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The Actor

Those are the rational arguments. Fred Thompson is counting on something a little more visceral.

On July 10, Thompson made a last-minute trip to suburban Atlanta for the omnipresent Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concert, a fund-raiser for Oliver North’s scholarship fund that benefits the sons and daughters of service personnel killed in action.

Beforehand, there was a meet and greet for supporters at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce. Thompson took exactly one question and shrugged when I asked him about the impact of the recent media attacks. “I don’t feel any arrows,” he said.

Taking a page from his dress-casual Senate campaigns, Thompson wore a camel-colored sport jacket, an open-necked shirt, slacks, and brown loafers. He thanked his supporters for turning out on short notice and pledged, “We’re playing by our own rules.” He touched on the well-grooved themes of competence and the “shenanigans in Washington,” but today he struck a more acutely patriotic chord. “A lot of smart people have looked at the history books and said, ‘Well, it’s been a pretty good run. Lots of civilizations have lasted a little longer, but they all declined and got fat and happy and sassy and weak. And they all just faded into the sunset.’” Thompson was working the room without a microphone and spoke quietly and even slower than usual. “That is not going to happen on our watch.” You could practically hear the martial music.

After posing for pictures, Thompson was ushered next door to the Gwinnett Arena, where 12,000 people were gathered. Hannity opened the show with a Hillary imitator getting off gems like “My husband moved from the White House to Harlem. Of course, he read the map wrong and thought it said ‘Harem.’” The party faithful pounded their hands in approval but quieted for the pledge of allegiance.

After the Christian rock band Avalon performed, Thompson was introduced. He read a patriotic poem about the war, took his bows, then sat down in the audience and watched with rapt excitement as the comedian Larry the Cable Guy glided through a set. “My doctor told me I had to give up eggs,” said Larry, tugging at his trucker cap. “I said, ‘Why, because of my cholesterol?’ He said, ‘No, your farts are killing us.’”

The arena echoed with laughter. Over in his seat, Thompson slapped his thigh and gave an “It’s funny ’cause it’s true” full-body shake. He seemed to be having the time of his life. It is hard to imagine Rudy or Romney, Hillary or Barack, sitting through the set, much less soaking it all in.

The fashionable book in high-level political circles these days, the one the candidates and their staffs have been talking about, is The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Drew Westen. The central idea is that voters don’t make rational calculations about a candidate and his positions. They vote for the person they just plain like. Fred Thompson’s best hope is that Westen is right.