Tennessee orange or red for Thompson?

If you drive through Nebraska on I-80, you will notice a disproportionate share of the vehicles with Nebraska license plates who’re traveling that highway with you are in a red vehicle.  A "Big Red" vehicle, if you will.  I have visited Tennessee a couple of times and found orange to be a very popular color there, especially on game days when the Volunteers are on the gridiron.  (I hope to see the "Orange Nation" in Neyland Stadium someday — after I visit Memorial Stadium in Lincoln…)

But it appears red is the color Iowans may see if/when Fred Thompson rolls into Iowa.  It appears Thompson drove a red pick-up around Tennessee as he campaigned to serve the final two years of Al Gore’s term in the US Senate.  Thompson was re-elected to a full six-year term in 1996.  Thompson will reportedly bring that red truck to Iowa and drive it around here as he campaigns in the Hawkeye state for support in Iowa’s 2008 Caucuses.

Perhaps some of the Iowa Republicans Thompson courts will remember Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, who made the red plaid shirt his trademark.  Alexander finished third in the 1996 Iowa Caucuses.  In 1999, he dropped out of the race for the GOP’s 2000 presidential nomination after finishing poorly in the Iowa Republican Party’s Straw Poll. 

The big question for the 2007 Straw Poll, today, is whether Fred Thompson will participate….