Maryland for Fred Thompson

21 Days until the Iowa Caucuses
26 Days until the New Hampshire Primary
37 Days until the South Carolina Primary
47 Days until the Florida Primary

• Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics:
  

  It is not surprising to me that Thompson was given a gold star for his performance. His campaign is, as I have argued, a campaign against the way the media presents politics to the voters. So, it figures that Thompson was quick to complain about the format - and win kudos for expressing what all of us were feeling at that moment.

• New York Times:
  

  They did take on the debate’s moderator, Carolyn Washburn, the editor of The Register, after Fred D. Thompson led a revolt over her request that they raise their hands to show whether they believe that climate change is a real threat, and caused by human activity. “You want a show of hands, and I’m not giving it to you,” Mr. Thompson said.

  …

  He also scored an indirect hit on Mr. Huckabee when he said the biggest obstacle to improving education was the National Education Association, a union whose New Hampshire affiliate has endorsed Mr. Huckabee.

• Carol Hunter, Des Moines Register editorial page editor:
  

  Sen. Thompson has a way of cutting to the heart of an issue. He identified the National Education Association as the biggest impediment in blocking improvements in education because it opposes choice and competition. That let him repeat tried and true beliefs of Republican voters: That parents should have as much choice as possible, private and public, in which schools their children attend.

• Matthew Continetti:
  

  It makes you wonder: Let’s say Mike Huckabee is experiencing a Dean-like bubble that will pop on caucus night. If the parallel works, Huckabee ends up, like Dean, placing third. Who would be in second in that case? Let’s say Thompson comes in second, since he’s running third at the moment. Then the GOP is set up for a Romney-Thompson fight. It could happen. Really.

• McClatchy Newspapers:
  

  Fred Thompson escalated the Republican presidential candidates’ war over abortion Wednesday by tying former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to “$50 abortions in Massachusetts.”

  Romney, the governor from 2003 until January, helped create Commonwealth Care, a state-run and subsidized program for low- and moderate-income people. The state helps determine what services are to be covered, and its list includes a provision in which women can get abortions for $50 co-payments.

  The legislation also created a MassHealth payment policy advisory board that gave Planned Parenthood a seat, but not an anti-abortion group.

  “Romney claims to be pro-life,” the Thompson campaign said in a statement. “But under his health care plan, Massachusetts residents now have access to taxpayer-funded abortions for $50.”

  The Thompson statement also said that Romney had used his line-item veto authority to strike eight sections of the bill, but not the terms guaranteeing Planned Parenthood board representation, “and he did nothing to prohibit taxpayer-financed abortions as part of his plan.”

• Christian Science Monitor [via BrothersJuddBlog]:
  

  Thompson traces his political values to the 1960 book “The Conscience of a Conservative,” the small-government manifesto by Barry Goldwater, the blunt-spoken senator who founded the modern conservative movement but never won the presidency.

  Thompson read the book in college, and found himself drifting away from the Democratic politics of his parents. Associates say that as a young man, he was fascinated by historical figures who seemed to put principle before politics, like John Adams, who represented the British soldiers implicated in the Boston Massacre.

  “That influenced him,” Fred Ansell, another former aide, says of a book on Adams Thompson spoke of reading in his younger days. “Here was a courageous thing to do, and it was not done for calculated political gain. But by being courageous, it helped John Adams politically.”

  That temperament has suited Thompson, who in his years on Capitol Hill found himself at odds with own party and, at times, the entire Senate.