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Buying the Thompson Hype

08.17.07 -- 11:24PM
By Eric Kleefeld

The lede in a Politico article yesterday really shows the extent to which some people have bought into the Fred Thompson hype:

When Fred Thompson finally announces his candidacy next month, it will be the closest thing to a successful draft of a presidential candidate in more than a half-century.

There are two big problems here:

1) The Thompson draft, with the image of a reluctant candidate being drawn in, was pretty much fake. And Thompson admitted as much to USA Today a few months ago:

"I can't remember exactly the point that I said, 'I'm going to do this,'" Thompson says, his 6-foot, 6-inch frame sprawled comfortably across a couch in a hotel suite. "But when I did, the thing that occurred to me: 'I'm going to tell people that I am thinking about it and see what kind of reaction I get to it.'"

2) It's not the first successful draft since Eisenhower — and we don't have to go far back to find another. Are our attention spans and long-term recall so short that nobody remembers the Draft Clark movement? It was only four years ago.

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