You ain't nothin' but a hound dog

Fred Thompson, who is running for President by not running, may looks and sound like Huckleberry Hound, but there the resemblance ends. His corn-pone manner and down home act won't wear very well once people get past the smell of manure.

Michelle Cottle at Washington Monthly had this back in 1996:

Finishing his talk, Thompson shakes a few hands, then walks out with the rest of the crowd to the red pickup truck he made famous during his 1994 Senate campaign. My friend stands talking with her colleagues as the senator is driven away by a blond, all-American staffer. A few minutes later, my friend gets into her car to head home. As she pulls up to the stop sign at the parking lot exit, rolling up to the intersection is Senator Thompson, now behind the wheel of a sweet silver luxury sedan. He gives my friend a slight nod as he drives past. Turning onto the main road, my friend passes the school's small, side parking area. Lo and behold: There sits the abandoned red pickup, along with the all-American staffer.

Not only is this a cheap stunt, but it presumes the public he's campaigning in front of are idiots. It's like thinking mom won't notice you ate some of the cake, while you have icing on your nose.

While Thompson may have put one over on Tennessee before, it's going to be harder to convince the rest of America that he's just a good ol' boy. Cottle continued:

Thompson's acting background alone might have made the Reagan comparisons inevitable. But he also has that innate "Reaganesque" charisma that neither MGM nor Julliard can impart. (In describing the senator, people use "mesmerizing" and "magnetic" often enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck.) Also, like no Republican since Reagan, Thompson embodies what the GOP is desperate to achieve: a marriage between its social traditionalists and its fiscal conservatives.

Here we part company. The comparisons, especially now, to Reagan are overwrought and optimistic, to put it mildly. Rather than display Reagan's sunny, if deluded and partially Alzheimer's-addled charm, Thompson glowers, and comes off gruff and cranky. And his record is clearly one of rigid Right-wing beliefs and votes.

But here's where he might have some trouble with the traditional-values folks: here's a picture of Thompson with his daughter the night of her High School Prom:


Fooled ya! Actually that Smilin' Fred in 2002, age 59, marrying his new bride, age 35. For the math challenged, that's a 24 year age difference.

And if that's not enough, here's some more from Wikipedia:

By 1982, Thompson was lobbying the U.S. Congress for passage of the Savings and Loan deregulation legislation. The federal deregulation legislation allowed for additional government support of ailing S&Ls; gave U.S. thrifts the freedom to invest in potentially more profitable, but riskier, ventures; and eliminated interest-rate ceilings on new accounts. Thompson's recommendations were incorporated into the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982.^[8]

In 1991, he began work with the Washington, D.C. firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, & Kahn, representing overseas business entities as a registered foreign agent.^[8]

So not only did he help set up the Savings & Loan debacle of the of the late '80s for The Keating 5 (which included John McCain, [R-Hypocrite]), but he is a former lobbyist.

I hope he doesn't try to campaign on being an"outsider". That dog don't hunt.