Fred Thompson
fred thompson announced on the tonight show last night that he has officially entered the race for the 2008 presidential election. other current front runners, including mitt romney, rudy giuliani, and john mccain, each have different facets that are less than desirable for the current conservative base, but the question remains, “is fred thompson any different?” if republicans are looking for the second coming of ronald reagan, which if any of these potential candidates fills the bill? romney has struggled in consolidating his political stance on abortion and some feel he can be shown to be a kerry-like flip-flopper. giuliani tends to be a social liberal with some early ideas on gun control. mccain has long been closer to the left side of the republican party than most people would like to admit, especially when considering the impact of individual freedoms that have resulted from campaign finance reform.
but is fred any different?
his campaign has stated that they intend to focus on “security, unity and prosperity.”
national security is a concept that conservatives seem a bit more focused on than what the response (other than verbal, actions not words) has been from the left. appeasement is not generally a conservative concept, national sovereignty is. i believe that fred’s blog postings and public statements re: the war in iraq support this.
financial security is a conservative concept if it is a applied to the rule “teach a man to fish …” (financial sercurity is a liberal concept if it is applied to the rule “give a man a fish …”) individual effort towards financial security appears to be a concept that fred will support based on his own willingness to work, switch career paths, public statements re: the reduction of entitlement programs, etc. other than what he has exhibited in his personal life and his limited past votes, this is difficult to be certain on, however the evidence is encouraging.
unity is a concept that both parties are trying to claim, neither wants to be viewed as a divider of the country, however this is a concept that is difficult for someone who is a washington insider (hillary, edwards, bill, mccain …) to accomplish as their past votes and public proclamations are already impacting their ability to overcome. bush has tried this with “no child left behind” and with immigration reform (or lack thereof) and these policies have only been viewed as either flat out failures at worst or as disappointments by both conservatives and liberals alike at best. fred has a chance of overcoming this as he has experience in washington, but that is not his primary “work environment.” other than his limited involvment into the watergate afteraction (which could be seen as blind workhorse for the republican party), and his limited public condemnation of the left as the other side, he has not been involved in a significant amount of public finger pointing/wagging.
prosperity is a concept that both the left and the right would like to claim, however their methods for achieving that are vastly different, with one party doing it through individual effort and the other thru the redistribution of wealth and the consolidation of power. this just builds off fred’s qualifications from the concept of financial security.
do i think fred is any different from the other front runners?
yooouuuuuuu becha …
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