Jovial Fred Thompson

Fred Thompson just called into the Radio Iowa newsroom for a 10 minute interview during which he laughed often and referred to himself as "not everybody’s cup of tea" but as someone who grows on people because "what you see is what you get."

I’ll blog the whole thing later, but here’s a quick version.  As a last question, I asked:  "Do you plan this bus tour of Iowa to be sort of a getting to know you exercise or do you…."

Thompson started laughing.  "That wouldn’t make much of a campaign theme song, I’ll tell you."  He laughed.  I laughed.

"Or do you intend to roll out new policy positions?" I continued.

"You know, I’ve done that and I’ll be talking about that," Thompson said.  "I’ve put out an illegal immigration plan and what to do about it and how to cut off funding for sanctuary cities.  I’ve put out a tax plan that would move toward a simplified and flatter income tax code and I’ve put out a Social Security plan to save Social Security which is going bankrupt, a defense plan as to what we’re going to have to do to reform our military for the future.  I’ve done all that….but you know it’s not a matter for me of new strategies, new plans, new approaches to things.  I’ve been in public life ever since I was 30 years old and I was counsel on the Watergate Committee and I’ve been in the Senate.  I’ve been the same person the whole time and that is a strong, consistent conservative guy who’s never been accused of flip-flopping depending on which office I happen to be running for and standing strong for the traditional values that have made our country great and that’s strong defense, low taxes, balancing the budget and fighting against big government liberalism.  That’s where I’ve always been.  That’s where I will be.  They can come and go around me.  They can go up in the polls or down in the polls or sideways in the polls.  I am not willing to mold myself to the circumstances and I understand I’m not everybody’s cup of tea but what you see is what you get and I will be bringing home in a concise, forceful way these points to the people of Iowa and getting acquainted with the ones I don’t already know and having them ask me whatever question they want to ask me."