Fred Thompson is in the middle of a 40 town Iowa tour - so he is hardly lazy. And he does go on television shows - thus dealing with critics, such as myself, who attacked him for not going on enough shows. But what sort of person would enjoy all this?Instapundit adds, and Jonathan Adler agrees:
A lunatic. Someone who was interested in office for its own sake - not as a means to reduce the size and scope of government.
What the media, including Fox News (the only non-leftist news station and, therefore, of vital importance in the Republican nomination process), are saying is that Fred Thompson is too sane to be President. It is not enough to produce detailed policies for dealing with the entitlement program Welfare State (a cancer that is destroying the United States and the rest of the Western World), or producing a new optional flat tax (individuals could continue to use the existing system if they wished to) to deal with the nightmare of complexity that the income tax has become.
It is not even enough to have a long record of service, going back to Watergate and taking down a corrupt Governor of Tennessee in the 1970's. And having one of the most Conservative voting records in the United States Senate - before leaving it in disgust at how the system did not allow real reform.
No - someone has to enjoy the prospect for office for its own sake, not to reduce the size and scope of government and restore a Federal Republic. One must enjoy the whole process of politics - i.e. be crazy. Or one must pretend to enjoy it - i.e. be a liar.
And then people complain that politicians are either crazy or corrupt. When they shoo away anyone who comes along who is neither crazy or corrupt.
Thompson is running the kind of campaign — substantive, policy-laden, not based on gimmicks or sound-bites — that pundits and journalists say they want, but he's getting no credit for it from the people who claim that's what they want.As I've said, Thompson is the candidate most likely to say what I think on any given question and certainly he's offered more specific programs of interest to Conservatives --not that they've gotten much play. So hear, hear as far as the merits of Fred Thompson.
On the other hand, I'm not certain that a love for the contest itself necessarily indicates craziness or corruption. It would be weird to love visiting every pancake palace and roller derby in a state as such. But it's not weird to love having the chance to spread your ideas to as many people you can, nor to be energized by the prospect of finding effective ways to do so. In politics, there's no virtue in getting disgusted and walking away --the old sausages and laws thing. It takes a certain taste for the game itself to give one the stomach for political fights --and when you're president, it's all political fights. This too is a dimension of the virtue of prudence. According to Aristotle & Aquinas, when you love your end (in this case the Presidency), you learn also to love the means to achieve it. Which means you have to find at least something about campaigning you love.
On the third hand, it seems to me (following the campaign videos) Thompson is having a good time on the campaign trail, he's just doing it his way. Which I very much like about him.
