FredHead Convoy Is Ready to Roll

A rusting red pickup truck is parked in front of the house in Franklin, Tenn. where Fred Thompson’s mother lives. Wearing a plaid shirt, Thompson drove that truck all over the state in 1994 to win a surprise victory that made him a U.S. Senator.

Now he is metaphorically campaigning for the Republican Presidential nomination as the same plain-spoken, honest country boy he persuaded voters he was back then.

While Giuliani is figuratively pictured in a New York taxi, Mitt Romney in a limousine and John McCain in a tank, Thompson will be playing the political outsider driving himself around and talking sense to the American people who are tired of war, deceit and political posturing.

Not much of it, mind you, will be done in the actual truck. On the Web, Thompson sites are proliferating, and cash is flowing not only from “the FredHead people” but big campaign contributors who are defecting from McCain and other declared candidates to join several generations of such Republican stalwarts as Mary Matalin, who worked for Dick Cheney; Lawrence Lindsey, Bush I’s economic adviser; and Jeb Bush’s son.

On YouTube, Thompson zinged Michael Moore with a video from his study, and there is sure to be more of the same kind of no-sweat campaigning that an actor is ideally suited to do.

Fred Thompson is ready to audition for the White House, and there is an audience out there ready to listen. So are the critics, and they will have plenty to say.