The Doug Marlette cartoon shows a huge billboard hawking the slogan, “NONE OF THE ABOVE 2008.” A woman driving by cracks, “Looks like Fred Thompson’s getting serious.”
That telling comment is only partly true. Yes, the Thompson fantasy is fueled by a deep disenchantment with the current field of Republican candidates. The former Tennessee senator and movie and television actor has emerged as an idealized – and largely imaginary – alternative. Voters know very little about him, which is precisely the point.
No facts, no flaws.
If that billboard fully reflected the anguish rippling through Republican ranks, it would also contain a huge portrait of Hillary Clinton linked to a dire warning: “STOP THIS WOMAN.” What was once a distant nightmare for GOP loyalists has now jelled into a very real possibility: The junior senator from New York could well become the nation’s 44th president.
Thompson is keenly aware that the strongest emotion driving his candidacy is fear. “I don’t want to turn the keys of the country over to Hillary Clinton,” he told a California audience. “I think with me you wouldn’t have to do that.”
While polls are notoriously unreliable at this stage, they clearly reveal the frantic Republican search for a Hillary-victory killer. Thompson has yet to make a formal announcement, but in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll he placed second with 19 percent, a gain of eight points in two weeks. Rudy Giuliani still led with 28 percent but lost four points. John McCain stayed steady, finishing third with 18 percent, while Mitt Romney slumped to 7 percent.
In South Carolina, a critical early primary state, Thompson surged into first place in the latest Mason-Dixon poll, leading Giuliani 25 to 21.
Typical Thompson supporters are older, churchgoing, conservative males – precisely the voters most agitated by the prospect of a Clinton comeback. They are also the Republicans most likely to grow disillusioned with Giuliani as they learn more about him: three wives, estranged kids, gay friends, shady business partners and a tolerance for women who have abortions.
Guiliani’s campaign is built on one word – tough. Tough on criminals, tough on terrorists, tough on dirt and disorder. But his post-9/11 luster is fading badly as the invasion of Iraq – which he completely supports – collapses into chaos. Sure, he was a hard-nosed district attorney, but Thompson plays one on TV, and on the tube, all cases get neatly resolved in an hour.
