This is a really good idea! All of the candidates should do it. Why go from state to state making speeches when you can record your views on various topics and then post them on the Internet. Bloggers will link to them and then people who support your candidacy will send them to their friends and family and then your views will be widely disseminated.
He did say that he was going to run a different type of campaign. I wonder if he has hired Reynolds as his Internet consultant.
In other news:
Thompson wins the Washington GOP Straw poll by a substantial margin.
CNN follows the usual template in their story on Thompson. *Yawn* Though, there's this:
JB Williams gets it:Still, in his Orange County debut, Thompson got panned as uninspiring. His people say it wasn't meant as a barnburner but a serious discussion. Besides, even with a bad performance, there's still something about Fred.
"Despite the fact that it was a kind of rambling speech, despite the fact that it didn't maybe make the crowd stand up and applaud him, he has got the voice, he has got the stature and the size and the presence," said Washington Post political reporter Mike Shear.
Thompson knows exactly who is drafting him, why they are drafting him and what they expect of him. He knows that true conservatives, fed up with systemic bi-partisan anti-Americanism in Washington, are at the core of the Draft Thompson movement. He knows that this group is through compromising their values for faux conservatives.Thompson knows that conservatives want him in the race but he doesn't trust us (and who can blame him -- we are too fickle):
If he sees a way to make the kind of difference expected of him, he will run and most likely will win. The trick will be doing so without compromising the total agenda he is being drafted to pursue…Maybe if he keeps raising in the polls, he'll see that enough of us are serious about supporting him:
And that is his problem… My guess is - if he senses any lack of commitment in those drafting him, any hesitation on their part to see this thing through to the bitter end, and make no mistake, he will face brutally bitter opposition, he won’t run. The pressure for Thompson to answer the call of the conservative base in mounting, but the pressure for him to compromise away those principles in order to win, will be even greater…
Let’s face it. Who ever the next president might be, they are walking into a monumental crap storm. The international war on terror is one thing, but the deep divisions in this country between an anti-American left and an increasing intolerant right, is quite another. No intelligent individual would knowingly walk into that buzz saw thinking they could make any real difference, without a real true people’s mandate for real change in hand. The kind of mandate other politicians claim, but can only dream about…
Fred Thompson is weighing all of this as we speak and it appears that he does not yet see a clear mandate from the people. One that will sweep him into office with the kind of power necessary to achieve the mission asked of him.
A recent poll suggests a prospective Republican presidential candidate would make a strong showing in North Carolina.According to the latest Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey, Fred Thompson would place second in the Republican primary race with 25 percent of likely Republican voters. The former Tennessee senator has not yet announced whether he will run for president.
It was the first time PPP included Thompson in the monthly primary tracking poll. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be first among potential Republican voters with 32 percent, followed by John McCain at 16 percent and Mitt Romney with 13 percent.
