Presidential Campaign

Far be it for me to say anything nice about former Republican Tennessee Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson.

First, he was the chairman of the Government Oversight Committee's 1997 campaign-finance abuse hearings aimed at the Clinton White House — and thus made my life miserable when I served as President Clinton's special counsel in charge of "handling" those hearings and being sure the White House and national political media covered them accurately (I almost say "fair and balanced"). Sen. Thompson was very tough on the Clinton campaign's fundraising practices. And I strongly disagreed with him, at the very least, for not applying the same standard to Republican fundraising practices. (At one point, I must admit, I was flattered when Thompson sarcastically interjected a comment during the televised campaign-finance hearings in the summer of 1997 (I am paraphrasing, but this is close), "This testimony is so significant that even Lanny Davis won't call it 'old news.'") Read more...

Things looked like they couldn’t be worse for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but the story in our newspaper today has made the gloomy last months now seem almost sunny. Bob Cusack reported that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) held several discussions with McCain in 2001 about what Daschle concluded was the legitimate possibility of McCain leaving the GOP and possibly retaining his seniority in a Democratic majority. The story includes denials from the McCain camp about him ever seriously considering leaving his party.

This revelation arrives when McCain has lost his early momentum, lost his frontrunner status, money is thin and his candidacy faces possible challenges from two friends — Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) — and a definite challenge from another friend, Rudy Giuliani. Add to that his status as Poster Man for the Iraq war. Read more...