May 08 2007
Thompson’s Liberal Beliefs Are No Problem For Some…
My partner (both business and broadcast) Slobokan thinks that the Thompson survey questions I mentioned in a previous post today are irrelevant because they were asked in 1994:
Personally, I don’t care how he responded to a survey in 1994. I don’t care what any politician said back then. It was a different world back then, for me anyway. I wasn’t married, I had no kids, and my political beliefs were a hell of a lot more liberal back then (not completely though, so don’t stroke out on me).
What I care about, in 2007, is what the candidates say now. What I care about is where they stand on the issues that concern me today, not the issues from 13 years ago, even if the “issue†has the same definition today as it did 13 years ago.
Tsk tsk tsk, Slobokan. I ain’t buyin’ that.
Let’s be blunt. The issues I mentioned earlier today were Abortion, Education, and Health Care. Let’s have no delusions about the importance of any of those issues. Abortion is as much an issue today as it was in 1994. Education is probably an even bigger issue because test scores are not improving and schools and teachers unions are actively fighting to lower standards. And as for health care, every day some kid goes to bed sick because they don’t have real health care.
I don’t care if the issue was posited in 1994 or 2007; some issues are timeless. The one (and I do mean the one) thing that Dick Gephardt got right when he was running for President is that there are certain timeless kitchen table issues and those are three of ‘em. Fred Thompson may very well be a great candidate, but I still maintain that his positions are decidedly liberal, or at the very least libertarian.
You can take that for what it’s worth or you can completely ignore it, but a fact is a fact. Very little has changed in those issues since 1994 and I imagine that, unless something weird happened, very little about his opinions have changed since 1994.
We’ll know soon enough, I guess, but I’m not buying the “those were his opinions 13 years ago” dismissal. At least not with these issues.
Slobokan did make one good point…
Is Fred Thompson the best candidate for President? Right now, I think so. Why? He’s the only one I’ve heard recently, that hasn’t said something that was just plain stupid.
Yeah… But then again he isn’t running “officially” yet 
Technorati Tags: fred thompson
May 8th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
I agree, nothing has changed with those issues, but attitudes towards them can (and have).
My beliefs about abortion have completely changed since 1994. Back then, I could care less. Seriously. No opinion one way or the other, and it didn’t matter to me. At all. Now? I am completely against it. Still the same issue, but a completely different position on the matter.
I could go into the whole education thing, since I did study to be an elementary school teacher in college, but I find that subject quite boring since no one, Democrat or Republican will ever do anything serious about public education in America.
The same goes with health care. There are too many interest groups and too much corporate power for anything to be done about it, at least in the near term.
So, as I stated in my post, the issues haven’t changed, but you never know about a person’s view of those issues.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:48 am
That’s what I was gonna say, Slobo…. The issues have not changed a bit, however with time certain viewpoints can. If Thompson’s views have not changed from 1994 to now then obviously the arguement is valid. But we won’t know if he still holds those convictions until he comes out with a recent statement concerning them.
That’s just my take.