Recently in Fred Thompson Category

The media is covering the Huckabee-Thompson duel for religious conservatives in South Carolina, God-o-Meter thinks it has glossed over an important distinction in the two candidates' approaches on the stump. Huckabee comes across as a populist "compassionate conservative," while Thompson comes across as what Michael Gerson calls in today's Washington Post a "callous conservative." Gerson beats up Thompson over a recent response he gave to a question on the government's role in combating HIV/AIDS, but God-o-Meter noticed this same seeming insensitivity during a day and half with Thompson on the campaign trail. Elderly voters would complain of expensive prescription drug prices and Thompson basically told them to suck it up.

The meat of Gerson's piece:

At a campaign stop attended by a CBS reporter in Lady's Island, S.C., Thompson was asked if he, "as a Christian, as a conservative," supported President Bush's global AIDS initiative. "Christ didn't tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it," Thompson responded. "The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other."

Thompson went on: "I'm not going to go around the state and the country with regards to a serious problem and say that I'm going to prioritize that. With people dying of cancer, and heart disease, and children dying of leukemia still, I got to tell you -- we've got a lot of problems here. . . . " Indeed, there are a lot of problems here -- mainly of Thompson's own making.

While he is not an isolationist, he clearly is playing to isolationist sentiments. His objection, it seems, is not to government spending on public health but to spending on foreigners. But this is badly shortsighted. America is engaged in a high-stakes ideological struggle in Africa, where radicals and terrorists seek to fill the vacuum of failed and hopeless societies. Fighting disease and promoting development are important foreign policy tools in this struggle, which Thompson apparently does not appreciate or even understand.

Thompson's argument reflects an anti-government extremism, which I am sure his defenders would call a belief in limited government. In this case, Thompson is limiting government to a half-full thimble. Its duties apparently do not extend to the treatment of sick people in extreme poverty, which should be "the role of us as individuals and as Christians." One wonders, in his view, if responding to the 2004 tsunami should also have been a private responsibility. Religious groups are essential to fighting AIDS, but they cannot act on a sufficient scale.

Thompson also dives headfirst into the shallow pool of his own theological knowledge. In his interpretation, Jesus seems to be a libertarian activist who taught that compassion is an exclusively private virtue. This ignores centuries of reflection on the words of the Bible that have led to a nearly universal Christian conviction that government has obligations to help the weak and pursue social justice. Religious social reformers fought to end child labor and improve public health. It is hard to imagine they would have used the teachings of Christ to justify cutting off lifesaving drugs for tens of thousands of African children -- an argument both novel and obscene.

As his campaign ambles along the back roads of upstate South Carolina, it’s little surprise that many of the voters turning out to hear Fred Thompson are evangelical Christians. In these parts, Baptist churches are more common than any chain restaurant. As Thompson spoke at Yoder’s Dutch Kitchen in Abbeville the other day, the marquee out front was mum on about daily specials but did proclaim “Jesus is Lord.”

The biggest applause line in Thompson’s stump speech at stops like this is that Americans’ rights “come from God, not the government.”

Indeed, Thompson’s aides are the first to admit they view Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher whose main base of support in early primary and caucus states has come from evangelical Christians, as their prime competition here. They say Thompson’s modest increases in recent polls here have come at Huckabee’s expense.

But as Thompson continues to bank on strong support from religious conservatives for a top three finish here, he has nonetheless remained reticent about his own faith and is visibly less excited speaking about socially conservative causes like stopping abortion and gay marriage than about terrorism, government spending, or illegal immigration. That reticence and enthusiasm gap could wind up costing him dearly in the Palmetto State.

After offering rambling answers to questions about immigration and economy at Whiteford’s Giant Burger in small-town Laurens on Wednesday, Thompson parried a question about his views on “abortion” and “other moral issues” in 20 second flat. “I’m the candidate on the Republican side that has received the endorsement of the National Right to Life folks and the South Carolina Citizens for Life—I think that says it all,” Thompson said coolly. “I held my record better than anybody. I had a 100-percent pro-life voting record while I was in the Senate.”

The questioner, hungry for more red meat on hot-button social issues, threw Thompson a softball: “And what about keeping 'In God We Trust' on our money and keeping references to God…”

But Thompson just grew chillier. “Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely,” he interrupted. “Our country was founded on those things and those beliefs. It’s on our monuments and on our currency. That says it all.”

Next question.

Many national Christian Right figures have long expressed skepticism about Thompson after being initially bullish about him, with the drain in support due as much to his apparent lack of passion for social issues as to his actual positions. In an email briefing last night, Family Research Council Action president Tony Perkins wrote that Thompson is “struggling to interest [religious conservative] voters… when his manner suggests his own lack of passion for them.”

If Thompson was hoping to skirt the influence of evangelical power players like Perkins by taking his case directly to religious conservatives, he might run up against the same problems he encountered with their leadership. “I was hoping to get something more personal, more of a testimony,” said Amanda Capps, managing editor of the Laurens County Advertiser, after interviewing Thompson on his campaign bus following his appearance at Whiteford’s Giant Burger. “We want the right person to be in charge, and that starts with Jesus Christ.”

“I asked about his prayer in schools, and he didn’t’ say much,” Capps added.

Thompson, in a brief interview, said the only time faith comes up on the campaign trail is when reporters, not voters, ask him about it. “The only thing I hear about it are because of questions of people such as yourself [reporters] are asking, and otherwise it’s never an issue,” Thompson said. “People have a right to their opinions and a right to express their opinions, and it’s not for me to judge them on that basis and I don’t appreciate it when I’m judged.”

In fact, Thompson’s events are often filled with outspoken evangelicals who ask about “moral issues” and matters as diverse as Israel and keeping “In God We Trust” on currency as an invitation for Thompson to open up about his faith. “We don’t want someone in office who goes to church once a year just to get credit,” said Austin New, a 27-year old forester who attended a Thompson Q&A in Abbeville this week. “We don’t want separation of church and state.”

Earlier in the campaign, Thompson had made it clear that he’s not a regular churchgoer.

After seeing Thompson, New said he was still deciding between Thompson and Huckabee.

In an interview on Wednesday, Thompson’s wife Jeri defended her husband’s reticence about his personal faith. “Since when is humility a bad thing?” she said. “This is the fist cycle when humility in a leader... how would Abe Lincoln have fared, how would Eisenhower have fared?”

“But if we didn’t have faith, we wouldn’t be here,” she continued. “We have nothing to lose here but our integrity.”

God-o-Meter caught up with Fred Thompson and his wife Jeri at various South Carolina events this week and has cobbled together this Q&A from a few separate exchanges. God-o-Meter has lots more to say about the Thompsons' answers--and will--but it has to head off to interview Ron Paul at Bob Jones University.

God-o-Meter: Do you think religion is playing too big a role in the presidential race?

Fred Thompson: I don’t have any feelings a long those lines. I think people have a right to express themselves, including people of faith, no question about it, and they’re participating and I’m glad to see it.

GOM: Last year, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson said it was his impression that you weren’t a Christian. Are the faith lives of the candidates playing too big a role in the race, as opposed to the faith of voters?

FT: The only thing I hear about it are because of questions of people such as yourself [reporters] are asking, and otherwise it’s never an issue. People have a right to their opinions and a right to express their opinions, and it’s not for me to judge them on that basis and I don’t appreciate it when I’m judged. As far as I’m concerned, everything’s on track.

GOM: You said in the most recent debate that Huckabee was a “Christian leader” but also a “liberal leader.” Do you think he’s gotten too much Christian support on the basis that he’s a Christian leader?

FT: That’s not for me to judge. I just related the facts. The facts are that he is a Christian leader and the facts are the he has more liberal economic and foreign policies than I think is good for our country and out of the mainstream of the Republican Party.

GOM: In an interview with Beliefnet, Mike Huckabee said that your approach to leaving the question of abortion to the states would be as immoral as leaving the issue of slavery to the states during the Civil War…

FT: You have to go back and check—Governor Huckabee said that it ought to be left up to the states pretty consistently up until he started running for president. You ought to check on that. You ought to do a little research on that and when he says things like that ask him when he changed his mind.

GOM: You’ve staked a lot of your campaign on South Carolina? How well do you have to do here in order to stay in the race?

FT: Pretty doggone well, pretty doggone well. Different [candidates] have won different important states and in every case they probably had to win those states and they did so… we’ll see on election night how well very well is, because rankings and percentage play into it as well as rankings, but there’s no question I have to do very well here.

GOM: Does that mean first or second place?

FT: That’s all I’m saying about that.

GOM: Some conservative Christian leaders I've talked to say that they're more impressed with you than with your husband.

Jeri Thompson: We are really a team, from anything from national security and China and America’s role in the world to family values—using the bully pulpit to the extent that a president can. Fred often talks about the fact that he doesn’t really want to be president but to do those things that only a president can do.

One of those things is use that bully pulpit to talk about the value of being a father and being a father. Fred’s been blessed—I’m his second family, I’m his second wife. He was married at 17. This is not his first rodeo, so looking back and knowing what your values are become a little clearer when you get older. One thing he’s said often is that what goes through a man’s mind from the time our four-year-olds are at the top of the stairs to the bottom is what made him ultimately decide to run for president. If we don’t address these issues… in terms of what we leave our next generation and what we leave our children--that really motivated us. And our faith.

GOM: Conservative Christian leaders have criticized your husband for not talking enough about his faith.

JT: Since when is humility a bad thing? This is the first cycle when humility in a leader... how would Abe Lincoln have fared, how would Eisenhower have fared? But if we didn’t have faith, we wouldn’t be here. We have nothing to lose here but our integrity.

Here in South Carolina, where God-o-Meter will be operating for the next several days, the conventional wisdom is that Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney are in a two-man duel for GOP's evangelicals in this Saturday's primary. That's what makes tonight's briefing from Family Research Council Action, legislative arm of the beltway's top evangelical lobbying group, so darned interesting. Intended as a state-of-the presidential race update, the FRC briefing is most noteworthy for which Republican candidate it barely mentions: Fred Thompson.

While heaping praise on Mike Huckabee (no surprise there), Mitt Romney (another testament to his success winning the evangelical elite), and John McCain (more evidence he's no longer the Christian Right's bete noir), the briefing offers one fragment (mostly parenthetical) on the man once expected to be the savior of the GOP's distraught social conservative base:

...Fred Thompson (who has all three legs [of the Republican coalition] but is struggling to interest voters in them when his manner suggests his own lack of passion for them)...

God-o-Meter is witnessing this phenomenon on the ground in the Palmetto state. Thompson's events draw a high evangelical quotient, including a fair number of home schooling parents and activists, but many seem more impressed before seeing him speak, because of his conservative record and National Right to Life Committee endorsement, than after.

The rest of the memo Family Research Council memo:

The Race vs. The Base in the GOP

The lesson that some are drawing from the results of the Republican presidential voting to date is that the race for the party's nomination is wide open. The deeper lesson is that the race for the GOP agenda is anything but wide open. The Republican caucus and primary contests to date prove incontrovertibly what we and others, like our friends at the Heritage Foundation, have been saying all along, and that what a few GOP leaders like Dick Armey were saying, and doing, last year is false and dangerous.

The simple truth is that the conservative coalition--a three-legged stool--stands when social, economic and defense conservatives work together on an interlocking agenda. The coalition collapses when any of the legs is missing. Armey and others, especially the early enthusiasts for Rudy Giuliani, suggested that the social conservative leg of the stool is dispensable, or at least that it can be appreciably shortened without impact on the greater stability of the coalition. This thesis is not only false in theory, it now has been decisively shown not to represent what the conservative coalition actually believes. The three winners of the contests to date are each emblematic of one of the legs of the stool, and each is attempting to shore up his standing with the other two "legs:"

Iowa: Mike Huckabee, Social leg
New Hampshire: John McCain, Defense leg
Michigan: Mitt Romney, Economic leg

In Michigan, these three individuals, now leading their party's nomination race, won more than 85% of the vote. The remainder went to Ron Paul (who represents the small, doctrinaire libertarian portion of the coalition), Fred Thompson (who has all three legs but is struggling to interest voters in them when his manner suggests his own lack of passion for them), and Rudy Giuliani (trailing badly now because each leg of the coalition has a much better option than he is). Giuliani's crushing last-place finish in Michigan only underscores the larger point: the GOP coalition is looking for coherence on all three parts of the message and the base constituency of the party is fairly evenly split among those who hold each of these legs highest when forced to choose among them.

Somehow or other, if the conservative coalition is to re-form, these three legs need their favorites to unite around the strongest themes of each, to wit: 1) the surge worked, and it is no longer business as usual against radical Islamic terrorism - we will take the fight to them and win for our values (McCain); 2) the government is run with all the efficiency of a barroom brawl where the sailors are bad enough but it's actually the drunken captains doing the damage, and someone with business acumen has to clean it up (Romney); and 3) moral values are indispensable to a free nation that hopes to have and keep small government, and we can't get there without some Old-Time Religion, and those old-timers, our nation's almost uniformly Christian founders, knew it (Huckabee).

Obviously, each of the three leading Republicans can lay some claim to the other two themes that are not their primary ones (e.g., McCain as a budget cutter, Romney as a convert to traditional values, Huckabee as a no-tax pledge - but none of the three can make a clean sale to the rest of the coalition). There is probably nothing they could do that would be more unifying than to rally now around a platform that embodies the coalition in full.

The message: the GOP electorate is asking its leaders to reassemble the stool, plant it firmly in the cockpit of the party, and get the plane fast down the runway and off the ground. The message to Rudy? The tailwinds have passed you by, and the party you want to lead is moving on. The race is not wide open. A unified agenda beckons the GOP to a surge of its own.

God-o-Meter's new fellow Beliefnet blogger Reformed Chicks Blabbing has made a personal plea for GOM to raise Fred Thompson's reading on the basis that he relies on sound Christian theology in envisioning government's role in curing social ills. Here's what Thompson said on Saturday in South Carolina, according to CBS News:

A woman asked him if he would “as a Christian, as a conservative” continue President Bush’s programs to combat global AIDS.

“Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it,” Thompson said.

“The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other.”

God-o-Meter will grant Reformed Chicks (which really refers to one blogger, despite the name) and goose Thompson's number. And with Thompson vying with Huckabee (not to mention Romney) for evangelical votes in this Saturday's South Carolina primary, God-o-Meter suspects these aren't Thompson's only religion comments this week.