You have to hand it to any blog post or article that includes the words "unless" and "that man is Fred Thompson". At least any written since the former actor announced his candidacy and began what some persist in calling a campaign.
Slate's Christopher Beam makes the suggestion that if insurgent Mike Huckabee is the Republican Howard Dean then what the party ought to be looking for is a better John Kerry than Mitt Romney (rich Massachusetts man with hair) currently offers.
He's got a lot of Kerry in him, if Kerry were a Republican: a solid conservative record, strong electability prospects, a dull campaign. He trails in Iowa and nationally, just like Kerry. He's great on paper, just like Kerry. But in practice he would probably fail to inspire people to show up to the polls - just like Kerry. So, I take it back: If Republicans want a safe, ultimately uninspiring nominee, they need look no further than Thompson.
In fairness to Kerry, he took everything the Bush campaign could throw at him and still wound up with 59,028,111 votes (for comparison, Clinton won 47,400,125 in 1996; Gore 51,003,926 in 2000) so is not true to say he failed "to inspire people to show up". But Fred Thompson for another 10 months, it is an interesting prospect.
