Fred Still Leads the Pack!

By Rasmussen, via Blogs for Fred Thompson:

Rasmussen is reporting that Fred Thompson is still leading the pack in their Daily Polls.

Date:

Thomp.

Giul

Romn

McCain

7/23

26%

22%

12%

10%

And the juggernaut continues!

Forbes: Fred the Big Winner!

From the July '08 Tracker:

The big winner in July's Forbes '08 Tracker presidential poll is Fred Thompson. After his arrival on the list last month in second place in the overall "appeals" rating, a point behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Thompson leapfrogged Giuliani this month. He is the first candidate to have achieved a total appeal number above 50%.

The category of total appeal is a solid indication of how attractive a candidate is as a presidential contender. In this monthly study, 46 different attributes are examined by Forbes.com and its partner, California-based ePoll Market Research. This month, in addition to Thompson's gain, the poll showed Giuliani fading six percentage points, dropping to 43% from 49% in June. At the same time, the leading Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, slid four points to 41%, while Sen. Hillary Clinton slid two points to 29%.

And the juggernaut continues!

Thompson Entering Race Soon

The long-anticipated announcement that Fred Thompson is entering the GOP presidential race appears all but over according to this quote from Zach Wamp in today's Hill Magazine:

Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) said Monday that he expects former Sen. Fred Thompson, (R-TN), to soon join the race for the White House. "My view is that he’ll enter the race at some point just in the coming days," said Wamp, a key supporter of Thompson.

When Sen. Thompson officially enters the race, it essentially trims the field down to him and Rudy. I've said before that Mitt Romney has the finances to stay in the race but he doesn't have the definitive message to win voters over. Fred Thompson's announcement should be likened to a great white shark entering the swimming area at a beach because he's the candidate that will clear the waters of the second tier candidates.

Thompson has long been expected to join the race and the Law & Order star has traveled the country and raised millions. He will take part in a large fundraising event in Washington, D.C. on July 29, but Wamp did not say when a formal announcement would come. The lawmaker said, however, that "a couple dozen members" of the House would publicly support Thompson at the event.

It'll be interesting in seeing which GOP House members join Sen. Thompson at this event. It's just a hunch but I'm betting that Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling and Eric Cantor might be part of that contingent.

"I’ve talked to quite a few of McCain’s supporters in the House of Representatives, a couple in the United States Senate, that are concerned about McCain’s standing right now and the fact that he's lost his momentum," Wamp said on MSNBC. He added that Thompson is the second choice of many McCain supporters.

McCain ever had momentum? Who knew?

"I feel like Giuliani’s running on 9/11 fumes and those fumes are slowly evaporating because there’s got to be the substance and the policy," Wamp said. "And [Giuliani] doesn’t connect with the base of our party."

With all due respect to Rep. Wamp, that's some of the finest spin I've read in awhile. Considering Giuliani's announcement of his legal advisory team yesterday, I'm not smelling the same fumes that Rep. Wamp reportedly is.

Technorati: Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Zach Wamp, Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling, Eric Cantor, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

NOTA?*

*None of the Above?

WASHINGTON - A new poll reveals a clear leader in the Republican presidential race: nobody.

The AP-Ipsos survey shows nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back any of the top candidates -- Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney. And no one has emerged as the front-runner among evangelicals.

Zogby, long reputed to be one of the more accurate and reliable pollsters, has a much different story:

On the Republican side, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, as yet a non-candidate, has climbed to the top of the GOP leaderboard, winning 22 percent support, compared to 21 percent for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney remains in third place with 11 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain continues his dramatic slide, from second place in late May to fourth place now, supported by 9 percent of likely Republican voters nationwide.

As far as evangelicals go,

Thompson’s strongest appeal comes from those who consider themselves to be "very conservative,” as 35 percent in that group said they favored the former Tennessee Senator-turned-actor. Giuliani finished a distant third in that group, followed by Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. McCain finishes fifth among very conservative voters.

And even among "mainline" conservative voters, the yet-to-be-declared Fred Thompson is still making a fantastic showing:

Among mainline conservatives - the largest subgroup of GOP voters - Giuliani wins 21 percent, compared to 20 percent for Thompson, 13 percent for Romney, and 12 percent for McCain.

All this, without needing to spend a dime of campaign funds.

Despite what MSNBC and others would assert, the voters do have a choice! Fred Thompson isn't just a candidate we can "settle for," Fred is a candidate we can support!

Fred takes Florida by storm!

From St. Petersburg Times:

In the most unpredictable Republican presidential primary Florida has seen in ages, Fred Thompson is adding a giant extra dose of uncertainty. And just to dramatize the mystery of his strength as a candidate, when campaign finance reports are released on Sunday, Thompson's fundraising figures won't be among them because he has yet to formally enter the race.

Despite that, the Law & Order actor and former Tennessee senator is in second place in Florida polls. Giuliani, who is making Florida's Jan. 29 primary the linchpin of his strategy to win the nomination, has seen his lead shrink in Florida polls from as high as 20 points in March to as low as 6 points in June.

Without even laying out a platform, Thompson, 64, has won more legislative endorsements in Florida than any other Republican. And to ensure no more slips like missing the Jacksonville meeting, Thompson's "testing the waters" committee has hired a respected veteran GOP strategist, Randy Enwright, to help navigate Florida. Enwright also is expected to play a role in the national campaign.

"You had a lot of people who were searching and looking for a candidate and feeling like they were going to have to settle for someone. You don't have to settle with Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson is a candidate you can be excited about," said Rep. Jeff Miller, a Panhandle Republican who recently hosted a fundraising reception for Thompson in Pensacola.

His fans, including Rep. Adam Putnam of Bartow, the third-highest ranking Republican in Congress, see Thompson as the only consistently conservative candidate among the leading Republican contenders. They see a charismatic lawyer with a comforting bourbon-tinged drawl.

"The support for Thompson in this county is really something," said Pasco GOP chairman Bill Bunting, who has a Thompson sticker on his car. "He's a true conservative who really represents the party's values more than anyone else."

Of course, there are the usual cadre of naysayers:

"His support is a complete and total reflection of his name ID. He's the flavor of the month," Sally Bradshaw, a senior adviser to Romney, said of Thompson.

Truth is, once Fred gets in the race, Romney is toast.

The way this blogger sees it, look for a two-way race between Fred & Rudy, with Fred coming out head and shoulders (literally and figuratively) from the pack by September of '08!

New URLs for Minnesotans for Fred!!

Now there will be a lot of roads to get your latest Fred Thompson updates:

Four different URLs now point to this site:


Our blogger URL
http://minnesotansforthompson.blogspot.com

And now three new URLs:

http://www.MN4Fred.com
http://www.MN4Fred.info, and
http://www.MN4Fred.us....

Pick your favorite URL and check back often!

Fred Bounces Back...

In reaction to the charges that he lobbied for pro-abortion groups, Fred Thompson himself had this to say:

"The easiest and most generally used tactic when running against a lawyer is to trade off a general perception that most people dislike lawyers. Goodness knows that a lot of lawyers have earned disfavor but, as it turns out, folks understand our system better than a lot of politicians think they do. In my first run for the Senate, my opponent tried the old demagoguery route – “He has even represented criminals!” – to no avail.

A first cousin of this ploy is to associate the lawyer with the views of his client. Now-United States Chief Justice John Roberts addressed this notion during his confirmation hearings. “… [I]t’s a tradition of the American Bar that goes back before the founding of the country that lawyers are not identified with the positions of their clients. The most famous example probably was John Adams, who represented the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre.”

Roberts pointed out that Adams was actually vindicating the rule of law. Every person, unpopular or not, is entitled to representation. He further said, “That principle that you don’t identify the lawyer with the particular views of the client or the views that the lawyer advances on behalf of the client, is critical to the fair administration of justice.”

Like Adams, the views of attorney Abe Lincoln would have been a little hard to discern from looking at the positions he took as a lawyer. He represented the big railroad companies and on other occasions represented farmers and small land owners against the railroads.

Likewise during the Roberts confirmation, the New York Times reported on August 5, 2005 that as an appellate lawyer in the mid-1990s, Roberts gave advice to a gay-rights group that helped them win a 1996 anti-discrimination suit. Chief Justice Roberts had no direct hand in the suit. Rather, colleagues at his firm were handling the case and sought advice from a number of partners, him included. The group said that Chief Justice Roberts provided “invaluable strategic guidance” formulating legal theories.

I’ve experienced another gambit of those schooled in the creative uses of law and politics: dredging up clients – or another lawyer’s clients – that I may have represented or consulted with, and then using the media to get me into a public debate as to what I may have done for them or said to them 15 or 20 years ago. Even if my memory serves me correctly, it would not be appropriate for a lawyer to make such comments.

This situation does however bring to mind my many years in the law, and the nature of law practice in a country such as ours that prizes independence and individual rights. Of course, these values could not be protected without lawyer-client confidentiality or if lawyers were identified with the positions of their clients.

As an idealistic teen-ager I could think of nothing more inspiring than the notion of representing a just cause against the most powerful forces in the country, including the government. I’ve had a chance to do some of that. It’s fair to say that not all of my clients have been so praiseworthy. Some were, in deed, accused of crimes. Some were convicted against my best efforts.

The practice of law is a business as well as a profession. It’s the way you support your family. And if a client has a legal and ethical right to take a position, then you may appropriately represent him as long as he does not lie or otherwise conduct himself improperly while you are representing him. In almost 30 years of practicing law I must have had hundreds of clients and thousands of conversations about legal matters. Like any good lawyer, I would always try to give my best, objective, and professional opinion on any legal question presented to me.

I’ve had great personal and professional satisfaction because of my decision to become a lawyer. I made a decent living, served the rule of law, and I believe I did some good. I’ve had the opportunity to help small farmers in Tennessee, the Chief Justice of the United States, previously mentioned, and several folks in between, as well as a half dozen or so lobbying clients.

I was a federal prosecutor at the age of 27, Watergate Counsel at the age of 30, and served as special counsel to both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. In Tennessee, I served on the Appellate Court Nominating Committee and, of course, I was elected twice to the United States Senate.

I went on to do other things, too. Before election to the Senate, I appeared in several movies. The movie work was always an avocation for me and I continued to practice law throughout my “movie days” while continuing to live in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

Actually, my legal career led to my movie career. I took the case of a woman who was Chairman of the Tennessee Pardons and Parole Board. She stood up to the then Governor of Tennessee, we sued him and ultimately it was determined that he was corrupt. He, his legal counsel, and others went to jail. A book was written, and a movie was made about my client and our case and I was offered the opportunity to play myself in the movie, which led to other roles.

I’m certainly not surprised that such a diverse career is being mined by others. As we get further into this political season we will undoubtedly see the further intersection of law, politics and the mainstream media. However I intend to keep in mind the appropriate distinction and separation between law and politics, and I do not intend to get sucked in to doing a disservice to either of them or to myself."