Boston.com reports that social conservatives are “coalescing” around Fred Thompson as their choice for Republican nominee for President in 2008.
“There’s a consensus developing around him that’s pretty clear and pretty profound,” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, an Orlando-based conservative group. “I’ve never seen anything like it in 25 years in politics.”
I agree. In 1979, as a high school sophomore with a National Review subscription, I became dissatisfied (for a short time) with the GOP. Don’t hunt me down and beat me, but I pulling for Ted Kennedy in October 1979.
The kid who sat in front of me in History, Jamie MacGauley, told me I was nuts. He said to find out more about Reagan. So I did.
It took about fifteen minutes for me to apologize to the universe for ever thinking Ted Kennedy was qualified for office higher than driving instructor.
Between October 1979 and June 1980, the Reagan tidal wave consumed me. Everywhere he went, he changed people’s hearts. He messed with people’s minds. Blue collar union guys from my neighborhood who never voted for a Republican in their lives were asking me if I had any more Reagan bumper stickers. I became the neighborhood clearinghouse for stickers and buttons.
Nineteen-Hundred Eighty was a wonderful year.
I get the same feeling about Thompson. He doesn’t have the worst president in history to run against, but he does have the opportunity to run a positivist campaing. The Democrats can’t. They have to paint America as a toilet, a cesspool of evil and greed, because that’s what Democrat believe.
Thompson can beam hope, optimism, and future. He can swell the hearts of millions who know America is a great country but feel pressured to criticize her becaue of the liberal, anti-American culture.
That’s why I’m for Fred: I want my fucking country back.