A Very Important Question

I need some help with something. Can someone please tell me just what exactly is the appeal of upcoming GOP wonder-candidate Fred Thompson? Yeah, I'll admit that I've watched Law & Order, and I even remember him as far back as No Way Out, but what exactly is supposed to set him apart from every other actor I don't want to see elected president, either?

When you look at it, it's not so surprising that the Republicans would be so attracted to the empty suit--it's so much easier to imagine that it's filled with whatever you want it to be if there are no real ideals or values in it. Ronald Reagan, who as we get more and more perspective on his administration seems to have been more and more disconnected from his own presidency, became the perfect Conservative candidate. George Bush didn't have enough of a resume to distract us from the message of Compassionate Conservatism that he was intended to present. He was the perfect conservative, too--heir to Ronald Reagan--until the conservatives themselves got scared away by his tanking presidency and started to distance themselves from him (Glenn Greenwald has a great post from Monday documenting that phenomenon). And now here comes Arthur Branch Fred Thompson, who seems to stand for nothing but a folksy accent. That leaves room for a lot of imagined conservatism. The fact that between Hollywood movies and his eight years in the Senate he was also a high-profile Washington lobbyist squeezes out a bit of both the folksiness and the conservatism can be ignored until after November 2008.

I just don't get his "authentic" appeal. When he first ran for the senate seat Al Gore vacated when he became vice president, he drove around the state in his red pickup to prove he was "just folks." Except that it wasn't his pickup--the truck was leased by the campaign. And he didn't even drive it. Michelle Cottle had the goods on him more than ten years ago.

Finishing his talk [at a suburban Knoxville high school], Thompson shakes a few hands, then walks out with the rest of the crowd to the red pickup truck he made famous during his 1994 Senate campaign. My friend stands talking with her colleagues as the senator is driven away by a blond, all-American staffer. A few minutes later, my friend gets into her car to head home. As she pulls up to the stop sign at the parking lot exit, rolling up to the intersection is Senator Thompson, now behind the wheel of a sweet silver luxury sedan. He gives my friend a slight nod as he drives past. Turning onto the main road, my friend passes the school's small, side parking area. Lo and behold: There sits the abandoned red pickup, along with the all-American staffer.

So what does he bring to the table in a presidential race? Apparently he's a "tough guy." Returning to Glenn Greenwald, a few days ago, he described Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman rolling around on the floor in excitement over this video. The first time I saw this video, I felt like I was enveloped in a big blanket of So What?. Wow, he calls out Michael Moore. I've never seen anyone do that before.

So do the Republicans really just have an empty yearning for some sort of ethereal something that they can't quite identify, and they're just willing to assume that this guy's got it? As Josh Marshall suggested a couple of days ago, there is something very Republican about him.

I think I'm starting to understand part of Fred Thompson's presidential strategy -- to connect himself to as many Bush administration scandals as possible, which is a very canny strategy. As John Dean points out here Thompson is perhaps the most prominent public advocate for a pardon for Scooter Libby as well as a frequent source of false statements about the Libby prosecution. He's also considering hiring Tim Griffin, star player in the US Attorney Purge scandal, as his presidential campaign manager.

And finally, I come to the question that spurred my on to writing this post in the first place. I'm burying it at the bottom because the question is somewhat embarrassing, but here we go. Is there really a substantial group of people who find him sexy? I've been hearing a buzz, lately, but when I google the terms, I get a lot of references to progressives making jokes about it, but I think there was only one serious affirmative response. So is there any sort or real groundswell? Enquiring minds want to know.