This morning, Fred Thompson announced that several years ago, he was diagnosed with a form of lymphoma. His cancer was treated, and he is now in full remission.
He even posted about the story on Red State shortly after his announcement.
There’s only one reason he would do such a thing — he’s running for President.
This is a simple and strategically essential step to take as a precursor to an announcement. Allowing this news to break after an announcement would be a pointless blunder, and one that I’m glad the Senator didn’t make.
Jim: While I have no source saying “Fred’s running,” I have no reason to disagree with Marshall’s logic.
With Thompson in, I figure this makes Newt’s entrance into the race unlikely.
So here’s my question as a guy inclined to like Thompson… how is he as a manager?
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April 11, 2007 - 10:01 am
Everyone knows that Fred Thompson won’t take a dump without a plan, Geraghty.
April 11, 2007 - 11:39 am
Fred Thompson Has Cancer…
Marshall Manson and Jim Geraghty believe that Fred Thompson’s public announcement on Neil Cavuto’s show that he has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a sure sign that he’s running for president.
The logic strikes me as sound. If he&#…
April 11, 2007 - 3:29 pm
He is not running. He is as shocked as anyone else that hes being taken as seriously as he is and hes just looking to politely wave off the mob before it gets out of hand, which it clearly has. Republicans are always looking for some conservative savior on a white horse to save them from the awfulness of washington politics. It never happens, and it wont happen this time either.
Just take a second and look at the ‘before and after’ pictures of presidents when they take office and when they leave. Do you really think that the presidency is something that in the modern age you can do as a hobby or while you are recouperating from a serious health problem? No way baby, its a meatgrinder. Good lord look at bill clinton, he came in looking like an ox, he left looking like a beaten animal and that was in the fun thrilling days of the 1990’s.
Someone who pops up now and says ” well I got cancer, not that its a problem or anything..” is someone who is just trying to extricate himself from something he knows damn well he has no chance of doing but has grown well to large for him to be able to control anymore.
Like all senators, he loves the drooling ‘give us a story,any story’ attention of the media, but he has zero chance of doing anything but beating mccain, but thats not saying much.
(hell, I could beat McCain at this point.)
April 11, 2007 - 4:52 pm
Frank, I gotta disagree with you. Yes I’ve heard the “Aw, pshaw.. I’m not running in the past.” but he’s on Hannity now and he’s not even dodging the “Are you running” question.
He is and I’m glad to see it. From what I know now, he’s more Conservative than the other three (two?) front runners.
The one thing that concerns me is, when was the last time a Senator won the presidency? HST? JFK?
I don’t think it’s been in my lifetime.
BTW, Frank, if you can beat McCain, how about challenging him for the AZ senate seat?
April 11, 2007 - 5:33 pm
Fred Thompson seems to me like “a nice guy” but its really thin soup from there. Here’s a partial list of things that tell me that this not serious.
1. Seen any ‘thompson for president’ HQ’s anywhere? Iowa and New Hampshire just for starters, or is he just waiting for the ‘big mo’ in soth carolina? Gosh, you think that he might need one of those? Maybe a staff to go in and fill the coffee decanters for the volunteers? a press secretary, maybe a bus or two to get around while hes running? now, I admit im a dilittante, but I havent heard anything about any of those jobs getting filled. You dont run a campaign on good thoughts, it runs on lots and lots and lots of paid and unpaid voluteers getting into the process years before the game starts.
Find me another serious candidate who hasnt already put staff and stuff on the ground in Iowa and I’ll show you someone standing in line waiting standby at southwest airlines next to dennis kucinich.
2. Allies. What does fred draw on for allies? Im not talking about “the base” im talking about other folks in the business who are willing to link their horses to his. I havent heard of any. funny that, isnt it?
3. sponsors. Just like the last one, again I ask whos jets is he flying on? You tell me whos jet FRed is flying on and I can tell you the state of the seriousness of his campaign. Heck, just tell me where fred is flying to!
4. Who is this guy think he is, Hamlet? Whats the big whoop about annoncing that you are running if thats what you want to do? This isnt 1950 and we dont have a smoke filled room and a ‘draft fred’ campagin at the conventions, thats hollywood, real life dont work like that. so why not announce? well for one thing, you might not announce because you havent put your team together just yet, but thats just it isnt it! you have to be putting together a team in the first place to delay your announcement.
Getting money, building leases and rental contracts, staff committments, clearing out your driveway of broken down cars, you know actually doing something that looks a whole hell of alot like running for federal office instead of just getting your name in the papers.
Fred isnt doing any of those things (or is he…)
To me, its easy to “say” youre running for president( and I’d like to point out that while hes been coy, he hasnt come out and said that he is, so Fred apparently cant work up the gumption to do even that) its a whole ‘nuther thing to actually “run” for president.
Which gets to your question about Fred being a manager. Lets say that running for president is the first test of a manager. With that metric, how would you judge the fred thompson campaign as it stands today?
Has he picked good team members to run his campaign?, set up a plan? made his position clear?, executed with any sort of precision? delivered what he set out to deliver?
( my response on the mccain thing- what?, and give up showbusiness?)