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So it is with great glee that Thompson’s campaign has greeted comments from Rush Limbaugh about last week’s CNN/YouTube debate. On his radio show, Limbaugh, who once boasted that he could anoint the GOP nominee if he chose to do so, came close to endorsing Thompson as the only true conservative in the field.
“...[T]he genuine moderate as opposed to conservative aspects of three of the top-tier, four of the top-tier candidates were on full-fledged display last night,” Limbaugh said. “There was one candidate who did not display any moderateness or liberalism or have any of his past forays into those areas displayed, and that candidate was Fred Thompson. Now, this is not an endorsement. You know, I don’t endorse during primaries. I just point out, these are things I noticed….”
“...[W]e have a campaign now where most of the candidates are not genuine conservatives,” Limbaugh said, pointing out that Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have in their public lives violated conservative dogma on certain issues—Huckabee on taxes, Romney and Giuliani on abortion. Limbaugh then addressed the basic rap against Thompson, which is that he’s disinterested and dour on the campaign trail.
“While everybody is talking about Fred Thompson, ‘He’s too lazy. He’s too lackadaisical. He doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of energy.’ Fine and dandy. I’m not going to argue with people about your perceptions of attitudes and so forth. I will say this. I don’t think anybody would get into this mess running for the presidency, the media and all of these things. You can’t imagine what these people go through. You wouldn’t want to go through it, and I can’t imagine somebody putting themselves through it if they really don’t want it.
“You know, one of the arguments about Fred Thompson is, ‘Well, I can’t see the fire in his belly.’ Well, he’s got a different personality than the others. We’ll just have to see how all this shakes out.”
Thompson also is winning laurels from some influential media outlets for taking detailed policy positions. On Social Security, he has gone where other politicians fear to tread—actually proposing to cut payments for future retirees by tying benefits to cost-of-living increases rather than wage growth. To offset losses in benefits, workers could open voluntary private accounts, with the government matching contributions. On the armed forces, Thompson has called for building a missile defense system and a million-member ground force. And he has put forth an ingenious idea for tax reform: Give Americans the choice of following the current tax code or filing a simple flat-tax return that anyone could fill out in a minute or two.
The Washington Post, of all newspapers, said Thompson “deserves applause for making some tough choices” with his proposal to fix Social Security. And The Wall Street Journal praised Thompson’s flat-tax proposal as “more ambitious than anything we’ve seen so far from the rest of the GOP field.”
But is it all too little, too late? Thompson is running fourth in some polls in Iowa and has fallen that low in one poll even in South Carolina, an early primary state which he must win to keep his candidacy alive.
Thompson is going on the attack to try to revive his struggling campaign. Over the weekend, his campaign hit Huckabee as a friend of meth dealers for supporting a 2005 Arkansas bill that reduced their mandatory jail time.
During last week’s CNN debate, each candidate was allowed to show a campaign video, and they were all positive, sometimes funny little promotions—until Thompson’s turn came. He launched the campaign’s first negative ad, swatting Huckabee on taxes and Romney on abortion.
No one bothered to say even one ill word against Thompson. That should tell you something.
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