First off, I’m sorry for being absent from the festivities the past 48 hours. I was working on three (count ‘em – three!) rather large projects that all wrapped up today. Besides, today is the last day of my 30’s, and I’ve been trying to figure out if the McCain campaign would finally euthanize itself tomorrow as a 40th birthday present for me. If my beloved dog Stinky were limping around in such hopeless agony…well, I’d do what I had to do.
But I’ve not come here to pile on the McCain campaign or to observe how I’m already missing his gay sweaters. I’ve received a few threatening letters that if he pulls a Lieberman on us, people will look to me as a scapegoat. I want none of that action. Actually, I’ve come here to discuss something that will probably anger people even more – Fred! But first, the ritual disclaimer – I’m an avowed Romney supporter, but what follows is how I really see it.
This week, Fred’s non-campaign made a seamless transition from smooth to bumpy, and his team has looked decidedly not-ready-for-primetime. The story about who he represented as a lawyer and lobbyist resonates. The dodge that lawyers/lobbyists don’t need to share the views of their clients and shouldn’t be held responsible for them is a pile of hooey. Each lawyer, like every other member of society, is the conservator of his own talent. If a lawyer chooses to use his talents to try to spring Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, perhaps other lawyers will salute him and see nothing wrong with the effort. But I know and you know that said lawyer wouldn’t have much of a political career in front of him.
If I were a general contractor and profited from building a Planned Parenthood facility, I don’t imagine that fact would endear me to America’s conservative community. If I sought office as a conservative Republican, I would expect my primary opponent to make an issue of it. Lawyers want to play by a different set of rules, and in the eyes of their fellow members of the Bar, they do. But the rest of the country won’t buy it, nor should they.
If you read Thompson’s much-discussed essay on Powerline, you’ll see that Fred is hiding the ball. Why doesn’t he just come out with his client roster, or at least directly answer whether he lobbied for an abortion rights group? Regarding this alleged lobbying, Allah theorizes that “he’s trying to pull a straddle, where he denies that he lobbied for the group but then doth protest too much about how lawyers and lobbyists represent all sorts of people they don’t agree with.”
Fred’s essay is also noteworthy for its style. He offers a tribute to American icons John Adams and Abraham Lincoln, who also coincidentally were lawyers who took unpopular positions. I guess the only difference between them and Fred is that John Adams proudly admitted representing the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, where Thompson’s essay is oddly non-committal on the parallel question.
LAST NIGHT I HAD DINNER WITH AN EAGER YOUNG MAN who is sure that Thompson is going to be the next president. I tried gently telling him that there’s a good chance 2008 will be a bloodbath for Republicans and whoever our nominee is, he’ll face an uphill if not impossible struggle. I then added that while Fred is the frontrunner right now, we have no idea what kind of candidate he’ll make. He responded by saying, “Did you see that Michael Moore video?!!!”
If you’re a Thompson supporter, the past news cycle has brought some bad news. The Thompson campaign (or whatever it is at this point) is proving itself less than nimble. In terms of message delivery and control, Fred and his team are roughly where Rudy and Mitt were when they blundered their way through the winter. In terms of Fred’s fundraising, the last thing we heard was six weeks ago when his “Founders” were going to raise $4.5 million overnight. Until yesterday. Then we heard,
“Initially, reports suggested that Thompson’s goal was to raise close to $5 million in the first month. Later, campaign staffers said the goal had always been $2 million in the first month, and they said that had been exceeded.”
But even more disconcerting is the news that Fred’s going to delay entering the race until September. If I didn’t know better, I would say the Thompson campaign thinks that he can get the nomination by running out the clock and relying on eager dorko-fanboys to keep saying, “Did you see that Michael Moore video?!!!”
As usual, to preempt the angry line of commenters now cueing up, let me assert that I like Fred. If he’s the nominee, I’ll support him enthusiastically. But his “campaign” is doing neither himself nor his party any favors. It’s time he enters the ring and proves that he can play on this level. It’s only fair that he allows Republican Party members to make an informed decision about the man who seeks to lead them.
Folksy blog posts are nice. But the country and the party deserve more.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.
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