Better Fred Than Dead

The recent backlash against the Fred Thompson boomlet has often consisted of gross simplification and misreading of Republican voters' intentions and political sophistication. Supposedly, the people who support Thompson are projecting all their hopes and desires for a perfect president onto Thompson. They're not looking realistically at Thompson's strengths and weaknesses. They want another Reagan and so they're suspending their disbelief and wishfully seeing Reagan in Thompson.

This "When it's almost closing time your beer goggles make Amy Klobuchar look like Amy Acker" theory to explain Fred Thompson's support doesn't hold water with me. Most Republicans are sober enough to know that Thompson is not the next Reagan. But what he is isn't as important as what he isn't.

He's not Mitt Romney and he's not Rudy Giuliani. I think a lot of Republicans voters have come to the realization that Romney and Giuliani are the only viable options at this point and they're looking for a third choice.

A couple of troubling numbers for the Romney people to chew on:

- According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll American voters say they favor a generic Democrat over a generic Republican for president by a 52% to 31% margin. That's a significant gap to overcome in and of itself.

- Couple that with another poll that shows that 43% of Americans would not vote for a Mormon for president.

No matter how hard you might try to do the math, there is no way that those numbers don't equal a crushing defeat for the GOP if Romney is the candidate in 2008. It doesn't matter whether you think that his religion matters or not. The poll numbers show that it does and with winning the presidency already shaping up to be a difficult if not impossible task for any Republican, it means that he simply can't win.

And even though he's leading the field right now, when the rubber meets the road I can't imagine pro-life conservatives are actually willing to give Giuliani a pass on abortion.

So the choice comes down to losing the election with Romney or losing our souls (figuratively) with Giuliani. Is it any wonder that a Thompson candidacy holds promise?