July 9, 2007

Hey Fred!  You In--Or out?

Ex-senator Fred Thompson sure acts like a presidential candidate. He looks like one too. Sometimes he even talks like one.  But acting is one of his professions and God knows he can be pretty convincing when he wants to be. So is he or isn't he?

Yes.  Perhaps so; maybe.  We know this much, he's gone ahead and established an exploratory committee which has been set up basically to beg for funds.  It appears to be working well. The latest Rasmussen poll puts Thomson dead even with Hillary Clinton  in a presidential match-up, 45-45.     

This, despite the fact that no one really knows what Thompson's opinions are on any issue of interest to most voters today.  What's his stand on the Iraq War? Universal health insurance? Global warming? He's told us he didn't like the latest immigration bill.  But why didn't he? Nobody really knows.  What would be his priorities if elected president?  Nobody knows that either.

Yeah,  he spouts a lot of GOP boilerplate.  All that stuff  about entitlement reform and the necessity for  a strong foreign policy.  Limited government, and all other those useless platitudes you hear every election time.  But that's not enough, or at least shouldn't be enough to elect him president.   

I mean let's face it, although he spent some time in the US senate, he's basically an actor-lawyer-lobbyist. He's for hire as an advocate for any issue put up by any pressure  group that can put up enough money to hire him.  He's got  no executive experience in government and  while in the US Senate, spent most of his time annoying members of the Clinton Administration, with baseless investigations which in the end accomplished nothing.   

Right now Thompson is an empty suit floating along on the adulation of Republicans who aren't happy with the current crop of GOP candidates.  You know, those other candidates,--the ones with at least some  executive or legislative experience, or   the one with the real-life experience of being held as a POW.  

Fact is,  the hot air emanating from reactionary interest groups, rightist state politicians,  right-wing blow-hards, and  the Fox Nonsense types,  will only support you for so long.   Sooner or later Fred Thompson will have to talk about the concrete realities of governance and what exactly, he'd do as president, as opposed to Mrs Clinton. 

It's time Fred Thompson entered the race in a serious manner and started debating the other candidates so people can get an idea of what he actually stands for.  If anything.