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By John Fortier
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Posted: 06/06/07 08:00 PM [ET] |
Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) is the vessel that dismayed Republicans are filling with their highest hopes. They worry that there is no top-flight conservative in the race and no one who can beat the Democratic nominee in November 2008. So is Thompson the conservative that Republicans are looking for? And can he win?
First, a disclosure. Thompson is a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute, although so are potential candidate Newt Gingrich and others who are advising Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). I have no horse in this race.
Republicans are in a grim mood. The 2006 election went strongly against them, and they worry that the president’s approval rating and the unpopularity of the war will persist until Election Day. Add to this the fact that Republican voters are not sure what to make of the current crop of candidates The top-tier candidates have impressive qualifications, but they are unorthodox. They include a social liberal (Rudy Giuliani), a maverick Republican (McCain) and a candidate who has been both a conservative and a moderate (Mitt Romney).
The twin worries about losing and the lack of a conservative candidate encourage Republican voters to look around, to hope that there is somebody else. In a recent CBS News Poll, only 35 percent of likely Republican primary voters expressed satisfaction with their field of candidates, compared to 59 percent of Democrats. This dissatisfaction has opened the door for Fred Thompson.
How conservative is Thompson? As a senator, he showed himself to be in the middle of the Republican Caucus, basically a conservative, but with an independent streak. Looking at political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal’s ratings (voteview.com), Thompson ranked on average as the 80th most conservative senator in the four Congresses in which he served. In the same period, John McCain ranked 70th most conservative, but Thompson did share McCain’s independent streak in supporting campaign-finance reform and as one of only six Senate Republicans to endorse McCain for president in 2000. Thompson also was generally more pro-immigration than his current rhetoric suggests.
Unlike the three GOP front-runners, Thompson hails from the South, a region that reflects the GOP’s social-conservative values.
Thompson became chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee early in his career. In this capacity, he worked on a number of relatively non-partisan government reform issues such as improving the appointments process and modernizing the civil service. He worked well with ranking member Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). One of his most significant legislative achievements was shepherding through legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security.
Can he win the Republican nomination? Thompson has been a serious contender for the nomination for the past few months, with polls showing him with about 10 percent of the vote, similar to Romney’s numbers. He will immediately enter into the top tier of candidates, but he is unlikely to rocket immediately to the top. He hurts Romney the most, as Romney is making a play for conservative voters who do not feel at home with Giuliani or McCain. But Romney is not going away, and the possibility of Gingrich jumping into the fray means that the conservative vote may continue to be split.
Thompson’s hope is that by getting in the race, he can eventually make himself the conservative alternative to Giuliani. Not inconceivable, but not easy.
On television, Thompson is a fish out of water, a likeable, conservative Southerner in a sea of New Yorkers, perhaps good training for knocking heads with Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.
Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. |
