A Second Hand Conjecture

[See below for UPDATES]

The Politico is reporting that insiders to the Fred Thompson organization are letting the cat out of the bag:

Fred Dalton Thompson is planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico.

Thompson, the “Law and Order” star and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, has been publicly coy, even as people close to him have been furiously preparing for a late entry into the wide-open contest. But the advisers said Thompson dropped all pretenses on Tuesday afternoon during a conference call with more than 100 potential donors, each of whom was urged to raise about $50,000.

Thompson’s formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson’s first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal.

A testing-the-waters committee is to be formed June 4 so Thompson can start raising money, and staffers will go on the payroll in early June, the organizers said. A policy team has been formed, but remains under wraps.

This announcement really should come as no surprise, but it is a welcome one. Thompson is, in the very least, an atypical candidate in that he has a presence that says “gravitas“, he hasn’t spent his entire career inside Washington, and he does not campaign in the usual manner either:

I don’t think it’s any secret that retail politics isn’t Fred Thompson’s favorite way to spend his time. I’ve been told by people involved in Thompson’s 1996 re-election campaign that a strategy he purposefully employed was to make the race as short possible. Knowing he had an immense advantage, not just as an incumbent, but as a celebrity, Thompson sought to marginalize his Democratic opponent, Houston Gordon, by acting as if he had no opponent and only campaigning for about a month. Thompson won by a landslide.

Now that strategy won’t work when you’re running against the likes of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, but it’s not surprising Thompson would be interested in nontraditional campaign methods to avoid the day-to-day drudgery of the trail. While the other Republican presidential candidates have been getting beaten up by the press and each other, Thompson has let the buzz about his potential campaign continue to build and build. As a result, Thompson has garnered quite a following among grassroots conservatives on the Web, and if he can turn that enthusiasm into an army of grassroots volunteers and contributors, he will really shake this race up and do what Howard Dean failed to with his coalition of grassroots Democrats and left-wing bloggers in the ‘04 Democratic primary — win!

Frank Cagle provides an interesting perspective on Thompson’s campaign style as well:

After the Knox County event at which Newt Gingrich had fired up the crowd with his Contract with America, Thompson and some of the locals repaired to the hotel bar to get something to drink that would kill the taste of rubber chicken . It was obvious Thompson was uncomfortable in his new role. He couldn’t find his rhythm. He had been watching Sundquist and Quillen and Congressman Jimmy Duncan, who had had years of party banquets behind them and could deliver a banal homily at the drop of a hat. It just wasn’t Thompson’s style.

Thompson had entered the race as a conventional candidate, doing what conventional candidates do, and he hated it. He also wasn’t making any progress in catching Cooper.

Somewhere in the course of the conversation Thompson became “Fred” and it got down to candid talk. Someone at the table offered the opinion that people didn’t really want those long-winded answers. They just wanted to know one thing: “Are you one of us, or are you one of them?” Thompson threw back his head and laughed at that.

He reminisced about his first job out of high school, the night shift at the Maury Bicycle plant in his home town of Lawrenceburg. Lawrenceburg is a typical small town in Tennessee, a backwater too far from an interstate. Despite the growth in Middle Tennessee in recent years the town still numbers about 10,000 people. It didn’t take Thompson long at the bike plant to decide to go to the University of Memphis and Vanderbilt Law School and get on with a career.

As the campaign wore on that spring and summer Thompson seemed to begin to remember that bike plant and the people he worked with and grew up with. He began to set aside the lawyer and Senate staffer persona he had taken on over the years. His speeches became shorter. More to the point. He started to connect with people.

“Fred being Fred” is a likely campaign slogan. Obviously, being well-known is a big plus for Thompson, and he has used his notoriety effectively which has allowed him to delay officially entering the 2008 race. I also think the comparison to Howard Dean is an interesting one. There isn’t any doubt that Dean harnessed the power of the internet in the 2004 race far better than any other candidate (Democrat or Republican), and thus far, Thompson seems to hold that crown for the Republicans:

The major media is missing the full magnitude of the grassroots Republican surge that will soon transform the 2008 field.

The remnants of the Bush presidency and recent Republican Congress is a crisis of conservatism with a major backlash brewing beneath the surface. None of the Big Three (McCain, Romney, or Guiliani) has won the confidence of authentic conservatives. The boomlet for Fred Thompson will grow and challenge the conventional wisdom, again.

This is a very long, drug-out race, and anything can happen (remember how Howard Dean met his end?). Some are speculating that Thompson is too far behind in the money race, but I’m really doubting that, especially when he can be so devastatingly effective with just a small amount of exposure. It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out, however, to say the least.

Personally, I haven’t decided where I stand on Thompson yet. He seems very likable, but that could be the kiss of death in my skeptical mind. I believe he would manage the war better than Bush (indeed, almost anyone would), and that through his use of the bully pulpit he could reach the electorate and get them behind the troops for real. I’m not very clear as to how he would be fiscally or socially, though, and that gives me pause.

If you interested in learning more about Fred, you can visit here and here. I plan to.

Oh, and one last thing for our regular readers. Keep an eye out for some breaking announcements. Someone familiar to many of you may have something interesting to say about the Thompson campaign.

UPDATE: McQ has more, and Billy Hollis intends to provide some first hand reporting (see the comments).

MORE: Jim Geraghty reports on his discussion with a Thompson insider:

Just talked to a Thompson source I’ll call “TA3″ (Thompson Associate 3). Much more coming shortly, but the first word was, there will not be a presidential announcement from Fred Thompson on July 4.

(The Politico got it wrong, it appears.)

TA3: “There will be no July 4 announcement… There was some discussion of a June 4 beginning of fundraising; that’s the date checks will be collected. I suspect that’s where there was some confusion.”

The forthcoming announcement will be that Thompson is “testing the waters.”

Geraghty adds: “My gut instinct after talking with TA3 is that there will be an announcement in July, but not July 4.”

YET MORE: Some “Cool Facts” and “Daily Facts” about Fred Thompson.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: It’s official inevitable [edited per ChrisB in comments]:

Politician-turned-actor Fred Thompson plans an unconventional campaign for president using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties, he told USA Today.

Thompson, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, has been coy about his intentions with audiences, but made clear in an interview that he plans to run.

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, Election 2008, Republican nomination

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