Today's edition of The Daily Fred. starts with an Associated Press story out today that examines how Thompson is making good use of the Internet to build buzz for his likely presidential run.
Thompson's online activity helps create a buzz about him as he weighs a White House campaign, said GOP strategist David Winston. "It gets distribution amongst key audiences - conservatives, the media, people interested in politics," Winston said. "People hear about an interesting idea, and it just spreads; people tell other people."
Thompson, 64, needs an online presence if he wants to run, said Keith Appell, a GOP strategist and consultant for Pajamas Media. "The blogosphere and the Internet are truly transforming the campaign. It's making that kind of outreach a necessity, whereas before, candidates could take it or leave it," Appell said.
To illustrate the AP story, here is a radio commentary by Fred Thompson himself on the improving status of Muslim women in Afghanistan - good news that the mainstream media largely ignores. Fred writes...
I doubt, for example, that our television networks have spent as much time exposing the horrors of life for millions of women in pre-liberation Iraq and Afghanistan as they’ve spent covering Abu Ghraib. For some reason, everyday atrocities such as the endemic beatings, honor killings and forced marriages of women just don’t seem to be newsworthy.
The other side of that coin is that we also rarely hear about dramatic improvements in the lives of women when they come about due to American actions. So let me take a little of your time to give you some good news that might have slipped through the journalistic cracks.
The piece is, naturally, making the rounds of the blogosphere.
Now, the rest of today's Daily Fred...
...Richard Baehr at The American Thinker thinks Thompson entering the race dooms Mitt Romney's campaign, even though the most recent polls show Thompson's surge is coming largely at Rudy Giuliani's expense. But, then, Baehr admits he believes Giuliani is the GOP's best hope of winning the general election. He says Fred can't win in November because of "his Southern roots."
Baehr's wrong, of course. Fred Thompson, is more able than Giuliani, McCain or Romney, can do what Reagan did: appeal to moderate Democrats and independents without alienating Republican conservatives. It's a winning formula - it brought Reagan two national landslides, and Thompson two Tennessee landslides.
...Is the Left getting ready to demonize Fred Thompson over a role he played on a television show? This story in the Los Angeles Times suggests the answer is yes. Erick at RedState calls the LAT story potentially the "dumbest 'serious news story' ever." Patterico responds as well.
...Hotline previews Thompson's growing presidential campaign team.
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