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, bucking his own party. Most Republicans supported such reforms, arguing that trial lawyers routinely filed frivolous lawsuits or won unnecessarily large awards that drove up the cost of insurance and products.

The American Conservative Union gave Thompson a lifetime score of 86, placing him in the middle of Republicans it rated. The group noted that he voted against two of the four lawsuit changes the group supported.

"When you are taking a look at Thompson as a conservative," said ACU Chairman David Keene, "the negatives come down to plowing around with John McCain on campaign finance and a general sense that he sided with trial lawyers because of his background."

Labels: fred thompson

What did Fred Thompson's son, Daniel, do to earn the more than $170,000 that his firm, Daniel Thompson Associates, was paid from his father's federal political action committee, the Fred D. Thompson PAC?

The records suggest he did next to nothing.

...very little of these funds actually went to candidates - the bulk of the money was paid to Daniel Thompson.

In its first election cycle, the PAC made a total of only $18,000 in contributions to federal candidates and about $8,000 in contributions to Republican committees and non-federal candidates. So, the fund spent about 7 percent of its assets on candidates and elections in its first two years - and about 25 percent on Thompson's son.

The next cycle (2005-2006), the fund gave $21,200 to federal candidates and about $27,500 to non-federal candidates and party committees - and $84,000 to Daniel Thompson's firm.

To date, the PAC has paid $176,000 to the son's firm, $46,000 for federal races, $35,000 in other political donations and $62,700 to charity. The senator's son, in other words, accounts for more than half the outlays.

Labels: fred thompson, fundraising

November 1, 1996

PRESIDENT ENDORSES McCAIN-FEINGOLD-THOMPSON BILL

Washington, DC—Senator Fred Thompson today responded to President Clinton’s remarks in California on his support for campaign finance reform: “As a sponsor of the McCain-Feingold-Thompson Senate Campaign Reform Act,” Thompson said, “I welcome President Clinton’s endorsement of our legislation. It is unfortunate that it took a public outcry over campaign finance abuses to get the President’s full attention on the need for reform. We intend to reintroduce our bill when Congress convenes in January.”

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1997

McCAIN, FEINGOLD, THOMPSON INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN REFORM ACT OF 1997

Today Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Fred Thompson (R-TN) introduced the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 1997, a bill that bans soft money contributions; provides free and discounted TV time to candidates who voluntarily limit their spending; bans foreign contributions and restricts political action committees (PAC).

 

“This proposal levels the playing field and opens up the process to people who simply want to do the best for their country,’ said Thompson. ‘We must get back to winning elections not on the basis of who can raise the most money, but on the basis of the competition of ideas.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 22, 2001

THOMPSON CONTINUES PUSH FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

 

Building on his efforts to restore faith in the federal government, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) today joined Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Russell Feingold (D-WI) and others to continue their push to enact campaign finance reform. The McCain-Feingold legislation bans soft money contributions, restricts corporate and union spending on campaign ads, and provides for greater disclosure and stronger election laws. “One of my first priorities when I arrived in Washington six years ago was to reform the campaign finance system in this country, and I believe that this may be the best opportunity we’ve had to pass real reform since this fight began,” Senator Thompson said. “I am optimistic that we’re making substantial progress toward fixing a broken system that breeds cynicism and apathy among out citizens.”

 

Senator Thompson said that as part of the campaign finance reform bill, he will push for an increase in the hard money contribution limit: “Not only have we fallen behind in terms of the enormous expenses that are attendant to running a campaign, but I believe that the focus of campaigns has gone from hard money for about twenty years to soft money to-in this last election-independent ads. I think that if we increase the hard money limits, we would do better with regard to the soft money and independent ads situation. If people had their choice, I think they’d rather give money the old-fashioned way."

 

Senator Thompson has been an original cosponsor of the McCain- Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill since its first introduction in 1995.

April 2, 2001

THOMPSON LAUDS PASSAGE OF McCAIN-FEINGOLD CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM LEGISLATION

 

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) today lauded Senate passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, which passed the Senate by a 59-41 vote. The bill bans soft money contributions, restricts corporate and union spending on campaign ads, and provides greater disclosure and stronger election laws. “This is a good day for the United States Senate. It demonstrates once again that this body can respond to a demonstrated public need,” said Thompson, an original co-sponsor of the McCain- Feingold bill and a supporter of the legislation since 1995.

 

“The McCain-Feingold bill will restore a campaign finance system that has become more loophole than law,” Senator Thompson added. “We will once again ensure that unlimited corporate, union, and individual funds will not compromise the integrity of the political process.” During debate on the bill last week, the Senate approved two amendments sponsored by Senator Thompson. A Thompson-Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) amendment increased the individual hard money limits on contributions to candidates from $1,000 to $2,000. It also increased several other hard money limits and indexed their future growth to inflation. “But for the willingness of Senator Thompson and Senator Feinstein to find common ground on the issue of increasing (hard) money limits, I fear our efforts would have proved as futile as they have in the past,” Senator McCain said on the Senate floor prior to the vote on final passage.

The short of it is this:

• McCain-Feingold seriously impeded on some vital First Amendment rights (as the Supremes recently declared)


• Thompson took credit for the bill again and again

. See it here.

Labels: campaign finance, fred thompson