Where have I heard that before? Oh, I know – it was in 1980, during the crucial Iowa primary caucuses. My father, Ronald Reagan, was an obvious absentee candidate. His top advisers convinced him that his presence in that key state was not really necessary – after all, he was a major celebrity with charisma radiating out of every pore in his body. He could simply rise above the battle by staying off the battlefield.
Unlike my dad, I was there and I saw at first hand how much his campaign was suffering from his absence. My fears were totally justified when George Bush, who was all over the place, beat my father hands down. After that, he fired those campaign advisers and went out and beat the bushes and in the end won the nomination.
I hope Thompson doesn’t take the advice of those supporters yearning for a new Ronald Reagan; that he has a leg up on all the other candidates thanks to his Reaganesque qualities. There was only one Ronald Reagan, and he’s no longer around. America needs a president who is his own man and knows who and what he is.
Maybe Fred Thompson fits that description, but he has a long way to go and a lot of hills to climb before he even gets as far as the Republican nomination.