Nice try on Iraq. The Democrats tossed the issue clean out the window about a week after their full-bore, WE-run-Congress-now, pull-the-troops-out-today, anti-surge, anti-Petraeus campaign blew up in their faces like a 500 pound bomb. This happened sometime last November, near as I can figure. Some caught on earlier than others. I think Reid and Pelosi are still beating the dead horse a bit, but I haven't been keeping track. The current Democratic Party point of view is "what is this 'Iraq' of which you speak?" It's worked on other issues.

The rest of the anti-war movement only absorbed the clue about a week ago, as I posted. Now they're all about not signing long-term agreements with Iraq. Quite a fallback if you ask me.

As far as Thompson goes, I actually spent time looking over the policies and voting histories of the candidates, and his hold up better than most. I realize this isn't as important to most voters as him talking slow and being bald and all. You'd be amazed at how little I go by visual perception. I bet I wouldn't recognize many well-known politicians by their photos. I'm hoping he can at least be a philosophical resource for the party, like Goldwater was. Lord knows the Republicans could use it. "We can do socialism better" has never appealed to me, either from Bush or any other Republican.

You do realize that for a lot of voters "compentence" is defined as "looks and talks like they're competent." Start getting into actual lists of achievements and things bog down a bit.