Thursday, January 10, 2008

FRED THOMPSON, HORSERACE

Fred Thompson Talks to The Bloggers

He’s been beloved of quite a few bloggers since he first started hinting that he would enter the race back in March. So finally, Fred Thompson took a page from John McCain’s book and conducted a conference call with bloggers. (Team Thompson has done a few with campaign manager Bill Lacy and pollster John McLaughlin, which are fine, but nothing beats Q and A with the candidate himself.)

Jon Henke, one of Thompson’s e-media guys, began by hinting, “There’s going to be a big, big conservative endorsement for Fred Thompson tomorrow.” The big tease wouldn’t give any further details.

“I’m thinking Bruce Lee, because he beat Chuck Norris,” said one blogger. Frank J?

Fred Thompson: I appreciate opportunity to talk with you folks; I want to have more of a discussion than to just talk about myself. we’ve been in South Carolina since Monday. It’s been like a homecoming in many respects. We have a lot of people on the ground, lots of volunteers coming on, and the money is coming in good.

We’re drawing the line in South Carolina. It’s my neck of the woods, my territory. I know them, and they know me. My message is that ‘I am the clear consistent conservative on the national scene.’ I fought hard for the second amendment when it wasn’t all that popular to do.

Ed Morrissey: Polls show 43 percent Republican voters in that state have not made up their mind – are they still probing or quesitoning?

Thompson: Most of the people I see are enthusiastically for me. I’m not fooling myself, I know there are a lot of undecided here yet.

One guy won Iowa, another guy won New Hampshire, and I think a different guy going to win here. Romney is not strong coming in here as he was before. McCain’s picked up a little steam. Rudy’s fallen a bit back.

Robert Bluey: Would you issue an executive order to ignore earmarks in appropriations bills?

Thompson: Yes, yes. I’ve been saying this in my remarks, these earmarks are not part of the legislation. have not been debated, have not had an up or down vote. It comes under president’s discretion, to tell OMB to disregard those kinds of earmarks.

Dan Riehl: You’re in the nexis of show business and politics… Will you be taking it to anybody in the debate?

Thompson: I think my thoughts on the debate oughtta remain with me until the debate. There’s no need to show my hand.

We went from zero to third place in Iowa. We’ll be competitive here. retail politics that worked there will work here. Might have been surprising that because I’ve done a few movies, and hadn not slick or scripted or doing Hollywood extravaganzas. That’s not me. Never has been me.

Being myself has allowed me to do some pretty significant things in my life... Only in recent times have we judged presidencies on excitability.

We went all over the state of Iowa in the snow, back and forth, day and night, and we’re doing the same thing here. Some cast the die a long time ago, and they’ve got their things decided.

Erick Erickson: Going to do something extra or different to change unfair but dogged media narrative?

Thompson: If you’ve got any ideas on how to change attitudes of press, I’m open to them. In some cases, it may not be possible. They’ll only be impressed on success on election night.

I was watching panel of experts, on Fox News, every one of them said McCain would come in third. Then somebody put out word I was getting out, and the media lapped it up like kittens with a bowl of milk. Spread it all over the place. Undoubtedly it cost me in that race. And I still beat McCain.

Quin Hillyer: The media narrative gets set – can you change the narrative among people of South Carolina?

Thompson: That’s what I’m doin’. Hitting about 35 towns and committees, doing every local newspaper and news station. It’s about me, it’s not about my techniques. This is what South Carolina and I are all about.I rise or fall on the things I believe.

Someone - Jay Stephenson, Stop the ACLU, maybe? — mentioned that in a South Carolina poll, only 21 percent of people identified themselves as conservative, making him wonder if some people who are conservative don’t see themselves as conservative, and thus aren’t receptive to Thompson describing himself as the consistent conservative.“I don’t believe those numbers.”

Stephenson suggested the media had more power than we like. One of the bloggers on the call used the opportunity to give Thompson debate pointers, which… I don’t think is necessarily the right role for those of us on the call.

“I suggest steamrolling them… Don’t be so gentlemanly…  Mostof the people running against you are liberals.”

'I don’t think the media picked one day we’re going to go with this guy for a while.’ Said the winners may be reflecting events around them.

The next to last question noted the media coverage of Chuck Norris appearing with Huckabee, and Oprah appearing with Obama, and asked whether he would bring celebrities on the campaign trail.

“Nope,” Thompson replied.

I wasn’t able to transcribe the last question from Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics.

01/10 03:10 PMShare