Right Wing Nut House

Amidst whispers that his campaign has stalled, that he has waited to long to announce, and that there is disarray at the top staff levels of his operation, Fred Thompson made a pilgrimage of sorts to visit one of Washington’s old wise men.

David S. Broder is the dean of Washington political columnists. Beyond that, Broder has been a sounding board, father confessor, straight man, and sometimes the fool for politicians from both parties for nearly three decades. When the high and mighty find themselves in trouble or in need of an honest broker in the press, they frequently seek Broder out (or Broder, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist in him sensing a good story seeks them out) to have their ideas exposed in a forum that gives them instant credibility.

Thompson recently sat down for coffee with Broder and in a column in Thursday’s Washington Post, the candidate made it clear that he was going to “go bold” in his presidential campaign by addressing issues that none of the candidates from either party were talking about.

Specifically, he wants his campaign to talk about the two 800 pound gorillas in America’s living room; entitlement reform and the underlying deficit which threaten the fiscal health and economic well being of the next generation. And his desire to be president, he says, goes beyond personal ambition:

“There’s no reason for me to run just to be president,” he said. I don’t desire the emoluments of the office. I don’t want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there — different, more far-reaching ideas — that is worth doing.

It is those ideas that will almost certainly set him apart from other candidates running. Whether they will bring him the victory he desires is, as Broder points out, “a gamble:”

The difficulties outlined in federal procurement, personnel, finances and information technology remain today, Thompson said, and increasingly “threaten national security.” His second sourcebook contains the scary reports from Comptroller General David Walker, the head of the Governmental Accountability Office, on the long-term fiscal crisis spawned by the aging of the American population and the runaway costs of health care. Walker labels the current patterns of federal spending “unsustainable,” and warns that unless action is taken soon to improve both sides of the government’s fiscal ledger — spending and revenues — the next generation will suffer.

“Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it,” Thompson said. “So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges.”

High risk, indeed. There is a reason no one is talking about these issues. They tend to divide the voters. A presidential race is all about uniting as many people under your banner as possible without making too many others mad at you. Angry people vote. And fiddling with entitlements, the tax code, and restoring fiscal sanity (which will almost surely touch many programs favored by the middle class), is a recipe to get a lot of people very, very mad at you.

But for Thompson, no guts, no glory might just be the bywords of his coming campaign. And looking at the political landscape as August begins to turn into September and his expected formal announcement to enter the race around Labor Day, Thompson is seeing a very steep hill to climb in order to overtake his rivals for the nomination.

Governor Mitt Romney, fresh off his expected straw poll victory in Ames last weekend, is comfortably ahead in both Iowa and New Hampshire. His impressive organization raised $20 million in the last quarter reported to the FEC. He also loaned his own campaign more than $2 million which highlights the very deep pockets Governor Romney will have going into the caucuses and primaries next January.

Thompson’s other main rival, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani didn’t compete in Ames, finishing a distant 6th. But he is comfortably ahead in most of the primary states including Florida and California where he is beating Thompson and Romney by almost a 2-1 margin. Giuliani also has an top notch organization and has raised almost as much as Romney - $15 million in the last quarter reported to the FEC.

Thompson has been hampered in his fund raising by an FEC rule that prohibits him from asking for more money than he can reasonably be expected to use on his exploratory committee. His $3.5 million raised last month was slightly below the $5 million he expected to raise. The real questions will be answered once he begins to campaign and raise money in earnest after he announces. Can he keep pace with the Giuliani/Romney juggernauts?

Probably not. This is why his gamble in taking on divisive issues may be his only chance at success. In effect, he will be running almost outside the party establishment, trying to appeal to conservative Republicans and right-leaning independents to stitch together a winning coalition. The odds are long but at this point, Thompson must feel he has little choice.

Fred Thompson’s “front porch” internet campaign is now over. It accomplished as much as could be expected - taking him from relative obscurity and placing him in the top tier of Republican presidential contenders. It laid the groundwork for his coming campaign by exciting some on line activists and bloggers who will prove valuable once he announces next month.

But the next stage of the Thompson campaign will prove to be a much different proposition. It will be an ideological high wire act where he will seek to outline a very different vision for America than his opponents while trusting that the American people will be able to see beyond their own narrow interests and vote for an uncertain future.

A tall order, that. If he is able to pull it off, it just might change the face of American politics. If not, he’ll be remembered as just another political Cassandra, destined to fail in his quest to sound the alarm about the fundamental direction in which the country is headed.