The Law and Order Candidate

It was pretty obvious from his increased profile and appearance schedule, but Fred Thompson is making it all but official by forming a Presidential exploratory committee, and goes even further in an interview with USA Today.

In an interview with USA TODAY, however, the former Tennessee senator not only makes it clear that he plans to run, he describes how he aims to do it. He's planning an unconventional campaign using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties.

I would say that's a near-total miscalculation and also likely a fabrication. The whole "unconventional campaign," which everybody says they're running these days, is designed solely to get traditional media attention. You're not going to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual by writing on a blog, least of all National Review Online and RedState, where Thompson has been blogging. It's a news peg so that people who read the paper can get a story like "Thompson's different!" He as much as admits in the article that the whole "unconventional" meme is a gimmick, as much as his "red pickup truck" shtick was a gimmick in 1994:

Thompson, who's left a five-season stint playing Manhattan District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's Law & Order, says his model will be the untraditional campaign he ran for the Senate in 1994.

After a lackluster start, Thompson swapped his suit for a plaid shirt and began driving a pickup across the state in a bid to fill the final two years of Al Gore's term. Despite his background as a Washington lawyer and lobbyist, Thompson derided Congress as larded with legislators who had lost touch with their constituents and principles [...]

"I feel some of the same feelings that I felt in the latter part of that '94 campaign about what is going on in the country today — only greater," says Thompson, citing public cynicism toward the Republican president and the new Democrat-controlled Congress. "You can't drive the truck all the way across the country, but since '94 other opportunities have opened up in terms of ways to communicate."

By the way, USA Today, it's Democratic.

So far, Thompson has distinguished himself by writing sophomoric generic Republican crap on blogs and calling Michael Moore insane in a Web video. This, apparently, is the savior of the Republican Party. He's essentially running as Bush, but competent.

And he's borrowing all the Bush dirty tricksters to do it:

Backers look for Fred Thompson to use a June 2 speech to Virginia Republicans to step closer toward the race. Thompson allies have had discussions with Tim Griffin, the Arkansas U.S. attorney and Rove protégé, about taking a top job with the campaign.

Griffin, of course, was installed as the U.S. attorney for Little Rock last year. Emails from Kyle Sampson have shown that the Justice Department and White House were plotting to use a little noticed provision in the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization Bill to keep Griffin in place throughout Bush's term without the need for Senate confirmation. Alberto Gonzales has somewhat unconvincingly disavowed the plan.

So the guy's hiring Karl Rove's protege to help run the campaign. His presumed campaign manager is a tobacco lobbyist. Were George Steinbrenner and Satan busy?

Fred Thompson is essentially a stand-in for George Allen; a guy who looks the part, who can talk tough and act like a shitkicker without all the nasty side effects of being pro-abortion and pro-gun control like Rudy Giuliani. He certainly has a shot at the Republican nomination; whether the public will be so bamboozled as to pick someone on a facade of personality alone, again, remains to be seen.

As a side note, wouldn't a Gore-Thompson Tennesee two-step be special?

UPDATE: Thompson also apparently thinks that the Republicans lost the election because of spending and not the Iraq war. Sounds like someone with his pulse on the electorate. All that time hanging out at NRO and RedState has got him believing that's how the country thinks. This could be the first-ever Freeper candidate.