Now this is campaign coverage. Expect to see us doing a lot more local news. I mean, this is just great. It's the perfect way to get your face on folks' TV screens and answer the right kind of questions to get the right kind of message out.
The political press insists on forcing the facts to fit the story it wants to tell -- and if they don't like the facts, they'll just toss them aside.
Nobody knows this better than Big Daddy. Newsweek is going on and on about my "slow start," and George Will and Robert Novak both are telling everyone I've already crashed and burned.
Meanwhile, I had surged into number one according to the Rasmussen poll of likely GOP primary voters, who also rate me most conservative.
I honestly don't know why anyone pays any attention to those numb nuts in the political press. What's really going on here? They have complete contempt for what the people are really thinking, and they're too lazy to find out anything other than the conventional wisdom they share in all the insider cocktail parties.
(And I know all about what goes on in those insider cocktail parties first hand.)
The NY Times is right: I do take risks with the stands I take on the issues. Check it out: defending the right to bear arms. Supporting the idea of drilling in the Gulf. Not taking a stand on the Terri Schiavo case two years after it happened. I'm the maverick, the risk-taker of the Republican field. And telling the GOP base that I'm for reform of the entitlements -- well, that's the very definition of ballsy.
The announcement that we will announce our announcement in a conference call with supporters... tee hee hee, it works. Already, they're breathlessly reporting this breaking news of the news that will break next week -- check out, so far, the LA Times and CBS News.
I suppose the other outlets are waiting to report on the conference call itself, in which I will announce that we will make the official announcement next week. They would rather report that, instead of the leaked announcement that we will use the call to announce the upcoming announcement. It's a matter of journalistic integrity or something.
I don't know what kind of fantasy-land the political press people are living in. They're dying to say that my campaign is already withered on the vine, but the fact is that the people are lining up to lick my hairy toes.
Here's the latest "Mama say wha'?" moment: the National Journal says of the blogosphere, "Conservative frustration with the tortured roll out of the Fred Thompson campaign is undercutting blogger enthusiasm for the campaign."
The same day that was published, my "tortured roll out" had already put me in a dead tie for number one.
What do we learn from this example of political press types reaching into their own asses, pulling out a wad of shit, and plopping it down on the page?
(1) Don't turn to the political press for the news. Or insight. Or, for that matter, anything, unless you just need the newsprint to line your bird cage.
(2) Stop paying attention to the blogosphere. Pay attention to the people. If blogger interest mattered one bit, then Ron Paul would be the big dick of the candidate pool, not the spooge-rag he is.
People are talking about the possibility we will announce our decision soon using online video.
He he!
It's the Entertainment Tonight approach to campaigning. You know: ET gets an exclusive of Madonna recording a new song; ET then gets an exclusive of Madonna shooting a video; ET then gets an exclusive of preparations for the release of the song; and ET then gets an exclusive of the actual release.
The lesson is simple: break something down into all its constituent components, and create "news" events around each and every one of them. Free air time gets bigger and bigger, like a snowball being rolled down a hill.
And the press just laps it up.
We've got a crackerjack team of folks who specialize in monitoring what folks are saying about us on the Internets. And that means even silly blogs about footwear fashions: when this little gal wrote a comment raising potentially tricky questions about my health, our team flew into action and turned the tables on the whole thing.
Believe me, we're going to crowd out any talk like that so that it doesn't go viral. Last thing we need is for the real press to start asking touchy questions about Big Daddy's health.
And when it looks like we're getting close to a situation like that, we'll just make sure the Fred-Thompson-is-a-mack-daddy story gets revived.
Note to self: have someone dig up some way to get me in that godawful On Faith series they've got on the Washington Post's website. It's a real waste of ones and zeroes, but they've got some mewling bullshit about Condi Rice on it, and I figure it can only help me with the far-right religious nutcases to have someone feature me.
They have a piece about Condi being influenced by Jeremiah; I think we need to go that one step higher: how Moses influenced Fred Thompson.
And that'll do double-duty -- we can shop it to them Jew types to scrounge up a vote or two. LeChaim!
OK, so this guy is complaining that the surge actually isn't working, according to simple math, and that the whole thing has been "[a]ided and abetted by a whorish class of inbred media cringers."
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Folks, we can't be going around calling the media a "whorish class of inbred[s]." That's what they are, sure, but that's what we need them to be. Folks like me couldn't make a name for ourselves or ever get anything done if they ever stopped being cocksuckers on their knees just dying to service the Washington power elite.
Whew. With all the anti-Dubya sentiment out there, it sure is a good thing no one out there is really talking about the mystery injection given to a lot of servicemembers that ended up pritnear killing them.
The last thing we need is for the public to start talking about yet another way the current Republican occupant of the White House doesn't care about the troops and doesn't know what he's doing.
OK, this is more like it. After the Washington Post's weird article on my life as a lawyer -- surprise, surprise, folks, I was a lawyer -- now we get a much stronger piece in Time.
The headline alone -- Is Fred Thompson the GOP's Savior -- does more to sell me than anything they could have written. And that photo -- come on, that's a thing of beauty. They were going to shoot me straight on as I was sitting on the steps of the front porch, but one of my staffers actually pushed down a little on the photographer, and the result is amazing: it's basically a straight shot into my crotch. A nice little reminder that I'm a man with something else hanging there right where you see my hands hanging down.
Much more subtle than Dubya's cod piece in the flight suit in that ridiculous "Mission Accomplished" photo op.
Notice how they spend more ink on the weaknesses of Miss Romney, McNuts, Limpiani, and the Pygmies than they do on what I stand for. They're really helping promote our image of me as the cavalry coming in to sweep the ladies off their feet and the party into the White House.
God I love it when the press is right in step with us.
Then just read that guy at Pat Robertson's "news" division. I just read his little excuse for a column, and it doesn't ever seem to quite have a point that means anything.
It seems to go like this:
For Chrissakes, do I have to sit down and lecture you like a child being taken to the woodshed? If you can't control idiots like that gal who writes the stupid "Ron Paul eats hot dogs!" excuse for a political column in the Post, then you just don't belong on Team Thompson.
If we let stories like this get out about Jeri, the other side is going to make her the Republican Hillary. The only thing that's gotten in the way of that so far is that Jeri is smoking hot and so much younger than me. But some of that's going to go away now that she's getting more conservative with her look.
If you people can't keep dumbasses like that Post gal under control, you're definitely not going to be able to handle the real press. I hired you idiots so I wouldn't have to think of things like this. And you know what happens when I have to think!
Look, someone get Ann Coulter to say something insane so we can get the spotlight moved, OK? And pour me a whisky while you're at it.
... hoo wee, I've got some kind of indigestion, like you wouldn't believe. I mean, it's really burning down there. Must have been that cheap tuna sandwich.
So, get this: our TV news folks care more about Paris Hilton going to the slammer than they care about the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
I love it!
The 2008 elections won't be about records or wonky things. They're going to be about image. And when people start thinking about me vs. Hellcat Clinton... well, I think we all know who's going to come out on top.
You know, last night when I just sitting there on the john because I had a hard time peeing, I thought, "I wonder what people are going to make of my record." Because I went all the way out there and supported some real bullshit back when I was in the Senate.
But then I remembered: no one cares. Who the hell is going to dig up that crazy regulatory reform bill I cosponsored, if most people in this country don't even know what a regulation is? Honestly, if this is what passes for political coverage anymore, I've got nothing to worry about.
Note to self: don't change a thing with the public education system.
