With "Welcome to The Fred File" the keenly anticipated Republican Great White Hope, Fred Thompson, has entered the blogosphere with a daily blog which so far has captured his most important statements to the Net of late. As Thompson lopes up to his launch date on July 4th, (as ably reported by Webutante ) this not only be the candidate's blog to watch, but also the blogroll to watch as one Thompson-pumping site after another pushes to be included in this impeccable list of blogs that actually matter.
So far Thompson's blogroll is off to a good start wisely listing the blogs that are likely to be of most use to Thompson. At the same time, it's a good selection of the blogs for whom Thompson might be of use as well. That's the point of blogrolling.
From what I've seen, all the blogs on the list have significant traffic and/or significant influence with Thompson's core net-constituency. In many ways, they've been some of the main engines driving the Thompson movement over the past few months.
In a real sense, the mere burgeoning reality of a Thompson for President campaign, reveals both the rightful paranoia of conservative Republicans and the paucity of the choice represented by the disturbing selections put forward to date by the currently less-than-conservative Republican Party itself. None of the current candidates are a certified Hillary killer, although Rudy comes close.
Watching the range of candidates raise their hands for Wolf Blitzer last week underscored only how weak and watered down is the current offering. The Democrats have, so far, both the mainstream media utterly on their side plus the Clinton Machine and the Obama charisma. If they end up putting those two elements together as a ticket, it becomes a juggernaut absent any co-operation with the Republicans by foreign enemies blowing up a lot of Americans in America.
Faced with Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton, the Republicans would view the entry of someone who can carry the Reagan mantle with relief. At least for the honeymoon moment. Thompson walks the walk and to some extent talks the talk. He seems to be both a decent man and a good-enough actor. If he persists in taking it easy, he could well be up to the job.
But nostalgia is a harsh mistress and all the keen anticipation of Thompson might undergo a reality check sometime after the Thompson hat goes into the ring and people tire of talking about whether or not Thompson can take McCain and focus on whether or not Thompson as a nominee can take, say, Arizona and Ohio. High positives and low negatives argue for it, but there are several large wave cycles still looming in the approximately 500 days left before the actual election.
A Thompson candidacy might well succeed in uniting the party, but to unite the nation behind another Republican will take much more than that at this point. Absent another terrorist attack, it will take hard work, real integrity, a complete repudiation of the amnesty/immigration efforts, a firm stand on Iraq, a hard-line against Iran, and an attack-dog spirit amongst all the Republicans currently in Congress. I'm not seeing much of that lately. Are you?
Posted by Vanderleun at June 14, 2007 8:34 AM | TrackBackThe current Republican Party syndrome is 'pepper-pot' mode. (i.e. The women the Pythons, particularly Graham Chapman and Eric Idle, would dress up as: "I don't like him, no, no")
Easy to be against something, hard to be FOR something. Especially when 'something' may turn out to be grinding three or four garden spots into powder, and perhaps turning Tehran into an ashtray.
"He writes, 'Everything's been returned which was owed,'
"On the back of the fish truck that loads
"As my conscience explodes."
Gerard, do you really think Hillary Clinton could overcome her massive negatives? They seem to increase with each of her public appearances.
By the way, I, too, am a Thompson supporter, for more or less the reason I would have been a Grover Cleveland supporter: he appears to be an honest man. There are no ideal candidates ideologically, or gauged position-by-position. There never can be, until a candidate swears in perfect sincerity that his one and only position is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
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