Hands-On Role for Wife in Thompson%u2019s Campaign
One Friday afternoon last month, Jeri Kehn Thompson took attendance at the testing-the-waters presidential campaign headquarters of her husband, Fred D. Thompson. Mrs. Thompson checked to see which staff members were working at their desks, said a Republican close to the campaign, and went on to chide those who were A.W.O.L.

The spot-check is just one of many indications that Mrs. Thompson, a former political consultant herself, is taking an active, hands-on role in the effort to propel Mr. Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, into a presidential candidacy.

for the rest...

Senator-turned-actor in top tier of 2008 race despite scrutiny
In the Republican field of dreams, the ideal presidential candidate looks like this: a tall, conservative, straight-talking movie actor from far outside the Beltway. Since none of the current crop quite measures up, some GOP voters are looking to a noncandidate %u2013 former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.

Influential Southern Baptist leader Richard Land is effusive, touting him as "a Southern-fried Reagan."

Is Fred Thompson the G.O.P.'s Savior?

For those not paying close attention, and others simply in denial, it is worth taking a moment to review just how bleak life has become for members of the Grand Old Party. Last fall Republicans were swept from power in both houses of Congress. This summer the incumbent Republican President is setting standards for unpopularity not seen since the Nixon Watergate era. In recent weeks the campaign of the war-hero Senator who was once the party's presumptive nominee has all but collapsed in debt and blame. The latest financial reports show that the G.O.P.'s always reliable money advantage has vaporized, with Democratic candidates out-raising Republicans by more than $100 million for next year's federal elections. Adding a little salt to his party's wounds, Newt Gingrich, leader of a Republican revolution that seems but a misty memory, summed up the current field of would-be G.O.P. Presidents as "pygmies."

Faced with this litany of despair, many Republican faithful, from the grass roots to the Capitol, have concluded that Fred Thompson, the preternaturally avuncular actor and former Senator from Tennessee, is the cure-all for their party's ills. Thompson has yet to enter the presidential race. He has, in fact, postponed until after Labor Day an official announcement that was supposed to be made in July. And yet Thompson already shares front-runner status with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in some national polls of G.O.P. voters. "People are not inspired; everyone's flat-lining," says Ken Duberstein, former chief of staff for Ronald Reagan. "Right now, Fred is all things to all people. Everyone's waiting to see if he can live up to expectations."

In the Washington Post, John Solomon writes,

On the Internet sites where conservatives gather to read and chat each day, Fred D. Thompson, the as-yet- unannounced Republican presidential candidate, has been laying out his positions on of issues with little public notice and plenty of rhetorical flair.

The Virginia Tech massacre, he said, showed that students should be allowed to carry guns "to protect themselves on their campuses," and he said the university's ban on legal guns may have contributed to how long the shooter was able to keep killing.

Judge Southwick Should Be Confirmed
by Fred Thompson
You%u2019ve probably never heard of Rebecca Nurse, but bear with me for a moment. Nurse arrived in Salem, Massachusetts in 1640. There, despite being known as a woman of virtue and piety, she was accused of being a witch. On July 19, 1692, she was hanged.

Now almost 315 years to the day later, one of Nurse%u2019s descendants is suffering through a witch hunt of a more modern variety. I%u2019m talking about Judge Leslie Southwick, whose nomination to the long-standing vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is being thwarted by Senate Democrats.

Sadly, Judge Southwick is just the latest in a long line of nominees for that bench to be delayed. President Bush%u2019s previous two nominees, Charles Pickering in 2004 and then Michael Wallace in 2006, were likewise filibustered by Senate Democrats. Some might think that seat cursed. In reality, it%u2019s just Democrats playing their usual partisan games with a Republican President%u2019s judicial nominations.

We saw this one coming, of course. Earlier this summer, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced to liberal lawyers at the American Constitution Society: %u201CI will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.%u201D Evidently, Sen. Schumer%u2019s promise is now his party%u2019s standard operating procedure for any and all Bush Administration judicial nominations.

From the beginning of his Administration, President Bush was committed to appointing judges who understand the appropriate limits on their role and seek to interpret the law as written by Congress %u2014 rather than revising it to achieve their own preferred goals. Too many Democrats, though, prefer judges who, under the guise of interpreting the Constitution, will impose their policy preferences on the citizenry.

These are two very different notions of the appropriate role of judges. On this issue, I stand with the President, along with the kinds of judges he appoints, like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito (both of whom, I%u2019d note are now facing political scrutiny from the Senate Judiciary Committee). The battle for the courts is one that liberals take seriously, and they use every legislative and procedural arrow in their quiver to win %u2014 even if it means tearing down good people to achieve their aims.

Judge Southwick%u2019s a good example. His opponents do not question Judge Southwick%u2019s qualifications to sit on the federal appeals court. Indeed, they cannot. Judge Southwick served on the Mississippi Court of Appeals from that court%u2019s very inception in January 1995 through December 2006. Prior to serving as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice%u2019s Civil Division, from 1989 to 1993, he was in a general civil private practice for 12 years. He%u2019s taught law as an adjunct professor at Mississippi College School of Law since 1998. He%u2019s also served his country in Iraq, fulfilling his National Guard duty as Deputy Staff Judge Advocate from August 2004 to July 2005, and then as Staff Judge Advocate until January 2006. Even the American Bar Association, which often treats conservative judicial nominees unfairly, unanimously gave Judge Southwick the institution%u2019s highest possible rating.

So rather than assail Judge Southwick%u2019s legal competency, Senate Democrats, led primarily by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), are instead attacking Judge Southwick%u2019s character. Ignoring his volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity since 1993 and the time he spent as a board member and president of a local Jackson, Miss., charitable organization, Senate Democrats claim that Judge Southwick is racist and anti-homosexual.

The evidence against Judge Southwick? Two decisions he joined while sitting on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. Two, and only two, out of the more than 7,000 cases Judge Southwick heard, and in both of these instances, Judge Southwick had no hand in the writing of the rulings.

Judge Southwick%u2019s reward for being a qualified judge, and by all accounts a good citizen, is a Senatorial inquisition meant to besmirch his professional and personal reputation. No wonder it gets harder and harder to attract good people to serve in important public positions.

Judge Southwick should be confirmed.

And today, Judiciary Committee Sends Southwick to Full Senate

For seven of the past eight years, a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has sat vacant. Now it looks like Judge Leslie Southwick may fill that seat.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-9 this afternoon to let the full Senate vote on the embattled nominee %u2014 and a liberal California Democrat made the difference.

For months, Republicans have been trying to get an up-or-down vote on Southwick. Democrats on the committee who opposed the nominee attempted to paint Southwick as a racist, based on a single appeals court decision %u2014 out of more than 7,000 %u2014 that he didn't even write. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein chastised her colleagues for the unmerited "appellation."

In testimony today, Feinstein told the committee: "I truly believe the concerns outlined about Judge Southwick are outweighed by his service to the country, by the many cases he sat on.

"If I believed he was racist, I wouldn't vote for him. But I don't."

A Look at the Fund-Raising of a G.O.P. Noncandidate
(from the New York Times, believe it or not!)

When former Senator Fred D. Thompson began testing the waters this spring for a run for the Republican presidential nomination, he sparked heated speculation about just where his financial backing might come from [sic]...

Now, it can be told %u2014 at least partly. A report filed this week with the Internal Revenue Service shows that of the $3.46 million that Mr. Thompson raised during June, very little came from donors who had previously given to the other Republican candidates. And when he did get money from donors who had already given to other campaigns it was most likely to have come from donors to Mr. Romney.

An analysis by The New York Times found that Mr. Thompson raised at least $134,000 from people who had given to Mr. Romney; at least $88,000 from people who had given to Mr. McCain, and at least $74,000 from people who had given to Mr. Giuliani. (More than a dozen donors gave to several candidates, and some gave to all four major Republican candidates.)

Interesting article - not particularly "pro"-Fred, but shows what has to be done. It really isn't a race, though, until Senator Thompson has announced and begun an actual campaign.

The Iraq war and immigration are dividing evangelicals in the early-primary state.

Recent polls of GOP voters here have had all the constancy of a roulette wheel, with Sen. John McCain of Arizona, actor Fred Thompson, and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani each taking turns at the top.

Thompson as a wild card

The main wild card here is Mr. Thompson, the "Law & Order" actor and former Tennessee senator, who has been honing his image as a traditional conservative and "speaks our language" as a Southerner, as one activist here put it. But if he enters the race, analysts say, his lobbying for an abortion-rights group, his second marriage to a woman 24 years his junior, and his vote for a campaign finance measure loathed by religious conservatives could become liabilities.

Judge Southwick Should Be Confirmed
You%u2019ve probably never heard of Rebecca Nurse, but bear with me for a moment. Nurse arrived in Salem, Massachusetts in 1640. There, despite being known as a woman of virtue and piety, she was accused of being a witch. On July 19, 1692, she was hanged.

Now almost 315 years to the day later, one of Nurse%u2019s ancestors is suffering through a witch hunt of a more modern variety. I%u2019m talking about Judge Leslie Southwick, whose nomination to the long-standing vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is being thwarted by Senate Democrats.

Sadly, Judge Southwick is just the latest in a long line of nominees for that bench to be delayed. President Bush%u2019s previous two nominees, Charles Pickering in 2004 and then Michael Wallace in 2006, were likewise filibustered by Senate Democrats. Some might think that seat cursed. In reality, it%u2019s just Democrats playing their usual partisan games with a Republican President%u2019s judicial nominations.

Fred on Restoring Federalism:
Bring Back Reagan on the 10th Amendment
Fred at I'm with Fred as quoted by Mark Tapscott of The Washington Examiner

Beyond specific policies, what's needed are some basic rules to restrain the federal rule-makers.

A good first step would be to codify the Executive Order on Federalism first signed by President Ronald Reagan. That Executive Order, first revoked by President Clinton, then modified to the point of uselessness, required agencies to respect the principle of the Tenth Amendment when formulating policies and implementing the laws passed by Congress.

It preserved the division of responsibilities between the states and the federal government envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution. It was a fine idea that should never have been revoked. The next president should put it right back in effect, and see to it that the rightful authority of state and local governments is respected.

It is not enough to say that we are 'for' federalism, because in today's world it is not always clear what that means. What we are 'for' is liberty for our citizens. Federalism divides power between the states and government in Washington. It is a tool to promote freedom. How we draw the line between federal and state roles in this century, and how we stay true to the principles of federalism for the purpose of protecting economic and individual freedom are questions we must answer. Our challenge %u2013 meaning the federal government, the states, our communities and constituents %u2013 is to answer these questions together.

Thompson knows how to get there
Don't underestimate the man...
by William B. Lacy, director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. He had senior roles in the Reagan, Bush and Dole presidential campaigns from 1980 through 1996 and managed Sen. Fred Thompson%u2019s 1994 campaign. His e-mail address is wbl@ku.edu.

Fred Thompson "has been tested: In the darkest hours of his political career, when the wheels were about to come off his first campaign, he figured out how to scoop them up, put them on a red truck and drive off into the sunset.

It was classic Hollywood %u2014 a happy ending. I hear they are planning a sequel."