Once again, we don’t like to put TOO much stock in polls.  Real Clear Politics has our man Fred in third place.  Other polls might have him in fourth.  But doesn’t SECOND PLACE in the latest McLaughlin and Assoc. poll and a 14% improvement for an UNANNOUNCED CANDIDATE sound pretty darn good?!  Check it out on the Real Clear Politics blog:

A McLaughlin & Associates poll released today makes that Rasmussen poll showing Fred Thompson in second place not seem as such an outlier after all. Here are the M&A numbers (the differences in parenthesis are taken from a 4/15 poll):

Giuliani: 24 (-4)
Thompson: 18 (+5)
McCain: 17 (+1)
Romney: 7 (-1)
Gingrich: 5 (-1)

Then there’s this:

Among moderate Republicans, Thompson’s support has increased by 14 points (4% to 18%), while Giuliani’s support has decreased significantly (37% to 29%). McCain (19% to 16%) and Romney (8% to 3%) have also lost support among moderate Republicans. Giuliani shows a slight loss among conservative Republicans (25% to 22%), while Thompson (16% to 18%), McCain (14% to 16%) and Romney (8% to 10%) show slight gains.

Considering the kind of Republican Giuliani is and how this race has gone so far, you probably wouldn’t have predicted Giuliani losing the most support among moderate Republicans, especially to Thompson.

Read the rest of the article from the Real Clear Politics blog here.

As you may have seen, Michael Moore – the documentary filmmaker (do you still call them documentaries when they’re based on lies?) – recently got upset about one of Fred’s articles.  After Moore challenged him, Fred responded by video. 

Check out Fred’s video response.

Fred’s ABC News online commentary is now found in audio podcast format.  Click here to listen to Fred himself! 

Fred garners praise for his direct response to National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru - check out what Maggie Gallagher says about it on Yahoo News:

I imagine most politicians have to put some sort of psychic barrier between themselves and the relentlessly dart-throwing media, if only to stay sane during the grueling weird endurance marathon we call “running for president.” But this week, in an exchange with National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, Fred Thompson tore down that fourth wall, separating him — a potential leader of the Free World — and us, folks who chat for a living.

Few probably would have paid much attention to a mild little essay by Ponnuru taking Fred Thompson to task for votes on a couple of issues that, as even Ponnuru noted, few if any actual voters care passionately about, such as federal pre-emption of state laws and a federal cap on attorney’s fees in state tobacco cases. “But if conservatives mean what they say when they complain about the dangerous rapacity of the trial bar,” Ponnuru challenged, “they ought to ask Senator Thompson a few hard questions.”

Ask and ye shall receive. Much to everyone’s surprise, Fred Thompson quickly dashed off a response, posted on www.nationalreview.com — a devastating, substantive, smart, wry and above all personal response. For example, on his opposition to a bill that would federally regulate lawyer’s fees in tobacco cases: “Get this: Under the amendment the states would have been required to send the attorneys’ bills to the House and Senate Judiciary for approval,” riffs Thompson. “As I said on the floor on May 19, 1998, ‘I did not come to the Senate to review billing records from lawyers in private lawsuits.’

Read the full article here.

David Brody of CBN News is taking note of what many people already know about Fred -he’s not afraid to respond to his critics and defend his record…   

HE LOVES TO BLOG! I mean Fred Thompson is on record saying he checks out the blogs, he reads them all the time. He is one hip cool presidential contending cat! Now we have proof! Ramesh Ponnuru from National Review wrote an article that took Thompson to task for being the only senator to vote against a Good Samaritan bill when he was in Congress. (99 to 1) Instead of just letting that article sit out there and perculate, Thompson decided to do a little blogging back and defend his vote. He didn’t write it with malice. He wrote it very matter of factly.

Read the rest of Mr. Brody’s entry here.

The conservative blogging community Redstate recently ran a straw poll asking their readers who they would vote for for President were the election held to today. Senator Thompson won the poll handily, winning 35% of the vote. Mitt Romney was in second place with only 12%.

Yet more evidence that Republicans on the ground want Fred.

FDT Watch: Post Easter

Blogger Matthew Newman has a good breakdown of the latest polling data and what it might mean:

Latest national polls from Rasmussen show Thompson polling in third, at 14%, and from Gallup shows Thompson at 10% tied for third with Gingrich. This is merely showing the general trend — Thompson is in third place without even lifting a finger. With Tennessee completely his — Thompson merely has to put a campaign together, which is no small feat — but can be done considering the swell of support he currently has amongst the likes of Bill Frist and a nice handful of Congresspeople.

Will all this positive polling, endorsements, etc transcend into an amazing insurgency campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen since the days of Ronald Reagan’s primary drives in both ‘76 and ‘80? Hopefully…we’ll find out soon.

Technorati Buzz TV - Fred Thompson, The Pirates of Tehran

The Draft Fred Thompson blog points to a video produced by blog search engine Technorati that rounds up some of the buzz Thompson has been receiving online.

There’s Something About Fred

Fred’s post on RedState was a hit. Erick from RedState writes:

The post went up, originally, at 4:08 p.m. EDT on Saturday, April 7, 2007, a holiday weekend. Within two hours it had 69 comments. On a holiday weekend. Within 15 hours it had over 150 comments. On a holiday weekend. Within 24 hours of the post appearing, it became the fifth most popular post at RedState since we’ve had the ability to track — and I’d venture to say is in the top five for all time at RedState. On a holiday weekend. The series of tubes we call the internets has been buzzing about Sen. Thompson’s entry into the blogosphere. We’ve gotten inbound links from across the conservative blogosphere and even from the left.

Thompson Supporters: Unite!

Jason from Post Political urges folks to sign the Fred ‘08 petition. We agree.

The Draft Fred Thompson camp is gearing up. They are currently sending emails to those on their list, asking supporters to sign the petition to show support.

As we’re in a time of urgency, to show that conservatives support Thompson’s candidacy, it’s important for all of us to do what we can to send that message.

SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

Blogs for Thompson

Conservablog has launched a Blogs for Thompson site that rounds up the best Fred-related news periodically. Worth adding to your feed reader.

Fred Thompson: A Real Conservative

A sophomore at the University of Tennessee (go Vols) has launched a great Fred-themed site we’ve added to our blogroll. <Via Instapundit>

Prominent Missouri Republicans Peter Kinder (Lt Governor) and Carl Bearden (MO House Speaker Pro Tem) endorsed Fred for President over the weekend, reports the Hotline.

In his endorsement, Kinder wrote:

Listen carefully to Thompson as he fills-in these days for radio master Paul Harvey, and you’ll hear echoes of the great Reagan magic. (Reagan also turned to enormously effective radio commentary during his out-years ‘76-’80.) I smiled the other day as I heard Thompson conclude the Harvey show he’s been doing lately. Just a simple, “Let’s get together again tomorrow,” he gently urges his listeners, and the program is over.

What comes through is a genuine, Tennessee neighborliness you can’t fake. It’s also the kind of friendly discourse we speak in the border-state and Midwestern precincts I call home, where any candidate will need to prevail next year.

Fred Thompson is the man.

Regarding his endorsement, Bearden was quoted as saying:

“For 2008, Republicans are looking for strong, proven conservative leadership, and that’s why I urge Senator Fred Thompson to enter the presidential race,” Bearden said in a press release. “When you compare the field of candidates and potential candidates, Fred Thompson clearly stands out with his consistent conservative record and his unwavering Republican values.”

Senator Thompson has an op-ed up over on Red State about the recent seizure of 15 British soldiers by Iran. Here is a key snippet:

It is critical that we see this incident as part of a long pattern of behavior — that will continue as long as the current leadership is in power. More importantly, it will escalate unimaginably if Iran achieves nuclear status, and with it the ability to hold millions rather than individuals hostage.

I have no idea if Ahmadinejad and those who put him in power really believe the Shi’a Twelver doctrine that they can spur the messiah to return by triggering Armageddon. You have to admit, though, that the possibility that they look forward to entering paradise as martyrs would make them a whole lot scarier as a nuclear power than the USSR ever was.

There is hope, though. The Iranian people are not an anti-Western horde. They’re an educated and freedom-loving people for the most part, and reformers there have been begging us for support and sanctions that would weaken the ruling theocracy. Instead, they’ve just seen the Iranian dictatorship successfully bully the West into impotent submission. This is not a good thing.

We need to understand this and use every means at our disposal, starting with serious and painful international sanctions, to prevent Iran’s rulers from becoming the nuclear-armed blackmailers they want to be. Unfortunately, we are hearing demands that we abandon the people of the Middle East who have stood up to Islamo-fascism because they believed us when we said we would support them.

If we retreat precipitously, the price for that betrayal will be paid first in blood and freedom by the Iranian people, the Kurds, the Afghanis, the secular Lebanese, the moderates in Pakistan and the Iraqis themselves. And America’s word may never be trusted again.

Right now, the pirate Ahmadinejad is clearly more confident about the outcome of the Global War on Terror than we are. That ought to give us pause.

Read the full article.