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Anorak News | Peas And Cues: Fred Thompson Has A Schedule Like John Major’s

Peas And Cues: Fred Thompson Has A Schedule Like John Major’s

by | 7th, November 2007

DEAR Lord, save us from Fred Thompson. Even his campaign videos are liable to put us to sleep.

Fred’s in a diner wearing a buttoned up blazer. He’s talking about his principles while we watch images of flag-waving geriatrics and farmers.

If Fred was running for office in the UK he would be sitting in a rocking chair sucking on a Werther’s Original while old folks played bowls outside.

If there’s any chink of hope for Fred it’s that he has all the charisma of John Major. And look how far that carried him.

The Daily Telegraph’s Washington correspondent Toby Harnden reports that Fred’s heart doesn’t seem to be in the race.

As Thompson waited to be interviewed on Fox News the other day, Fox reporter Carl Cameron asked his studio to hurry up because: “The next president of the United States has a schedule to keep.”

Thompson deadpanned back: “So do I.”

According to Harnden, Thompson’s aides “looked bemused and others cringed.” It’s not really the kind of joke a presidential candidate should be making.

But conservative bloggers at RedState think Harnden’s analysis is overblown.

Thompson is a self-deprecating kind of guy, they say, and “he has made a major point of not insisting that his candidacy is the most important thing in the world.”

They point to Jim Geraghty’s analysis at National Review Online. “I like the Daily Telegraph a lot, but the whole tone of the [Telegraph] article at the link has an overwheming Thompson-campaign-in-freefall tone that I think just isn’t warranted by events,” Geraghty writes.

But even here there is a sense of impending doom as Geraghty adds, “At least, not yet.”



Posted: 7th, November 2007 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink