Robert Novak says the coming Fred Thompson campaign will be different from the rest of the Republican field "in both substance and style."
Thompson implied at Stamford that Republicans, along with Democrats, are responsible for making Americans cynical. While so far not spelling this out publicly, he deplores ethical abuses, profligate spending and incompetent management of the Iraq war. He becomes incandescent when considering abysmal CIA and Justice Department performance under the Bush administration. He is enraged by Justice's actions in decisions leading to Scooter Libby's prison sentence.
In his Senate voting record and his public utterances, Thompson is more conservative than Giuliani, McCain or Romney. He takes a hard line on the war against terror (referring in Connecticut to the danger of "suicidal maniacs" crossing open borders) and worries about immigration policy creating a permanent American underclass. His one deviation from the conservative line has been support for the McCain-Feingold campaign reform, much of which he now considers overtaken by current fundraising practices and perhaps irrelevant. Overall, his tone, in a soft Tennessee drawl, is less harsh than that of other Republican candidates -- a real-life version of the avuncular fictional D.A. he plays on TV.
Beyond ideology, Thompson envisions a 21st-century campaign, utilizing the Internet more and spending less money than his opponents. When speaking to a friendly audience or ruminating off the record, the 6-foot-7 actor-politician does not look or sound like the GOP's announced candidates for president. His challenge will be to convey that impression when he appears with opponents on the same stage in the immediate future.
I fully expect Thompson's campaign will very innovatively use the Internet - his smackdown of Michael Moore via a 38-second online video shows he and his advisers fully understand the New Media and how to use it. But others in the GOP field shouldn't expect that Thompson's campaign will be mostly online. Thompson's air war - his TV ads - will be nothing less than terrific. They'll all feature him and probably be shot in one take. And Thompson knows how to work a crowd. I expect his entry into the crowded GOP field will cause the field to become less crowded rather quickly.
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