Frederick of Hollywood ready to quit

Fred Thompson, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was doomed from the start, is going to pack it in if he doesn't do well in Iowa tonight, which is a foregone conclusion.

I still can't figure out why anybody thought this guy had a chance. Sure, he's a Hollywood actor, but his on-screen charms, such as they are, haven't transferred well to the political arena. He comes off as a grumpy sort, not the kind of person America wants in the White House. Beyond that problem, he's also been an inept campaigner.

It'll be interesting to see where Rep. Don Manzullo, our congressman here in RascalLand, shifts his allegiance once Freddy is out of the race.

UPDATE: Kos has more on Thompson's imminent departure from the race.

Huckabee will win GOP nomination?

That's what this guy says.

I'm not so sure. I think Romney still has a decent chance.

McCain? His prospects are exceedingly slim. He's a long, long, long shot.

Giuliani? Thompson? No way for either of them. They're toast.

Ron Paul? C'mon. Get serious.

UPDATE: Bob Novak, the Prince of Darkness, writes of infighting on the Religious Right over Huckabee's candidacy.

Drudge says Dems rooting for Huckabee

The theory is that the religious extremist from Arkansas would be, by far, the easiest Republican to beat in next year's presidential election.

The Rascal has long figured that Rudy Giuliani would be the most likely pushover. But, upon reflection and in light of recent events, I'm beginning to see the logic of hoping that Huckabee gets the GOP nod.

Actually, I don't see any of the Republican candidates as tough to beat.

Romney? Flip-flopper whose Mormonism would drive away lots of evangelicals. Thompson? Boring and out of his league. McCain? Craven geriatric whose straight-talk pretensions have long since worn thin; besides, the GOP right-wing base doesn't trust him. Tancredo? Paul? Hunter? Get serious.

Frederick of Hollywood is too crusty

David Broder doesn't often hit the bullseye anymore, but he had it right the other day when he said that "Fred Thompson appears perpetually grumpy -- a presence hard to imagine inhabiting the Oval Office."

Maybe that's why Thompson, who was expected by some to surge to the front of the Republican presidential pack, has faltered instead. The guy always seems peeved. Yeah, Americans in general are pretty pissed these days, but they're not likely to elect a grouch to the presidency.

Ah, but Don Manzullo, who represents The Rascal in Congress, is sticking with Fred. Too bad Manzullo's not a betting man. I'd be glad to give him 5-t0-1 odds; he gets Thompson and I take the rest of the field. No, hell, I'd give him 10-to-1 odds. The only place Fred is going is back to Hollywood.

Betcha Manzullo sticks with Thompson

Congressional Quarterly is reporting that some of the U.S. House members who had endorsed Fred Thompson for the Republican presidential nomination are having second thoughts and are underwhelmed by the former senator's lethargic campaign.

But there are no signs that Don Manzullo, the eight-term Republican who represents The Rascal's district in northern Illinois, has given up on Frederick of Hollywood.

It would be very much out of character for Manzullo to dump a guy in a situation like this. Besides, he only needs to stick with Freddy for a short while; in less than 12 weeks, Thompson's campaign will be over, and Manzullo will move on to whomever is the GOP's presumptive nominee.

Gosh, this is so unfair

Those mean people who don't see Frederick of Hollywood as the solution to America's problems, president-wise, have come up with an audiotape transcript of Richard Nixon referring to Freddy as "dumb as hell."

The slur dates back to when Nixon was in the White House and Freddy (pictured on the right) was a young lawyer for the Republicans on the Senate Watergate Committee.

This is a cheap shot. After all, Nixon was no great judge of character or smarts, was he? And besides, maybe Freddy's not so dumb anymore.

Another thing: Don Manzullo, who's smart enough to try to save America from socialized medicine for kids, thinks Freddy would make a swell president.

UPDATE: Uh-oh! Dan Bartlett, a former top aide to President Bush, says Freddy is the "biggest dud" among the Republican field of White House hopefuls.

Why do Sean Hannity and Fred Thompson hate America and denegrate our brave troops?

Decent folks have been up in arms the past few days over news that Barack Obama doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin.

The nerve of the guy! Oh, sure, he says he prefers to show his patriotism in more substantive ways. Who's he kidding? He's just a terrorist sympathizer, that's what he is. He has no respect for our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. The man's a damned traitor.

You wouldn't find Sean Hannity or Fred Thompson without flags on their lapels, would you?

Oops! I guess you would.

Uh-oh! There seems to be lots of pictures of the Republican presidential candidates all dressed up in their Sunday best -- but most of them without flags on their lapels.

Wait! It gets worse. Here's President Bush shaking hands with some guy, and the prez is completely flagless! No wonder his approval rating is in the dumper.

Man! This country's in big, big trouble.

My homework

I'm busy studying this photo for body-langauge tips and overall style because, you see, I'm only three months younger than Frederick of Hollywood, and I, too, might someday want to land me a lovely lady who's 24 years my junior.

If and when that happens, I'm also going to run for president on a platform of not knowing much about anything, which I will demonstrate by delivering boring speeches. And I'll expect to be endorsed by Don Manzullo (as Frederick has been).

Yes, siree. Senior citizenship can be a lot of fun, if you play it right. God bless America.

Frederick of Hollywood drops Hamlet pose

Actor Fred Thompson finally is ready to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.

Oooh! Feel the surge!

I've got a feeling that this guy is going to burn out very quickly. What's he got to recommend himself? Not much, it would seem.

Oh, I forgot. He's Don Manzullo's candidate.

Frederick of Hollywood is a pessimist

Hey, Freddie. This is no way to get yourself elected president.

Frederick of Hollywood speaks

Now we know why Don Manzullo has endorsed the yet-to-be-announced presidential candidacy of Fred Thompson.

It's because the guy is so articulate. Consider, for example, his response to a question today on just when he might actually get in the race:

We are going to be getting in if we get in, and of course, we are in the testing the waters phase. We’re going to be making a statement shortly that will cure all of that. But yeah, we’ll be in traditionally when people get in this race.

Admit it. The man's eloquence puts Barack Obama to shame. And Fred's an actor, too, you know.

The Republican obsession with masculinity

Once again, the ever-reliable Digby has provided us cause to ponder the peculiar penchant among Republicans to worry about their political masculinity.

Digby's vehicles this time are Stephen J. Doucat's book "The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity," and the cover story in the latest edition of The New Republic, "The Masculine Mystique of Fred Thompson."

As we've noted here previously on several occasions -- this one, for example -- one can find among males of the americanus republicanus species an innate fear of the loss of masculinity. Consequently, these strange critters are given to pounding their chests and acting belligerent or presuming to protect the females among them -- even when no such protection is required -- just to make themselves feel superior.

Ah, yes, they're an interesting, almost amusing, breed. But their ranks are thinning because of the excesses of the males.

"Hey, save me a hit on that bong!"

He looks kind of stoned, doesn't he?

Gosh! Who'da believed it? It turns out that Fred Thompson, Hollywood darling of the Republican Party and former trial lawyer, has a record of arguing against the government's authority to regulate drug paraphernalia or to search a boat packed with 14 tons of marijuana.

No kidding. It's right here in the Washington Post.

Wait a minute! I thought the Republicans hated Hollywood celebrities and trial lawyers! And this Thompson guy took $1.5 million in campaign contributions from lawyers when he was in the Senate.

What's going on here? The front-runners for the Republican nomination are Fred Thompson, a pro-doper trial lawyer from Hollywood, and Rudy Giuliani, a cross-dressing pro-choicer who's been married three times (including once to his cousin)?

Has everybody in the GOP been smoking something?

UPDATE: Now we have word that Thompson's fundraising efforts are lagging badly and that he took in only $3 million last month, which is chump change in presidential politics. A lousy 3 million! Yeah, you can buy a lot of really good weed with that kind of money, but it ain't gonna land you no Republican nomination. You dig?

The Rascal sticks his neck out

At considerable risk to my reputation as a political seer non pareil, I'm predicting here that Fred Thompson will not run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Remember where you heard it first -- except if I'm wrong, in which case, I'll delete this post and never admit to having said any such thing.

Which GOP prez hopeful leads in Illinois?

Come on. Ask yourself: Which of the 10 candidates for the Republican presidential nomination (11, if you include Fred Thompson) is ahead in Illinois?

If I didn't already know the answer, I probably would have guessed Thompson. Well, according to this American Research Group poll, it's Rudy Giuliani by nine percentage points over Thompson.

I expect that to change. Yes, yes, I know that Illinois Republicans, on the whole, are a bit more moderate than their brethren nationally (and they're becoming increasingly moderate in the suburbs of Chicago). But Rudy's popularity among the GOP rank-and-file in this state likely will fade as his numbers decline elsewhere, as surely they will.

There's simply no way that this thrice-married, pro-choice, pro-gay New Yorker is going to be the Republican nominee. He'll be an also-ran by Christmas.

The ARG poll results for Illinois in the Democratic race also are a bit surprising, in that favorite son Barack Obama is no better than tied with Hillary Clinton when you factor in the margin of error. But that, too, will change before year's end.

Would this roil the Republican Party or what?

Sally Quinn writes this in today's Washington Post about rumors that Dick Cheney will be ousted from the vice presidency on a health-issue pretext and replaced by actor-presidential candidate Fred Thompson.

How's that going to sit with Romney, Giuliani, McCain and the others vieing for the GOP presidential nod? Not well, I would think.

Ready for Freddy?

The 10-member Republican field of presidential candidates is so lame that lawyer-lobbyist-actor Fred Thompson, who hasn't even officially thrown his hat into the ring, is now statistically tied with Rudy Giuliani for the lead in the race for the GOP nomination.

(Some outlets are reporting that Thompson's one-point advantage in the Rasmussen poll puts him ahead of Rudy, but as I warned you here, the media generally aren't very good at reading poll results.)

Anyway, Thompson's apparently the flavor-of-the-summer in Republican circles. Here in RascalLand, the writer of this letter to the editor of the Rockford Register Star is more than ready for Freddy, and there are plenty more like him all across the fruited plain.

Which raises anew a question I posed last month in another context: Why are Republicans, given their vaunted hatred of Hollywood, seemingly more likely than Democrats to fall in love with actors? Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Fred Thompson, et al. What's the deal?

The vast majority of Americans know nothing of Thompson beyond what they've seen of him in movies and on television. Are the ordinary folks who see him as presidential timber merely enamored of the kind of fictional characters he plays? Do they know that he's not really a Washington outsider? Are they aware that he was paid tons of money over several decades to pimp for corporations in the corridors of political power? Are they aware that his military experience has been pretty much limited to roles in movies like "The Hunt for Red October"?

I may be wrong about this, but it's my guess that the Democratic presidential nominee, whoever that turns out to be, will be happy if his Republican counterpart is Frederick Dalton Thompson.

Brilliant conservative analysis

Have you ever heard of a guy named Erick Erickson?

He's the head man over at RedState.com, a prominent conservative Web site that draws tens of thousands visitors each day. He's apparently also a man who likes to cover all his bases, even to the point of being ridiculous about it.

The Rascal was roaming the Net this morning in search of commentary on last night's debate among the Republican presidential candidates when I stumbled upon a piece by Erickson. It was so confusing, I had to read it three times.

In short order, Erickson declared that "John McCain won" and that "Fred Thompson...really won." He said that "not one of the men on the stage rose to a level to really stand out" and that "Mitt Romney shined, he stood out, he did well." Getting back to McCain, Erickson said he "reigned supreme."

Oh, Erickson also said: "Let's not dance around about this."

They actually pay this guy to write this stuff. Read it here.