Yesterday afternoon, I was invited to a small private reception with former United States Senator Fred Thompson at the beautiful home of the Davis family, nestled on the coastal hillside overlooking Crystal Cove State Park and the pacific ocean in Newport Beach. It truly was an intimate affair, with about twenty folks in attendance, including the Presidential aspirant, his beautiful wife, and two of Thompson’s political point people in California, longtime political strategist Ken Khachigian and local consultant Dave Ellis.
All told had nearly an hour with Senator Thompson, and it was spent the way you would like it to be… We all gathered up chairs in the back patio of this gorgeous home and had an intimate chat with the man who aspires to the top elective office in our nation.
Having never spent any real quality time with Thompson before, I have to say I was very impressed by him. It was very clear in hearing him talk about issues (and this was an environment where he was free to expand on issues, without having a time-keeper reigning him in) that he truly has put a lot of thought into the issues of the day.
Thompson talked about the challenges facing America today, and how resolving many of them will necessitate a President who is willing to make hard decisions, since we are in some tough times. His topics ranged from the growing capabilities of China to the importance of making permanent President Bush’s tax cuts.
Thompson was asked whether he would consider running on a ticket with independent Senator Joe Lieberman. Thompson took the question as a serious one, and actually walked all of us through his relationship and friendship with Lieberman (the two had a Committee Chairman/Ranking Member pairing on a major committee for many years). He had great things to say about him. He did not say he would slate up with Lieberman though, nor, however, did he rule it out…
**There is more – click the link**
August 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
Was there any discussion or questions about some of his votes as a Senator?
August 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
I had an opportunity to ask him about his reflections on his vote for the McCain Feingold bill that has been so restrictive on free speech rights.
Without going on at length, his position is still that he thinks that raising the limts for direct contributions and indexing them to inflation and then severely limititing while trying to curb the impacts of those who would try to get those some candidates vast amounts of money is a good idea. He did say that he thought that, in retrospect, many aspects of the bill, including the attempts to reign in issue advocacy, were a poor idea.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
Senator Thompson has publically stated that some of the premisis of the bill were good but the modificatons of it after his involvment was a bad idea. See his podcasts on ABC networks.
It is the honest, straight talking, look you in the eye as a person and not a vote or a donor that caught my attention and support for Senator Thompson.
The feeling is nationwide. I will be the guest on a station in Ames, Iowa talking about Senator Thompson. People are yearning for a candidate that will talk to them on a personal level and listen to what is said in the conversation.
We are seeing a significant increase in volunteer requests. Some may say he has a long way to go getting a campaign in place once he announces. We are working to mitigate that.
We are working independently of Senator Thompson as there is no official campaign, to build a framework of volunteers and leaders throughout the state that can be called upon to support Senator Thompson.
I look forward to supporting Senator Thompson in the next Presidential election.
Richard Rios
Director – California for Thompson
http://www.californiaforthompson.com
California’s largest grassroots effort to support and encourage Fred Thompson to run for President