Thompson

I haven’t said anything about Fred Thompson’s withdrawal from the race because I didn’t have anything new to say about it. But John of Powerline’s comments come close to my own feelings:

I … agree with [Thompson] on pretty much every issue. So I’ve puzzled over why my reaction to his candidacy was more negative than positive…. My own first-hand encounter with Thompson generated no sense that he had any intangible quality that would add value to his generic conservative views…. [I]t was never clear how badly Thompson wanted to be President. For that matter, it wasn’t clear how much he wanted to be a Senator. He bailed on the Senate shortly after September 11 for a career in Hollywood. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t necessarily the profile of our number one choice to be President.

In fact, Thompson, for all his frequently remarked-on inadequacies, was a better candidate than I expected a year ago when the Fred boomlet started and I, on the basis of his dull performance as a U.S. senator, was dismissive of the idea. He surprised me by doing a decent job of articulating certain views. He said a lot of the right things. To give an idea of how far Thompson came as a candidate, see this post from last July, when it was evident that he had spent about 30 seconds thinking about immigration, the very issue that had sparked his candidacy. Compare what he said then to the serious position he adopted in the fall.

The problem with Thompson, to use a term from the world of acting, was that he had no “action,” no inner intention, bringing his various positions together into the feeling that this was a man who wanted to lead the country and had leadership to offer. Checking off the correct conservative positions is not leadership.

How do the other candidates stack up by the standard of intention? I would say that Romney wants to lead the country. Hillary Clinton wants to lead the country. I think that Giuliani and McCain are both running primarily to satisfy their ego. Huckabee wants to charm people. Obama wants to be a sun god, not a president.

- end of initial entry -

Lawrence B. writes:

You write, “Checking off the correct conservative positions is not leadership,” and I agree, but it’s hard for me to see how Romney is a significant improvement over Thompson. Thompson went through the list of limited government, opposition to abortion, and a strong national defense, but Romney has his three-legged stool of conservatism. Thompson actually has a record that lends credibility to his checklist, but even now Romney seems willing to abandon one of his stool’s legs when his back’s against the wall, campaigning that “it may be time for America to help save Michigan” when he needed Michigan to help save him.

He’s sixty years old and his father was a politician, and yet when you explained why you support him, you said that his political opinions appear to be “malleable at his core.”

I could put this another way. You write, “I would say that Romney wants to lead the country. Hillary Clinton wants to lead the country.”

I agree that both politicians eagerly desire to sit in the Oval Office. But with Hillary, I am quite certain that she has a vision of what she wants to accomplish from that desk. Her vision is a country governed by Progressivism. I would say that her vision can be described as a holistic (or totalitarian) secular religion, which fits how Jonah Goldberg defines fascism. By no means do I condone her oppressive ideology, but I know that she has one and that she has had one for her entire adult life.

But what about Romney? It appears that he’s trying to elicit support from those who have a vision that could be described as mainstream conservatism—and he may be doing so with a more comprehensive platform than the other GOP frontrunners—but I have no sense at all that he shares that vision, that that vision is his.

It’s not that he seems to want to lead this nation with solid conservative principles: he wants merely to run on those principles in order to be in a position to lead. The difference can be significant after the election, if Romney ends up governing in a situation that is less than ideal; the difference may have already been felt when, in Michigan, Romney thought he had to moderate his support of those principles in order to secure a political victory.

James P. writes:

Powerline wrote:

“My own first-hand encounter with Thompson generated no sense that he had any intangible quality that would add value to his generic conservative views.”

Maybe, but I would be very happy with a President who acted from genuine conservative views, even if they were “generic” and he was “checking the boxes” rather than acting from particular passion. That would be a hell of a lot better than what we’re going to get, which is a Democrat or a Republican with genuine passion to lead the country in a more liberal direction, and who will act with “inner intention” to achieve that goal. Indeed, that’s even better than what we have now, which is a President who talks conservative (thus giving conservatism a bad name and contributing to the unpopularity of Fred and other genuine conservatives) and governs liberal.

LA replies:

I agree. And maybe if we didn’t have candidates actively run for the presidency, maybe if the Electors met in each state and chose the man they thought was best, instead of their choice being determined by the popular vote, Thompson could be president. But we do have campaigns, and the Electors’ choice is determined by the popular vote, and a candidate does have to present himself to the American public as someone who wants and is ready to lead the country.

James P. continues:

Powerline writes:

“I understand the Reagan coalition as a short-hand reference to three strands of conservatism: economic conservatism (limited government and low taxes); national security conservatism (strong defense and unwillingness to give ground to our enemies) and social conservatism (particularly pro-life positions)… I suspect, by the way, that if Republicans abandon one of the three, they will abandon economic conservatism.”

Say what now? Does he seriously think that Republicans have not already abandoned economic conservatism? They’re not just thinking about it, they’ve already done it! Does he actually consider that the last eight years—plus the four years of Bush Sr.—represents “economic conservatism” in any meaningful sense? What is “compassionate conservatism” but big government liberalism misnamed “conservatism”? Who can believe the Republicans are still “economically conservative” when their policy consists of occasionally grumbling about the size of the government even as they relentlessly increase it?

As for “national security conservatism”, the last eight years has been such a fiasco that the Republicans have forfeited the right to be considered “especially trustworthy on defense”, which is a thing I thought I’d never see in my lifetime. Yes, the Democrats are worse, but that hardly helps matters. As soon as the Republicans embraced the preposterous idea that we could remake the Middle East into a bastion of democracy, they abandoned any real claim to be acting on the basis of “national security conservatism.” Such an enterprise could only emerge from the wild fantasies of liberal universalists, not from a strict assessment of national interests and the reconciliation of desirable goals with available resources.

LA replies:

Yes, well put. The establicons, including Powerline and Limbaugh, gave themselves heart and soul to a president who was universalist not national, big-government not small-government, and social conservative in only a pro forma sense (e.g. his empty support for the marriage amendment), then they turn around and, like Limbaugh, angrily wonder what’s happened to conservatism, or, like Powerline, act as if the conservative movement still exists and still stands for the things it once stood for.

These people will never take responsibility for how deeply how Bush has damaged conservatism, and how they enabled him to do that.

Kilroy M. writes:

You write that Thomson did not appear to “want to lead the country” and that “checking off the correct conservative positions is not leadership.” However, it was Thomson’s principled position minus the public displays of desire for power that attracted me to him in the first place.

LA replies:

But that was my own point. We could imagine an America in which the electors are not elected already pledged to vote for a certain candidate, which is the system we have (remember that when you vote for president in the general election, you are not voting for John Smith, you are voting for a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for John Smith), but, as was the case when George Washington was elected (before the evolution of the political party system, under which each party runs a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for the nominee of that party), the people or the legislature of each state choose electors according to the laws of that state, and the electors vote for whom they please. Under such a system, there would not be presidential candidates “running” for election, trying to get the masses to vote for them, because, instead of 100 million people casting a vote, there would be (say) 535 electors casting votes. The electors, who would be the leaders and politically knowledgeable people of each state, would be familiar with the leading political figures of the country, and would choose the person they considered best qualified to be president. Under such a system, public displays of desire for the presidential office would not be needed or appropriate.

Or, if it’s impracticable to dispense with political parties, we could dispense with party primaries, and go back to the smoke filled room. Each state would choose delegates to the nominating convention who would be free to vote as they choose. Again, under such a system, candidates would not “run” for the nomination, but the delegates, politically knowledgeable people, would choose as nominee the person they thought was best.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 23, 2008 09:02 AM | Send