Nashville News Blog

Now that Fred Thompson has belatedly ended his presidential campaign, the rationalizations for the failure of his candidacy can begin. It’s likely that many Fredheads will blame the media for relentlessly portraying their hero as a lazy, low-aptitude moron, and that caricature did damage Thompson, who began at or near the top of the GOP field and started falling in popularity almost from the day he declared.

I agree the media overdid it at times in their zeal to make Thompson look dumb. But like many stereotypes, Thompson’s was rooted at least partly in fact. He campaigned lackadaisically and, especially in the beginning, he obviously hadn’t taken the trouble to brush up on the issues. (Notably, he was forced to admit to reporters that he was foggy on the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case.) The fact is that he had to be talked into running, and he was never too keen on the idea.

Be that as it may, the real causes of the campaign’s downfall may have had not so much to do with Thompson’s lack of energy or ambition as with other deficiencies in his candidacy.

Tennesseans certainly love Fred, but to the nation at large, did he come off as presidential material? Let’s face it, his résumé is thin. He did a little lawyering, a little lobbying and a little acting—none of it all that well—and he compiled an undistinguished record as a senator for eight years.

But here’s the most important reason Thompson’s campaign never caught on—social conservatives weren’t buying it. Evangelicals were turned off by Romney, McCain and Giuliani, and didn’t think Huckabee could win. So the big rationale for Thompson's candidacy in the first place was that he was going to unite the Christian Right.

That was faulty logic, as anyone who knows Thompson should have realized. He isn’t pure enough in his opinions for most social conservatives. While not exactly pro-choice, he’s never been for doing much of anything to stop abortions. He’s opposed to a constitutional amendment on the issue. It didn’t help when it came out during the campaign that he once lobbied for Planned Parenthood. To evangelicals, he’s weak on same-sex marriage, too. He says he’s against it, but wants to leave the issue to the states.

Once his positions became known, conservative Christians went with Huckabee who, unlike Fred, actually goes to church. And that was that for Thompson, an ending that in hindsight was entirely predictable.