Tour De Fred Draws 53 Members
Hotliner Tim Sahd reports:
Said Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson, exiting a get-to-know-you session on Capitol Hill this p.m.: "I wanted to come over and see old friends, meet new ones and listen and see what was on their minds."
53 members came to see Mr. Thompson. (Redstate says there was 63).
Rep. Zach Wamp spoke to reporters.
On fundraising issues: “He was not afraid, at all, of not having money, not in this climate in terms of his campaign. And he didn’t think it was too late. He knew there was a window, and he was not going to go outside of that window.
Wamp, on the timing of his announcement and the workings of his campaign: “He said ‘I have the ability right now to do certain things you can’t as a candidate.’ And that’s why it’s special he’s doing it his way. He said ‘I’m not going to follow the consultants’ path here because they’ve been wrong too many times. I’m going to follow my heart and this is going to be a different approach and I think people are ready for a different approach. And that’s why I’m not here because I want to be here, I’m here because there’s a need.’ I really believe he thinks the man and the times are lining up.”
On the field: “Fred Thompson actually has the ability to unite America, which our guys were saying was sorely needed.”
“They’re not getting the traction they need. They’re good people but frankly the race started so early that the momentum has been lost by some of them and people are looking for an alternative and they’re looking for more stature, they’re looking for someone who is presidential. Maybe it’s a time where our country is looking for somebody who didn’t crawl all over everyone else to try to become president.”
On social issues: “The conservatives say he checks the boxes but he also transcends our party. He reaches out to the middle. He brings Reagan Democrats back to our party. He has appeal that other candidates simply don’t have.”
If he’s running: “The man that came to see us today, in my view, is preparing to run for president.”
Thomson does not even have a single outstanding achievement during his one term in senate. He was a very moderate back bencher.
BTW, he has one trophy wife who is more than 20 years younger than him.
We could sure do worse. My dream ticket is Richardson for the Dems and Thompson for the GOP.
I really like Mr. Thompson, but he has not been tested as has Senator Mc Cain and Mr. Giuliani. I'm not so sure I want an untested President at this point in our country's history.
According to the folks at Redstate, the number of Reps that met with Fred was 63 not 53.
It's being misreported.
I like what i see...not the picture of the man, but the reach across sections of the electorate. This is a phenomenon which we have seen with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton....(I discount the Bush(2) era as simply influenced by two things...the poor Dem candidates....Gore and Kerry who both shot themselves int he foot repeatedly.)
He would give me a run for the GOP choice against the man I had anticipated supporting, Rudy.
To the poster who sites Thompson's lack of significant acheivement in the Senate, I'd simply ask what the top 3 Democratic candidates have less time in the Senate than Fred did and have very thin Senate records. Also, I would submit that Clinton did not reach across sections of the electorate to win office.
Thomson does not even have a single outstanding achievement during his one term in senate
a) Define "oustanding acheivement"
b) Were/are you a Kerry supporter?
Run, Fred, run!
"he has not been tested as has Senator Mc Cain and Mr. Giuliani."
Well, Sen McCain flunked my test: McCain-Finegold....
Rudy? Maybe....
If legislative accomplishments are the criterion for candidacy, the greatest candidate in history was Lyndon Johnson- the ideal president (um, no); Kennedy was a nonentity, and so are Hillary and especially Obama and Edwards. And most of McCain's accomplishments in the Senate are negative (McCain-Feingold), not beneficial.
In the presidency, you want leadership and coherent vision by a person with good character. Thompson does very well on all those counts.
For those the made the comments of whether or not Fred Thompson has been tested you obviously have no sense of history.
Thompson received his undergraduate degree in philosophy and political science from Memphis State University in 1964 and his law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1967, Two years after law school, Thompson was named an Assistant United States Attorney and at the age of 30 was appointed Minority Counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, where he served in 1973 and 1974. In 1977 Thompson took on the case of a Tennessee Parole Board chairman fired under suspicious circumstances. Thompson's work helped to expose a cash-for-clemency scheme that ultimately toppled the governor. The scandal became the subject of a best-selling book and later a film, Marie, in which Thompson portrayed himself.
Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Fred Thompson maintained law offices in Nashville and Washington and served as Special Counsel to both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
In his first campaign for public office, Thompson was elected by the people of Tennessee in 1994 to the remaining two years of an unexpired Senate term. When he was returned for a full term in 1996, he received more votes than any previous candidate for any office in Tennessee history. He won two elections in two years by more than twenty points each.
Senator Thompson retired from the Senate in 2002, having served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, and a member of the Senate committee on Finance.
In his time in the Senate, Thompson focused on issues such as reducing taxes, curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and eliminating government waste, fraud and abuse.
I think he has accomplished much more than you think.
Tell me who has accomplished more? Fred is in the feeling out process which ios more than any of the other candidates have done. It strikes me that Fred Thompson is looking to see IF he can get elected and then accomplish his goals that will be laid out if he decides to run. If we're looking for accomplishments I say if elected they will pour forth. Just look at all the other BS'ers on all sides and tell me that Fred Thompson if he chooses to run is what the American people would deem to be the one that holds their issues and morals as his. If he chooses to run I have this feeling of a great victory for him and a great Presidency to follow. Run,Fred Run.
I said it before, I'll say it again:
Vote for Fred and Newt
give the dems the boot
Remember, Newt resigned to no longer be a distraction to the functioning of the Govt. Then the demos went on to immediately destroy another republican. This is what they have done all along thus not having enough time to advance any plans of their own on anything.(the only plan they have is destroy republicans) Read Freds bio. and then tell me, with a straight face, he has no track record. I predict as soon as he enters the fray there will be a wholesale assult against him by the DNC and every democrat and democrat controlled talking head in the media. Assult and lies, filth from Hollywood types and Rappers, character assination, it's the Democratic way. It's all they have to offer. Will Rodgers said people get the government they deserve, America may deserve HRC (or is it just HC now)but I still hope for Fred Thompson.
Which of the following Tennessee Senators has a better record on reducing immigration? Al Gore (Democrat) or Fred Thompson (Republican)? Americans for Better Immigration, a non-partisan organization that lobbies Congress to reduce immigration, has given Al Gore a grade of "A" and Fred Thompson a "C" (32 Democrats currently in Congress have a better record on reducing immigration than Thompson). While Californians were fighting to deny public benefits to illegal aliens via Proposition 187 (1994-1998), Fred Thompson was casting votes in the Senate that significantly contributed to the immigration problem in California. There isn't a whit if difference between Fred Thompson's record and the current position of Presidente Jord Bush and the Republican Senators selling us out with the Bush-Kennedy Amnesty Bill. Thompson's record on immigration is a serious concern that should send up a red flag to conservatives. Fred sold us out in the Senate while we were fighting in California. He will never get my vote.