The New Fire in Fred’s Belly

An energetic and forceful Fred Thompson sat down with me last week on Kudlow and Company to talk politics and the economy. The former Tennessee senator was in good form — more animated than I’ve seen him, and definitely a different person than the one I interviewed six months ago.

I asked him about Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader. Armey recently predicted that Hillary Clinton will be the next president, reasoning that the GOP has departed from the first principles of limited government and lower taxes. Armey said budget overspending and the proliferating corruption of earmarks are what led to the landslide defeat of Republicans a year ago. To date, Dick Armey is unimpressed with the circa 2007 GOP message.

And Thompson agreed. He said, “If we don’t tend to business we are going to be in big trouble. Pendulum’s swinging against us. We are down in the polls. Independents are leaning the other way [where they] used to lean with us. So we’ve got to . . . adhere to the principles that made us a great party and a great nation.”

That was a strong dose of honesty and self-examination. Good for Fred Thompson....

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