Defending The American Dream: Fred Thompson

The thing that really caught my attention about right away about Fred Thompson’s appearance is that his wife, Jeri, came out with him right away to wave to the audience before Fred gave his speech. None of the other candidates’ spouses appeared, and I think Fred did it to get a jab back at all the people who (absurdly) criticized him for having a young and attractive wife. He’s showing that despite the critics, he’s not ashamed of his wife. And good on him for that.
It’s also worth noting that Fred easily received the loudest and most rowdy reception from the crowd. It was clear to this observer who the audience wants as their candidate.
I think the thing most people are surprised to learn about Fred is that, despite his acting career, he’s not a great speaker. His speech today was an example of that. A lot of “uhs” and “ums.” It wasn’t to the point that it was distracting, but compared to someone who is very slick and assured behind the microphone (Rudy Giuliani, for instance) Fred lags.
But what’s important in selecting a national leader isn’t so much style as substance, right? And I think it’s substance where Fred beats his only real rival in this race (Rudy Giuliani).
Both men are long on rhetoric about cutting spending and cutting taxes, but what tips the scales for Fred is his dedication to a fundamental change in the way this country is run. For years, under both Democrats and Republicans, government power has been being consolidated on the national level to the detriment of all Americans, I believe. More and more we’re seeing decisions about things like education, traffic laws and gun laws being made by politicians in Washington DC instead of politicians who live in our communities.
The drawbacks of this are obvious.
But Fred is talking about a return to federalism in America, and federalism is the principle (one of the principles this country was founded upon, in fact) of local control. It is a principle which tells us that which is not specifically granted to the federal government as a duty should be reserved as an issue for the various states to solve as per the 10th amendment.
We need that. We need tax cuts and better control over our government’s fiscal issues as well, but we also need a return of many issues to local control.
Fred is talking about that. Not Rudy nor any other candidate in the race is.
But don’t get me wrong, Fred isn’t weak on tax cuts either. He said that “tax cuts don’t lose revenue, tax cuts put revenue back in the pockets of Americans.” He also said (to my satisfaction given all the well-meaning talk I’ve heard about pork today) that earmarks are “the tail to a much larger dog.” That, again, is exactly right. Earmarks are a very small slice of our government’s spending problems. Fred Thompson gets that, and is a better candidate for it.