Fred Thompson, my kind of centrist.

Fred Thompson has crept, stealthily but adeptly, into the middle of the presidential race. I've been holding my evaluation of him until a more complete picture comes out. Campaigns are long affairs, this one more so than all the previous ones. Each of the candidates will be tested, and ultimately evaluated on the results of that test. So far, he's sounding all the right notes.

Today, he began to move me into his camp by sounding just the right note about the ills (and causes) of excessive partisanship in today's politics. In a Pajamas Media post, Thompson said:

To solve our problems, we have to realize that our country is pretty evenly divided along party lines. With close numbers in the House and the Senate, there will be no real reform without real bipartisanship. Too often, what we are seeing isn’t an effort to find solutions, but rather insults and purely partisan politics. There are many good and responsible people in government who are willing to work together – but the level of bipartisanship needed for real progress can only be achieved when politicians perceive that the American people demand it.

Those of you who know me from Centerfield know that I've long said that political centrists should focus on improving the tone and attitude of debates in this country, not developing substantively "centrist" policies. Ideology itself is not bad, when it reflects real, substantive differences of opinion between significant segments of the population. Mr. Thompson recognizes that the problem is fundamentally not with Washington, but with the people who send the politicians to Washington. Moreover, he realizes that the problems will not be solved simply by insisting that we give up our strongly held opinions (by "putting aside" abortion or gay rights or the other so-called "divisive" issues).

The solution is not to paper over those differences but to acknowledge them... that is, to acknowledge that other people in our country don't all think like we do, that your differences with your political opponents may be based on honest differences of opinion, not just political opportunism.

Mr. Thompson recognizes our problems for what they are, in an optimistic light and with some knowledge, obviously, of the history of partisanship in this country. In so doing, he stands in stark contrast to Al Gore, who of late seems to have take courses at the Jimmy Carter school of national malaise.

Compare the excerpt from Gore's book and Mr. Thompson's PJM post. In reality, both are similar in substance. Both acknowledge the power of "new media" on the internet and its capacity to improve the health of public discourse in this country. For example, Thompson concludes:

Compare that magnanimity to what is going on in Washington and much of the Internet today. Sowell asks us, “In this day and time, can’t we have a responsible adult discussion of issues while the nation’s fate hangs in the balance in its most dangerous hour?”

That’s the question. If the answer is going to be “yes,” it will be due in large part to sites like this one. So thank you for all you’ve done here and for all the encouragement you’ve given me. Hopefully, we’ll continue this conversation.

The Gore excerpt concludes:

The democratization of knowledge by the print medium brought the Enlightenment. Now, broadband interconnection is supporting decentralized processes that reinvigorate democracy. We can see it happening before our eyes: As a society, we are getting smarter. Networked democracy is taking hold. You can feel it. We the people—as Lincoln put it, "even we here"—are collectively still the key to the survival of America's democracy.

Pretty similar message, really. But Mr. Gore gives us the message through the oldest of media, a book, with the excerpt being delivered from a quintessential old-media source, Time Magazine. Mr. Thompson delivers the message directly via the new medium, in a style and tone designed to appeal to the consumers of new media.

And now, finally, a note on tone. I said that Mr. Gore sounds as if he's been taking courses from the Jimmy Carter school of national malaise. President Carter, a decent and well-meaning man, was a terrible president, because he failed to inspire us as a people. Americans do not respond well to lectures and directives. But appeal to our better nature, and we can be putty in your hands. Flatter us, and we will seek to live up to that flattery. Go and read the Thompson post and the Gore excerpt. When you understand how they can say almost the same thing, yet one come across as far more appealing than the other, you will understand why Gore lost, why Dukakis lost, why Carter lost, and why Reagan won and Clinton won, and why the two real front-runners in the race right now are probably Barack Obama and Fred Thompson.