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 â 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.
