The Spectre of Law & Order & Bonzo

If you're like me (and since we're on the internets, I'll assume that you are), you had a nice, tidy little laugh when you heard the GOP kicking around Fred Thompson's name as a possible candidate for President. Surely, I thought to myself, Thompson would never be seriously considered against a McCain or a Giuliani, and no one would take him seriously over the southern gravitas and candor of a Huckabee or even someone silly (and yet formidable!) like Romney.

So imagine my surprise to see, on CNN, that Thompson is running third in a recent USA Today / Gallup poll.

I think in all of this I feel the worst for Romney, who has raised a ton of money, gotten a lot of earned media, and still has a dismal showing in the polls. It is very early, but not so early that you can totally write off being swallowed by the margin of error in a Gallup poll.

The obvious, hilarious dichotomy is that while the GOP always attacks Hollywood as some psychic vampire which drains the tasty morals of our nation's citizenry and turns it into gold coins, they are the party who runs actors and gets them elected. Romney should fear Fred Thompson, and even though every part of me thinks it is ridiculous and impossible that he could be a real candidate, stranger things have happened.