Senator Bill Brady of Bloomington sent out a letter to the editor, I’m assuming to several papers, that the PJS ran this morning. In it, he shows unwavering support for Fred Thompson (pictured, in the outfit we’d all be going back to if he were elected). Thompson is currently back on his yacht in Florida reading scripts. A vast majority of the country is happy about this fact.
Anyway, the Senator says in the letter that he supported Thompson’s “common sense conservative values”. So what exactly did Mr. Thompson stand for? You really couldn’t tell from his campaign, because it imploded very quickly after he finally announced he was running.
But if you’d like to learn more about Mr. Thompson, David Broder’s recent column showed what many would feel were some pretty ugly things (actually, almost everybody except Vonster) about the actor/former Senator.
According to Broder, Thompson did indeed have some pretty strong opinions on things. Well, as long as they were off the record:
We visited for two hours and he answered every question, outlining plans for a campaign that would be notable for its boldness. Repeatedly, he emphasized that the only reason he saw to run was to raise issues that the other candidates were too timid to address. Those issues, he said, included the need to expand military manpower and increase the Pentagon budget, while attacking the “unaffordable” entitlement programs that dominate domestic spending.
Thompson was particularly critical of farm subsidies, and when I asked if he were really going to take that message to Iowa, he said, “Yes, but I’d like to keep that off the record [emphasis added] until I announce out there.” I agreed to omit that detail from my column, but reported that he was going to enter the race with rhetorical guns blazing, and that was his reason for running.