Overall:
For the first time, I have a strong general opinion about Fred Thompson: he is not very likable and is very intellectually stale.
I had been back and forth about Fred.
Was he better than his record seemed?
Why was everyone swooning?
There was a negative and a positive way of looking at Ol’ Fred, but with each debate the negative view was confirmed a bit more.
Tonight’s debate, where he was as late seventies and early eighties (not his age, I think, just his attitude) as a Phil Crane for President button, finally made up my mind.
Fred Thompson is Yesterday’s Candidate.
He was as cutting edge tonight as Jack Kemp rhetoric and as fashionable as Fred Mertz’s pants.
This guy was at best a second-tier legislator during the Reagan Revolution with a suspect intellect and work ethic in office. No harm there if he left the Senate and generated exciting ideas and movement energy some place else.
No.
He went to Hollywood.
No harm with that if he showed new promise, new energy, if he was thinking all that time about how to communicate Reaganism to a generation with no memory of Regan.
Now we know he was not.
He is a favorite for the White House if you like your candidate to be running on exactly the ideas and rhetoric that were new and fresh in 1988 with a litmus test that leaves many young voters cold.
My guess is that Rush “puffs” him, because Rush’s audience is at least my age and thinks Fred is cool and hip with the kids. Isn’t he on television?
Old School Fred may be able to kill a candidate and the party may be as out of ideas as he seemed tonight . . . mumbling through killer attack lines if he were running against Mike Dukakis, but this is now and a different Mike.
Fred is an epic disaster waiting to happen in the general, the Maginot Line of Movement Conservatives ready to win the 1988 election all over again. He risks defining our party for a young generation that is paying attention this time as the party of Yesteryear.
He is a Democrat playing “Happy Days are Here Again” in 1980 to whip up all those Big Memories of Herbert Hoover twenty years too late.
I will support Fred in the general. He will win the safe states and put us in a safe minority for a decade.
For the first time, I wondered if John McCain wouldn’t be happier as Secretary of Defense.
For the first time, I was irritated with Fox News in a debate for the insane religion question to Mike Huckabee.
Without falling into “identity politics,” Huckabee’s response, where he stuck to his guns on an unpopular religious issue, made me proud of him.
Not for the first time, I wondered if Rudy would not be a fantastic attorney general.
For the millionth time, I wondered if Ron Paul is mad.
As with every time, I thought Mitt Romney came across as the most serious executive.
Grades:
(Bias Alert: Mitt Romney is my preferred candidate.)
Fred Thompson:
F
I had no particular hostility to Thompson before tonight. I agree with him on the issues. He was an undistinguished, but safe vote in the Senate better known for his dates and movie “career” than his legislation.
Good for him.
Family members and good friends were big fans. Most have now abandoned him sadly and now I see why.
His handlers should hope Thompson goes back to sleep . . . for when awake Thompson is an irritating intellectual light-weight reading talking points created by pollsters.
His sole reason for running, or meandering, now seems to be “taking down” Mike Huckabee in the South. Give Giuliani a pass as a “liberal” and go after Mike?
Way to build that Reagan Coalition, Fred.
Fred may stop Huck, but he will do so by getting the biggest Bull Moose Republican, McCain, the nomination.
Quick: name one thing of consequence Fred Thompson did in the Senate.
Hey Fred: I will still vote for you in the general.
I hope I do not have to do so.
You would get smoked like a bad cigar by Obama or Hillary in a debate . . . carrying the crotchety old white guy vote and nothing else. Talk radio would tell you that you were a winner and you would carry their demographic
The young adults in the room with me really dislike old Fred.
Rudy Giuliani:
C+
He was a swell mayor, but he gave no reason for a conservative to pick someone else. He was likable in the debate.
Ron Paul:
Some of what he says is sensible, a little, so it is pity it gets mixed up with his odd-ball views. Memo to Paul: Bob Taft was wrong about isolationism.
John McCain:
B
I like him on national defense.
He was “good John” tonight, which is always positive since he has two personalities. He made me forget for long periods of time all the many things I disagree with him about since he focussed on foreign policy.
Big props for mentioning TRex in the debate. . . making me feel good about the rise of Bull Moose Republicans.
If he is the front runner, he won by doing nothing much. If he is not the front runner, which I think is true, then he lost by running in place.
Mike Huckabee:
A-
He had the most memorable moments in the debate in our room. He handled Thompson’s attacks well.
We liked him by the end of the debate, but still aren’t going to vote for him.
I think he was the winner on points . . . say my Southern roots . . . but also that Southern Christians still are afraid he will embarrass them like Jimmy Carter.
Mitt Romney:
B+
Unless John McCain is the prohibitive front-runner, which I think is false, Romney remained the only person that was good on every issue and knew his stuff. His only problem is that he managed no particularly memorable lines.
That will hurt with people who get clips and not the whole debate.
You knew he was going to answer every question well.
He was “presidential” and polished. Huckabee is, bluntly, a better communicator (which is saying something), but Romney has more gravitas.
Though I don’t agree with all of it, the best debate analysis is here.