Looking for Love in All the Right Places

„Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line has been an article of political faith and a staple of punditry since the notion was popularized by Bill Clinton, who barbecued Kennedy charisma into a hunka hunka burnin’ love. Like so many political truisms, the conceit that Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus has a slick, pop-psych plausibility. Republicans: steely, rational, paternalistic, respectful of authority, easy to herd, the party of No. Democrats: sugary, emotional, idealistic, yearning for novelty, hard to marshal, the party of Oh Yeah, Baby, Make Mama Feel Good. In 2008, Barack Obama did get Democrats hyperventilating, whipped up to a creamy froth, while John McCain creaked ahead like a cranky granddad whom Republicans let move to the front of the buffet line, deferring to seniority, as they had in 1996, when Bob Dole turtled to the top of the ticket. But this may have been the last hurrah for the Republican’s hierarchal heirdom. In the Tea Party era, it is the restless conservative Republican who has become passion’s plaything, the toy of impetuous romance, an erotomania only intensified by the lusting for an upstart savior. (No elected Democrat gets his or her fans as Justin Bieber-frenzied as that Republican derringer Ron Paul, whose son Rand, freshman senator from Kentucky, has become the new curly darling.) Republicans grudgingly fell into line behind McCain not because subservience is downloaded into their lockstep brains, but because their hearts’ desires pulled up lame, scratched themselves from the race.

It’s difficult now to recall the improbable excitement that Fred Thompson aroused when he pawed the earth and parked a kingpin cigar in his mouth, indicating his inclination to run. He got off to a slow start that led to an even slower finish, though for a few tantalizing moments he showed signs of animation. At the conservative National Review Online’s group blog, The Corner, Peter Robinson, the author of a book about Ronald Reagan (every contributor to National Review Online has authored a book on Reagan), heard tell that Thompson was starting to tear up the turf in a key southern primary.

Earlier today I talked with an old friend who’s close to the Thompson campaign. At every Thompson campaign stop in South Carolina, he told me, there is something new: real excitement The state troopers are showing that special deference and respect they reserve for candidates whom they actually suspect will soon become the commander in chief. And Thompson himself is pointed, energetic, combative. In other words, the campaign feels as though its achieving liftoff.”