Fred enters the Race

Fred Thompson’s candidacy had excited considerable attention, with a lot of speculation and discussion in the weeks leading up to his formal announcement. He came to New Hampshire the day after he announced and after visiting Iowa, and the Nashua Peace group decided to go and stand there with our peace signs. I was also very curious to see and hear him, being a huge Law and Order fan, and because he seemed like a likely winner of the Republican nomination at that point.

His meeting was in front of the Nashua City Hall, and I was surprised by the small size of the crowd. There were about 50 press people, but only 25 or so attendees. It was a very rainy day, and we got pretty wet waiting for him to come - the event was scheduled to being at 4.00pm and he arrived almost an hour late, straight away failing my mother’s test (as she says – isn’t my time important too?). Maybe the rain contributed to lower attendance. But the people who did come seemed to ardently believe in him. It was the first time I was with the Nashua Peace Group at a Republican event – and our reception was very different. At Democratic events people usually come up and thank us for doing this. Here people either ignored us or came up and argued. One veteran, now an elected New Hampshire state representative, in particular began to argue with us, said we disgusted him, but also said that we had a right to be there because of the freedom of speech.

I had thought of Thompson as someone who believed in certain principles (based on his history as a lawyer during watergate where he seemed to stand by what he believed was right). That might be true, but the ideology he believes in is rather alarming – because he seems to really believe it. He talked complete privatization of healthcare, saying free market was the solution. He talked about security, which everyone talks about, he talked about military solutions and using might, which every Republican candidate talks about – but then he said this was a “war of civilizations” with the western civilization on one side! Jeez!! And what’s more, he actually seemed to believe it.

Anyway, it appears as though both his Iowa and New Hampshire events created barely any ripples. Apparently his South Carolina events were very different, with standing room only at some of them!