Search Results for: thompson

January 14, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Good news for Fred Thompson. . .and John McCain

The latest Rasmussen poll from South Carolina suggests that Fred Thompson’s willingness to attack Mike Huckabee’s conservative credentials is bearing fruit. Following last week’s debate in which Thompson lit into Huckabee, Fred has moved from 12 percent support to 16 percent. Huckabee is down, correspondingly, from 24 percent to 19 percent. The real winner, though, is John McCain. His support is essentially unchanged since the debate. But now instead of »
January 12, 2008 — Scott Johnson

An apology to Fred Thompson

I am a latecomer to the gentlemen of Red State Update, not to be confused with the gentlemen of Red State. In the video below, Jackie extracts an apology to Fred Thompson from Dunlap. The video is suggestive of the kind of hard feelings the intraparty race for the nomination is causing among Republicans. I’m not sure I get the joke, but even so the video is the funniest political »
January 10, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Fred Thompson’s call to arms in South Carolina

Fred Thompson talked to bloggers today. Thompson made it clear that he’s “drawing a line in South Carolina” — in other words, staking his candidacy on winning the primary there. He hopes to accomplish this by advancing his claim (valid in my view) that he’s the one major Republican candidate with a long record of taking conservative positions pretty much across-the-board. Thompson’s theme will be that he’s fighting a battle »
November 16, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Fred Thompson, John McCain, and the trial of Bill Clinton

During Fred Thompson’s time in the Senate, his voting record was quite similar to that of his friend John McCain. But one area where they diverged was on the verdict in President Clinton’s impeachment trial. After that trial, the Senate voted on two impeachment Articles — perjury and obstruction of justice. John McCain voted “guilty” as to both Articles; Fred Thompson voted “guilty” on obstruction of justice and “not gulity”” »
November 13, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Thompson Sliding In Polls

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post follows Fred Thompson’s trajectory in the polls, and finds Thompson moving in the wrong direction: The most recent data comes from New Hampshire where two surveys were released over the weekend. The first, conducted by the University of New Hampshire for the Boston Globe, put Thompson in sixth (yes, SIXTH) place with just three percent of the vote. (Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led »
September 27, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Fred Thompson and the evangelicals

The title of this report by Jonathan Martin of the Politico is “Evangelicals Turn on Thompson.” By this he means not that evagelicals or their leaders oppose Thompson but that Thompson “almost certainly will not receive a joint endorsement from the loose coalition of ‘pro-family’ organizations.” This report reminded me of a very socially conservative acquaintance who, opposed to Giuliani and McCain and unimpressed by Romney, asked me for months »
August 16, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

The Fred Thompson niche — real but shrinking

David Broder’s report on his conversation with Fred Thompson, though a bit fluffy in places, provides a glimpse into what a Thompson campaign would/will look like. Originally, Thompson was going to be “the real conservative in the race,” filling the niche that George Allen or Bill Frist might have occupied. But as time passed, Mitt Romney was able to convince many conservatives that he fills that space well enough. Those »
July 26, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

No verdict required on Thompson the lawyer

Today’s Washington Post has a front-page story about Fred Thompson called “No Easy Verdict on Thompson The Lawyer: Cases Indicate Willingness to Defy GOP Orthodoxy.” The title is just plain silly. A lawyer’s duty is always to his client, not to any political orthodoxy. Had Thompson not been willing to “defy GOP orthodoxy” when necessary to promote his client’s interest (as where he argued against a search that found incriminating »
July 11, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Fred Thompson: “A lawyer who is a prospective candidate”

Fred Thompson has sent us the following column on the subject of his career in the practice of law. We are delighted to bring it to our readers: A lawyer who is a candidate or a prospective candidate for office finds himself in an interesting position because of the nature of the legal profession and the practice of law. This is true when the practice was as varied as mine, »
July 6, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Thompson: Pro-Abortion Lobbyist?

Today’s Los Angeles Times reported that in 1991, Fred Thompson lobbied the Bush administration on behalf of National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association to relax a regulation that prevented clinics receiving federal money from engaging in abortion counseling. The article is based on the “recollections of five individuals” as well as a document from the records of the NFPRHA. It’s always interesting to consider how stories like this one »
June 25, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Fred Thompson, Lobbyist?

The Democrats’ have already put out several hit pieces on Fred Thompson; one of the points they emphasize is that he worked as a Washington lobbyist before and after his service in the Senate. Today, the Associated Press took up the theme in an article titled Looking at Thompson’s Lobbying Past: Republican Fred Thompson, who likes to cast himself in the role of Washington outsider, has a long history as »
June 23, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

How conservative is Fred Thompson?

The Washington Times editorial board tries to answer this question quantitatively. Is main findings are: Thompson’s lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union (ACU) based on the votes he cast in Congress is 86.1. This suggests that he’s about as conservative as Bill Frist (87.8), slightly more conservative than John McCain (82.3), and less conservative than Sam Brownback (94.0), Duncan Hunter (92.0), and Tom Tancredo (97.8). On foreign policy issues, »
May 31, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

An Evening with Fred Thompson, Part Two

Robert Novak has more on the dinner Tuesday night with Fred Thompson, which was hosted by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. of The American Spectator. Novak concludes that Thompson’s impending candidacy “will be something different from other Republicans, in both substance and style.” He adds that “when speaking to a friendly audience or ruminating off the record, [Thompson] does not look or sound like the GOP’s announced candidates for president” and »
May 30, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

An evening with Fred Thompson

Last night, I had the privilege of attending a dinner with Fred Thompson and his wife, along with two or three dozen journalists and fellow travelers (to cover my case). Thompson’s statements were off the record, but I can report my overall impressions. First, Thompson exudes the same great presence and ease of manner in person that he does on television. He’s likeable and quick with the good one-liner. Second, »
May 29, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

The latest on Fred Thompson

I’m told by a good source that later today Fred Thompson will take the next step on the road to becoming a presidential candidate. Specifically, he will give the go-ahead to put into place his financing and fundraising operation. This won’t change Thompson’s official status, but it’s the next logical step one would take if one intended to change that status by entering the race. To comment on this post, »
May 25, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Fred Thompson goes nutmeg

Ryan Sager reports on Fred Thompson’s speech last night to the Connecticut Republican Party for its annual Prescott Bush awards dinner. It sounds like Thompson’s entry into the race will come in a matter of weeks, not months, as the State Department used to say in another context. Sager quotes Thompson playing with the audience: “All right, let’s get the announcement out of the way,” Mr. Thompson said to open. »
May 5, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Thompson at the Lincoln Club

I confess that I’ve been a little irritated by the whole Fred Thompson phenomenon, for two reasons. First, I think that to many he is sort of a fantasy candidate: people project their desires onto him and create him in their own image, much as many Democrats do with Barack Obama. The mythical Fred Thompson who is just the candidate we’re looking for–whatever that may be–has little to do, I »