Gazizza.Net

Kimberley Strassel:

[Thompson]'s proposed revitalizing America's armed forces by increasing the core defense budget, building up a million-member ground force, and instituting sweeping missile defense. He went where no other GOP candidate has yet gone with a detailed plan to shore up Social Security, by changing the benefits formula and offering voluntary "add on" accounts for younger workers. He would re-energize school vouchers. His border security blueprint certainly matches Mitt Romney's or Rudy Giuliani's in its, ahem, creativity and thoroughness.

This week's tax proposal was decidedly fresh, going beyond the run-of-the-mill candidate promise to extend the Bush tax cuts, and calling for the end of the death tax and the AMT, a cut in the corporate tax rate and even a voluntary flat tax. According to a campaign source, in upcoming weeks Mr. Thompson will unveil plans to reduce federal spending by limiting nondefense growth to inflation, earmark reform, and a one-year freeze on the hiring of non-essential civilian workers and contractors.

There's plenty here to get conservative voters and bloggers and pundits engaged in some healthy, even lively, debate. That is, if they'd heard any of this. Most haven't, and for that Mr. Thompson has mostly himself to blame.

I think Thompson's biggest problem in this campaign is his late start. Not because it allowed other candidates to set the tone or attract the voters, but because the top campaign talent and activists were locked in. The only truly experienced national campaign staffers were those fired by McCain back during his campaign's cost-cutting days, so, with no disrespect to those people, there wasn't a large quantity of talent out there. When you add in that most of the party activists in New Hampshire and Iowa plus fundraisers were committed, there wasn't much for Thompson left to pick from in assembling an organization.

Which is a shame, because he's the only candidate in this race talking about ideas, putting forth policies that really could change things. The good news is that many voters are still making up their minds about who to support, even in the early primary states. Rush Limbaugh's non-endorsement of Thompson today should help a great deal also.

So, yeah, I'm a Fred Head.