Fred Thompson?

It does seem, at least to the untrained, that the Democrats should win the White House in 2008. Things appear to be working against all the Republican candidates and they are well behind the leading Democrats in fundraising. Probably as a result, people are talking a lot about Fred Thompson as a potential candidate. Eric Alterman thinks that he is the only one in the current contenders likely to win a general election.

On the Republican side the news this week was all about Fred Thompson. He's the black box of the Republican side, and perhaps the entire election. As the only candidate who is acceptable to conservatives, acceptable to moderates, admired by the media and potentially saleable to independents - he knows how to act - he is also the only candidate on the Republican side who can win.

Think about it. Those of us who knew Rudy Giuliani as our mayor feel pretty strongly that he's just too nutty to be president. On the one hand we welcome the idea of a race, given how much fun it'll be when the rest of the country focuses on say, the six combined marriages, the terrible dad syndrome, the small but unmistakable tendency toward fascism; on the other hand, we're a superpower and it's kind of scary.