Fred Thompson May Announce Soon That He Will Announce Something Next Week

The labor day weekend is coming up, and that is the traditional start of the political season in the past. Many thought Fred Thompson would choose this weekend as the time to finally announce he is running for the President. CNN has been told to expect Thompson to announce it on the web next week, but not before Wednesday. The reason Wednesday is so important is because that is the date of the next Republican debate, in New Hampshire sponsored by Fox News. Thompson has been recently attacked because it is unlikely he will attend the debate. In an editorial in the Union Leader Thompson is told he has, “flirted from afar with Republican voters for long enough. It’s time for him to accept a date. And there is no better first date than the New Hampshire Republican Party’s presidential debate on Sept. 5.” The Union Leader says if Thompson announces before the debate and doesn’t show up then, “A no-show will be counted here as a snub.” If Thompson waits until after the debate, which seems likely right now, “then it will appear to some as if he timed the announcement just to avoid the New Hampshire debate. That would give his foes the chance to say he is either not serious about running for the nomination or is too unprepared to be considered a credible candidate.” He is already being chastised by other candidates for not being serious. In a recent interview with CBN’s David Brody, Mike Huckabee had this to say about Fred Thompson, “I frankly don’t get it. I mean I’m not being unkind I just don’t understand it because there’s not a substantial record in the Senate in him having authored the landmark signature bill that changed America. There’s not been in essence the kind of thing that says boy I remember when he did and then you fill in the blank. I think a lot of it is that people aren’t sure whether they’re electing a former senator or Arthur Branch. Anytime a person is on television a lot and a celebrity there’s a sense in which people are given a unique pedestal on which to stand and it’s the celebrity more than it is anything, the attention that comes from that and the sort of gee whiz factor and I’ve seen him on TV.” Brody asked Huckabee if he thought Thompson’s view on a federal ban on same sex marriage would hurt him. Huckabee said, “For many conservatives, this is a very critical issue…a constitutional amendment to clearly define marriage, as we did in my state when I was Governor, is something that many of us believe ought to happen at the federal level so that we put this to rest and we don’t keep fighting it state by state by state or we have some federal court say that whatever federal recognition of one state has to then apply to the other states. So it is a very important issue for many conservatives. I think if a person doesn’t take a strong stand or acts as if it’s not important it’s going to be signal. It’s not that it’s just the issue but the fact that it’s going to send a signal to conservatives that a person may not really be fully tuned in to the importance of maintaining the integrity and structure of marriage as we know it.”
Thompson may have waited to long to really jump into this race. He started strong when he made his little video attacking Michael Moore, but it has been a downhill struggle since then. He has had numerous staff changes, and has teased Republicans with different dates for his official entrance into the race. Some say his wife has been instrumental in all these changes, but all this uncertainty and laziness may not get it this time. Right now his chances depend on the lackluster bunch of candidates that have so far announced. So his only strength is their weaknesses. He is sometimes compared to Ronald Reagan, but in reality the only real similarity is that both were actors. So far all Thompson has added to the mix is a bunch of conservative clichés interspersed with drawn out pauses.
UPDATE: Sources working on the Thompson campaign have disclosed that Thompson will announce his intentions with a video on his website, www.I’mWithFred.com on September 6 at 12:01 a.m. They also said that he will immediately start campaigning and visiting key states, which I would assume means he is getting in. What else is he going to campaign for? The same sources say Thompson will not make it to the debate on Wednesday.
Alan Cosgrove