Election '08 Comment: Fred Thompson and the Personality of Toilet Brushes

“The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality” – Carl Jung, Swiss Psychiatrist 1875-1961

With a little over three months to go before the start of the 2008 Presidential primary season, the race for the Republican nomination is beginning to take shape. Whilst the staying power of third tier candidates like Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul is admirable, the combination of their lack of adequate support within the GOP grass roots, severely restricted campaign budgets and practically no national media coverage means that they will fall by the wayside even before “Super Tuesday” next March. They are consigned to join Jim Gilmore and Sam Brownback as early casualties of a long campaign cycle.

Perhaps not surprisingly we are left with the usual suspects to fight it out for the nomination, Messrs Giuliani, Romney and McCain. While each is an attractive candidate to different elements of the Republican base, none of them can command cross party support for reasons as diverse as religion, abortion, gay rights, fiscal policy and the war in Iraq.

Enter Fred Thompson; actor, senator, lawyer and former lobbyist. In a race where the vast majority of Republicans were, and are, not happy with the choice available to them in 2008, Thompson was seen by many as the ideal candidate who could garner cross party support. His conservative voting record in the Congress and support of the Iraq war, coupled with his dominant physical presence and actors’ charisma led many romantics within the GOP to believe that Thompson was the Ronald Reagan of the 21st century.

After less than 60 days as an announced candidate however, my instincts tell me that the light has already gone out for Thompson. Despite an initial shot in the arm after announcing his candidacy on September 5th, he has slipped back to the position he held in the minds of voters prior to getting in the race. His performance at the most recent Republican presidential debate in Michigan was awful, where he looked ill prepared, not fully versed on the issues, and gave way completely to Giuliani and Romney whose strong personalities and presence dominated the event.

His inability to effectively engage on the issues and argue his position was striking to most commentators, including many leaders in the Christian conservative base of the Republican Party. In what seems like an ominous development for Thompson’s chances, he was recently thrashed by James Dobson, founder of “Focus on the Family, thusly, “He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to’….and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail. And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

For me, I have never understood Thompson’s appeal. I see him as a wooden and one dimensional character with, to borrow a quote from one of my best friends, about as much personality as a toilet brush.