Fred Thompson and leadership

Stephen Hayes:

SIXTY-THREE REPUBLICAN members of the House of Representatives showed up at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, DC, on Wednesday afternoon to hear from Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee Senator and potential presidential candidate. Thompson spoke and took questions for a little more than an hour.

"I've not been pleased with the field of presidential candidates on our side," says Representative Lynn Westmoreland, a second term congressman from Georgia who attended the meeting. Westmoreland had been impressed with Thompson after his March 11 appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Westmoreland says his view of the field reflects the consensus of his constituents. "I just don't see any excitement from people at home, at county meetings and other events."

Thompson talked about the issues that he has said will be the focus of his campaign if he decides to run--entitlement reform and national security, chief among them. He also took questions about other issues including abortion and immigration as the attendees sought to get a better sense of his brand of Republican politics.

Thompson contrasted the fever in the country about global warming with the relative lack of public interest in entitlement reform. We are so alarmed by a problem that we know so little about, he said, but we won't do anything about this problem that we know for certain we'll have to address at some point....

On national security, Thompson reiterated his commitment to winning the war on terror and said the question in a post-Iraq world would be whether we would be living in a dangerous world or a very dangerous world.

On immigration, as on several other issues, Thompson did not lay out a specific policy proposal. Instead, he spoke in general terms. Thompson said that he does not believe it is possible to have a secure country without secure borders, a position that pleased many of the House Republicans for whom immigration is a "burning issue." He also said he would oppose any plan to offer blanket amnesty to illegal immigrants currently in the United States. But Thompson told the group that simply deporting those illegals is not a practical solution.

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My concern about Thompson is his lack of leadership and I don't find a Congressional "listening" tour comforting. I think he is basically a good guy that I could support, but I still question his judgment on supporting McCain-Feingold. I just can't ever remember him taking on the Democrats the way Rudy Giuliani had to in New York.

This lack of commitment to a race does not suggest the fire in the belly needed to take on what will be a really mean campaign by Democrats. At this point it appears he is positioning himself to be drafted rather than running for the office.