This is not a good sign in my opinion, but on the other hand not unexpected. If Thompson wants to be a viable primary candidate, he has to court the wingnut segment that now dominates the GOP and works to mobilize their Kool-Aid drinking followers in the Republican primaries. Here are high lights from the U. S. News & World Report story:
U.S. News has learned that [former U. S. Senator] Thompson recently hired Bill Wichterman, who served as conservative outreach director for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Joseph Cella, president of a conservative Catholic group called Fidelis, to lead the effort. The aides are arranging more meetings between Thompson and conservative Christian leaders and have launched a rapid-response operation to fend off attacks on Thompson's conservative credentials.
The success of the effort is by no means ensured; in March, Focus on the Family's James Dobson told U.S. News that he doubted Thompson was really a Christian. But Dobson and Thompson have since talked, with Dobson rumored to be reassessing Thompson. And prominent social conservative Paul Weyrich, who met recently with Thompson and evangelical activists, said the former senator "was in agreement with us on almost everything."
Thompson is emphasizing his eight-year record as a senator from Tennessee and his campaign endorsements from the National Right to Life Committee. "It didn't look like he was saying what a group of Christian consultants told him to say," says Harry Jackson, a black pastor who met recently with Thompson. "He seemed to be saying, 'I'm one of you.
It is definitely scary when we have a hate monger and theocrat like Daddy Dobson trying to control who candidates are for president. The Christianist truly need to be stopped. The best way for that to happen is to see the GOP annihilated at the polls in 2008. If that happens, the moderates will have to either retake the party from the Christianists or start a new party. See the full U.S. News story here: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070715/23thompson.htm
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