Sunday, 11/25/07
Thompson schedule belies 'lazy' charge
His campaign activity is on pace with rivals'

By BILL THEOBALD
Tennessean Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Fred Thompson's presidential campaign has faced claims from the start that the former senator is lazy.

But the lazy charge against Thompson, who has a decades-long public and political career, began only this year, and recent evidence suggests that he campaigns as rigorously as his chief opponents for the Republican nomination. 

A review of the two-week period from Nov. 4-17 by Gannett News Service shows Thompson held 28 campaign events, making him No. 2 among the four major GOP candidates. Sen. John McCain of Arizona topped the list at 35. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held 22 and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 20.

Giuliani, however, had the broadest reach, visiting 10 states and Washington, D.C., during the period. He was followed by McCain with 10 states, Thompson with seven states and D.C., and Romney with six states.

The lazy perception has "been rather damaging, because it's an easy accusation to make and easy for people to understand and ... it's hard to disprove a negative," said M. Lee Smith, the retired founder of the Tennessee Journal political newsletter.

Smith was a classmate and friendly with Thompson at Vanderbilt University's law school and plays an odd role in the genesis of the Thompson-as-lazy narrative.

A search of the LexisNexis media library finds only one news story before Jan. 1, 2007, with the words "lazy" and "Fred Thompson." It was a 1997 story about how Thompson ran a Senate investigation of campaign fundraising in the 1996 presidential campaign, and it quoted Smith.

"I don't think he's lazy, but he is just more of a live-and-let-live individual in a lot of respects, including whether he would run for president," Smith said in the 1997 article in the Los Angeles Times.

It's the same view he holds now, says Smith, who points out that while in law school, Thompson was a married father supporting a family.

Thompson laughs it off

Early this year, when Thompson began hinting at a run, several Democratic operatives — including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who served under Bill Clinton, and Hilary Rosen, former head of the Recording Industry Association of America — described Thompson as lazy while in the Senate from 1994-2002.

Such comments became a standard part of profiles of Thompson, almost always with out attribution. David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, was the first prominent conservative quoted as calling Thompson lazy. In early September, Newsweek magazine featured Thompson on its cover with the headline "Lazy like a fox."

Thompson has eschewed any attempts to disprove the charge by undertaking heroic feats of nonstop campaigning, instead laughing off the charge.

During an October GOP presidential debate in Florida, Thompson responded to the question by describing a life that included being an assistant U.S. attorney at 28, attorney for the Senate Watergate committee at 30, and U.S. senator, among other accomplishments.

"If a man can do all that and be lazy, I recommend it to everybody," he said.

'He is very methodical'

The notion of presidential campaigns as cross-country marathons began just before the start of the 20th century, said presidential historian Allan Lichtman. He said Democrat William Jennings Bryan was the first to stump the country, in his unsuccessful 1896 bid for the presidency against Republican William McKinley.

Before that, Lichtman said, presidential candidates went through a ritual of being "called" by others to run, as opposed to aggressively seeking the job. And campaigning by the candidate? "It was considered unseemly," he said.

The final turning point, he said, was the 1960 race between two young and aggressive politicians, Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, then both in their 40s. Kennedy made it to nearly every state, while Nixon campaigned in all 50, Lichtman said.

Recently, some news reports have described an increased level of campaign activity and more passion from Thompson. Spokeswoman Karen Hanretty said Thompson is the same as he's always been.

"We've just always said he is very methodical, someone who is not prone to overreacting," Hanretty said. "Maybe in a town like Washington, D.C., where politicians regularly run out in front of a camera and run their mouths off, Fred stands in stark contrast to the style."

"wonder what people would say, if ole dummy decided to run for the presidency?"