Fred Thompson is the Republican presidential candidate the Religious Right loves to love - and he hasn't even said he's running.

Here are a couple of comments I happened on at No Silence Here.

Comments

Senator Thompson would destroy the Republican field in the primaries and annihialate whomever the democrats nominate. Please run, Senator. And let me know how to contribute.
Posted by: Edward McNally at March 23, 2007 01:08 PM

How can an average American let Fred Thompson know how strongly he would be supported by the average Republican who is scared to death by all of the other Republican candidates? I want him to know that he is not just the ONLY choice for Republicans at this time - but the BEST choice for our entire NATION. I want to let him know how I (and many other conservatives) feel about this.
Posted by: David at March 23, 2007 04:31 PM

Fred,

Please run for the Republican Nomination.

The county needs a Strong Leader and no one else in either party comes close to your qualifications.

Sign me up as a volunteer.

Jay F Jones
Posted by: Jay F Jones at March 23, 2007 10:09 PM

We need and want Fred Thompson to run!!!!
Run, Fred, Run!!!
Posted by: Donna Dallman at March 24, 2007 01:02 AM

If you want to let Fred Thompson know you support him go to www.Volpac.org and leave a comment on a couple of the blogs there. one is Fred Thompson should run for President. The other is Update on Fred Thompson.
Posted by: Ginny at March 24, 2007 09:06 AM

I have admired Fred for a long time he is a great American and I will gladly volunteer to help him to become president of this great country. I am a conservative living in New England where we have a one party system (liberal Democrats) and would like nothing better than to help put Fred and the Republican party back in the majority to help stop the lunacy that we are seeing in the Congress.
Posted by: Eric Carroll at March 24, 2007 09:07 AM

Fred should definitely run. He'll make a great president.
Posted by: spacemonkey at March 24, 2007 09:45 AM

Please run for President Senator Thompson, the country needs you.
Posted by: Robert at March 24, 2007 09:47 AM

Please run for President Senator Thompson, the country needs you.
Posted by: Robert at March 24, 2007 09:48 AM

Sign me up as a volunteer.
Posted by: William Casey at March 24, 2007 10:17 AM

Under the circumstances, I think it's worthwhile trying to learn what makes him tick.

Here's some campaign contribution data from OpenSecrets.Org for his 1996 senatorial campaign cycle. This isn't everyone whose supported him by any mean, but I think it's a good snapshot and a good start. The campaign and the examination has begun - many of the donors don't ring a bell ... yet. I'll just talk about a few that mean something to me.

The first category listed is Agriculture: Crop Production. I see a lot of sugar companies and some Florida based agriculture, in addition to more general names that are less revealing. Whether you agree or disagree with the Cuban embargo, some of the biggest supporters are in the Florida sugar industry - because they had property confiscated by Castro, and just possibly because it helps keep sugar prices high.

Ten donors in the tobacco industry. Plenty of people have written about the tobacco lobby already.

Lots of agriculture and food processing generally. Not necessarily a bad thing, though supports meant for small farmers seem to gravitate towards big industries.

Fifteen donors in foresty and forest products. I'm not sure how much the president will be involved in that, but we still have a few patches of very old redwoods left.

Lots of donors in the entertainment industry - natural enough for an actor. Liberal Hollywood doesn't seem to have taken a dislike to him. I wonder what he's done for them.

There's a huge block of donors in the construction industry. I wonder what that means.

Some defense industry, not an extraordinary amount. I guess most Senators have at least as much.

Most of his energy donors seem to be in the oil and gas industry - and there's a large block of them. Most big electric generators don't burn oil nowadays, and Detroit may be a bigger obstacle to better fuel economy than the oil industry, which known prices are high enough to destabalize a good thing already. This may mean nothing worse than a few more government subsidies to the oil industry. On the other hand, remember some big royalty problems? It could cost more than we realize.

Lots of Banks, investment, insurance and real estate donors. If we are in a real estate bubble, and reforms are required to prevent it from happening again, he may listen closely to their opinion.

A huge block of health care industry and some pharmacy. I wonder how they'll lobby on any health care reforms in the pipeline.

Look at all those law firms! Someone should compare him with John Edwards. I think the right had something to say about that when he was the recipient. Then again, I haven't analyzed any of his donors. If anyone sees that anywhere please leave a comment.

There's a page or so of auto industry donors. This man will probably find it hard to impove fuel economy. These donors may mean more in that regard than the oil companies above.

He's got support from twelve labor unions - might not be terrible for the working person, although he has some much bigger blocks of donors elsewhere. Six are public sector unions, interestingly enough.

There's a lot of PAC's worth investigating in the ideology/single issue section, but NRA and Free Cuba are obvious enough. I'm not sure if those pro Isreal PAC's are all in Isreal's interest - or if some of them get us to support hawkish policies which don't help them in the long run.

He does have some civil servant and education donors.

There's one heck of a lot to study in here - I'll probably have to leave the other candidates to other people. I guess I'll need help with Fred too, but you gotta start somewhere.