Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

With apologies for an unplanned but largely unavoidable absence from ElephantBiz.com for two days, I'm back with the first new edition of The Daily Fred in nearly a week. Perhaps I should rename it "The Nearly Daily Fred."

We'll start with the latest radio commentary from Fred Thompson on the ABC Radio Network, where Thompson is doing regular commentaries until, well, until he announces he's running for president. In his latest commentary today, Thompson tackles the rewriting of history by the politically-correct, so as not to offend Muslim students with historical truth. His commentary yesterday focused on security and communications in the digital age.

The official non-official Draft Fred Thompson 2008 Committee reports that former Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Beth Harwell has joined the effort to convince Thompson to run. Harwell, a popular state senator from Nashville, said, "I have known Sen. Thompson for many years. He is a true statesman in every sense of the word, and I can think of no one better suited to be our next President. I look forward to continuing to encourage him to run."

A new Zogby poll shows Thompson now in third place in South Carolina, one of the important early-primary states, despite the fact that he has not even announced his intention to run. The Zogby survey, conducted April 16 and 17, showed Thompson with 11 percent support among all those surveyed. This was ahead of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 10 percent and behind Sen. John McCain’s 22 percent and Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 19 percent. Among self-described very conservative voters though, Thompson leads with 19 percent followed by McCain at 18 percent and Romney with 15 percent.

"The fact that Thompson, who has not spent a dime or campaigned a day, is out-polling a candidate who has raised tens of millions of dollars and campaigned extensively in South Carolina shows what a formidable force Thompson would be should he join this race," said Dean Rice, treasurer of the Draft Fred committee.

Thompson is also tied for second place in Texas.

And now, on to the rest of today's Daily Fred...

Writing in Jewish World Review, Alicia Colon mulls the prospect of Fred Thompson running for president:

Are the Republicans being as silly about Fred Dalton Thompson as the Democrats are about Barack Obama? According to some headlines, the GOP is salivating about the idea of having Sen. Thompson jump in the race because none of the other candidates seem to be igniting the entire party. Yet it is the height of madness for the Democrats to think that Obama has any chance with his left of center record and inexperience to capture the presidency. Given Thompson's own lack of administrative experience, are the Republicans being just as unrealistic? I don't think so.

...Ryan Sager at the New York Sun likes that fact that Thompson recently wrote a blog article in response to an article by a well-known conservative writer.

Perhaps I'm being a bit wide-eyed and innocent here, but isn't there something pretty remarkable about a potential presidential candidate engaging in an in-depth debate about the meaning of federalism with a conservative pundit?

...Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher comments on the same event:

To an actor like Fred Thompson, the "fourth wall" is the invisible one separating the stage from the audience. For a politician - like Fred Thompson - the fourth wall is the line between him and the "fourth estate" - the media who relay his words, then chatter and comment about them incessantly.
I imagine most politicians have to put some sort of psychic barrier between themselves and the relentlessly dart-throwing media, if only to stay sane during the grueling weird endurance marathon we call "running for president." But this week, in an exchange with National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, Fred Thompson tore down that fourth wall, separating him - a potential leader of the Free World - and us, folks who chat for a living.

Actually, he also tore down the wall between himself and the general public at large, by writing his response to Ponnuru on a blog rather than in some stuffy policy magazine only hard-core political junkies read. Instead, Fred's thoughts are on the web for everyone to read, and to comment on at the blog where he wrote them.

Says Gallagher, "It's one of those small incidents that speak volumes. Can you imagine McCain or Giuliani personally debating a senior editor on National Review's Web site? By tearing down the fourth wall, Fred Thompson announced to conservatives, more eloquently than even his words could, that he really is one of us."

Actually, I almost could see McCain doing something like that. He's holding regular conference calls with bloggers.