So, it looks like Senator Thompson will be announcing his campaign sometime after July 4. I have to say that I’m pleased he’ll be in the race.

There’s lots of good discussion about Thompson’s candidacy today, especially Jonathan Martin has an interesting piece looking at how Thompson’s entry affects the GOP big three.)

Thompson has also already demonstrated that he is miles ahead of the his GOP competition in Internet / new media savvy. And that endears him to me as well.

Jim: So I’ll be covering Thompson a great deal at the day job blog, so I want to be a little circumspect. My job is to tell readers what’s going on, with a little analysis here and there, not necessarily tell people what to think about it.

Having said that… Look, Fred Thompson gives off all kinds of signals of being a very, very strong candidate. He is likely to be, as Marshall suggested, the best communicator in a field that has some other good ones.

What I would like to see from FDT is… something a little innovative in the policy arena. Right now he’s running as the Conventional Conservative who has no beefs with anyone in the GOP. Fine. Great. But I don’t think that’s what it will take to win in 2008. It feels a little too “safe.” I thought David Frum had some great advice for the Big Three GOP candidates.

So what would I like to see from FDT? Something in the vein of (I know this is lame) “Rebooting for Results.” Newt talks about this a lot - the Bush administration has been stumbling since early on because large portions of our federal bureaucracy don’t get the results they promise. Why is there such anger over immigration? Because many Americans have concluded the government has failed at one of its primary duties - securing a border. I love our men in uniform, but high-profile cases of waste, fraud, and mismanagment make the defense contracting process sound like a joke. We’ve thrown tons of money at education, but the results have been meager. I know many fine people at the State Department, but we’re still getting our butts handed to us in the message war with al-Qaeda. We know about our intelligence failures, and our successes must remain secret. We saw the Gonzales mess, preceded by the Brownie mess, preceded by the Harriet Miers mess…

I want to hear Thompson talk about the kind of people who will end up in his cabinet. He doesn’t need to name them (although it wouldn’t hurt to throw some names around), and suggest, “I’m gonna give these people a lot of leeway, with one clear instruction: Get results. If they do, I’ll be singin’ their praises from the rooftops. If they don’t, my foot’ll be up their keister.” I want to hear him spell out how he would bring a better sense of accountability throughout our bureaucracy. His message - a thoroughly conservative one - ought to be something in the vein of - “My opponent says government should take on more duties and responsibilities. I say it needs to start meeting the ones it already has… If you’re not keeping the promises you made yesterday, making more promises today doesn’t do either one of us any good.”

Again - just my two cents…

Cam: I think this will be fun. I just hope that Thompson continues to do what he’s been doing, which is fresh, fun, and very different from what the other candidates have been doing to date.