Welcome to the campaign, Fred Thompson! George Will rolls out the red carpet and puts out the "company china" as he compares Thompson to "New Coke" at Real Clear Politics:
Thompson said he had advocated McCain-Feingold to prevent, among other things, corporations and labor unions from "giving large sums of money to individual politicians." But corporate and union contributions to individual candidates were outlawed in 1907 and 1947, respectively.Ingraham asked about McCain-Feingold's ban on issue ads that mention a candidate close to an election. He blamed an unidentified "they" who "added on" that provision, which he implied was a hitherto undiscussed surprise.
But surely he knows that bills containing the ban had been introduced in previous sessions of Congress before passage in 2002.
In 1997, Thompson chaired a Senate committee investigating 1996 election spending. In its final report, issued in 1998, Thompson's committee recommended a statutory "restriction on issue advocacy" during "a set period prior to an election" when the speech includes "any use of a candidate's name or image." And in 1999, Thompson co-sponsored legislation containing what became, in 2002, the McCain-Feingold blackout periods imposed on any television or radio ad that "refers to" a candidate for federal office -- a portion of which the Supreme Court in June declared unconstitutional.
Read the rest of the indictment at the link above. Worse than the issue specifics, in terms of his campaign, is his meandering manner of answering difficult questions. It isn't going to get any easy.
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2008 Presidential Race, Commentary, Primaries, Republican, Thompson
Tags: campaign finance, presidential campaign, primaries, Republicans, Thompson
Comments (4)
Who is George Will and what... (Below threshold)1. Posted by bill-tb | September 13, 2007 3:37 AM | Score: 0 (6 votes cast)
Who is George Will and what does he do?
1. Posted by bill-tb | September 13, 2007 3:37 AM |
Score: 0 (6 votes cast)
Posted on September 13, 2007 03:37
2. Posted by bryanD | September 13, 2007 9:46 AM | Score: -6 (10 votes cast)
Who is George Will and what does he do?
Posted by bill-tb
Will fancied himself an intellectual and a skeptic but was found to be neither when he was led by the nose to support the Iraq invasion.
Now he wants his reputation back. Even though that reputation was basically an ABC network fact sheet.
The toils and trouble of the courtier when the courted are not persons of "quality".
2. Posted by bryanD | September 13, 2007 9:46 AM |
Score: -6 (10 votes cast)
Posted on September 13, 2007 09:46
3. Posted by P. Bunyan | September 13, 2007 3:08 PM | Score: 3 (7 votes cast)
Bill-tb,
If you click on the link in the post above, and then click on Will's name in the "by" line of the article that the link leads you to, it will bring up a list of many articles Will has written. They will give you a taste of what Will is about.
I read through several of those and have concluded that Will is at best "questionable". He does seem to be slightly conservative at times, but "moonbatty" most of the time. No wonder he works for the far left rag, the Washington Post. His attacks on Thompson are one more reason for a thinking person to support Thompson.
3. Posted by P. Bunyan | September 13, 2007 3:08 PM |
Score: 3 (7 votes cast)
Posted on September 13, 2007 15:08
4. Posted by Paul Hamilton | September 13, 2007 4:25 PM | Score: -4 (8 votes cast)
Will raised a good question. Fred doesn't bring anything unique to the contest. If anything he'll just split the Romney votes and make life easier for Rudy. And his start to the real campaign has certainly been less than stellar with just about all the complaints coming from the right, who are learning what we on the left figured out a long time ago -- he's an empty suit.
4. Posted by Paul Hamilton | September 13, 2007 4:25 PM |
Score: -4 (8 votes cast)
Posted on September 13, 2007 16:25