Newscoma

There are things that confound me and then at the same time do not surprise me at all. Yesterday, in the national news arena, we watched three very vital stories hit our television/internet worlds and the reaction to all three stories was quite unique. But which story was the biggest one of the day?

We first had the story about the economy which confounds the average citizen and that includes me.

Followed by the withdrawal of Fred Thompson from the GOP presidential race, which could have been his if he wanted it. I can’t help but think that the worries that some of us as Democrats had when he announced and it faded into an abyss of woulda, coulda, shoulda. It may be the Tennessean coming out of me with this observation. I saw a Twitter from Brittney Gilbert in San Francisco say that his announcement didn’t impact anyone in her news room in San Francisco which I think is probably about right.

And then the death of actor Heath Ledger.

In rooting around the Internet yesterday, as I was a blogging fool for about five different websites, the most response I saw about all of the three stories was about the death of the young actor. It was the story that made a lot of people sit and and listen and talk. It even broke Nashville is Talking for awhile.

If you are a member of Twitter, for about four straight hours yesterday, Ledger’s death was the one that had people pondering what had happened, why a young man with a great deal of talent had died so unexpectedly. Was it a suicide? Was it an accidental drug overdose? The nation is apparently enamoured with watching Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Amy Winehouse, but the good actor with the big future was off the radar. It was a surprise.

I had a boss once tell me in news that there are always three big stories. 1.) Kids, 2.) personal issues with money and 3.) the unknown/death.

There is a great deal of validity to all three of those observations.

I thought Ledger was talented. He took chances. And there will always be the mystery of how someone so young could die. His death completely annihilated the other two top stories of the day off the top fold and on key posts of everyone major news organizations’ websites.

The story taking top placement isn’t surprising. And the immediacy of the conversation regarding his passing online wasn’t either. I’m just more connected now than I used to be in online entities.

Am I being analytical? Yes.

I feel all of my age this morning because the first thing I thought of was it’s sad that this kid had to die. But young people die everyday. They die in war, they die in reckless car crashes, they die from disease. But they are not famous they are just our people and we mourn.

And for some reason, we are connected with the instant loss of life because I think it targets some of our most primal fears.  And for the news industry, the other stories take the bottom fold because people want to know about the world of celebrity and watch from a safe distance. That includes me, I assure you.

I think there are a lot of Tennesseans today watching Fred Thompson to see what he’s going to do next. Looking at some of the posts around the blogosphere from last night as well as Ken Whitehouse’s excellent first person perspective from South Carolina, it seems that Thompson will be sputtering toward the presidential light at the end of the proverbial tunnel within the next few days.

I’m not so sure, honestly, but I think they are right. He lost South Carolina, the state he was predicted to sweep in the early days of his campaign.

When Thompson (finally) announced last summer, I’ll be honest, I was a bit worried. I thought he would do much better than he has, of course, we didn’t anticipate the Huckabee/Norris ticket or the Internet buzz of Ron Paul. When MSM was trying to bury John McCain, who I’ve always thought was a force to be reckoned with personally, they tended to make Thompson all sexy.

But here’s the thing, he wasn’t. Not once in this race has he lived up to the hype and spin that was the focus during the pre-announcement days of his plans to run for president. His campaign was something that the Republicans and the Democrats anticipated quite anxiously.

And then when he actually announced it went downhill fast.

Although he has the cool voice and the popular acting career, he has been unfocused and appears to be tired. He has literally napped through the debates as well as the campaign and, this is just me talking, he has appeared to not really care about winning.

Americans are a funny breed when it comes to voting. They want spark and fire or they want someone they feel they can relate to. Or they vote for the person they wouldn’t mind trading places with. They like the underdog as well, and Thompson has not capitalized on that at all which if he really wanted the White House, he would have done. Voters love the comeback kids of the world. They do not want a candidate who has a sense of entitlement or who looks absolutely bored to death.

On top of everything else, he just doesn’t seem to want it.

Now, with that said I interviewed Thompson when he was running for the Senate back in the day. (Yeah, I’m long in the tooth, shut up.) He was a fantastic interview but that was a decade and a half ago. He was driving the red-pick up, talking with that home-spun charm he was famous for and he was pretty fiery. And he sold the moderate Republican package very well (I’ve been around the block a time or too, I knew spin when I saw it but he did it well.) Of course, after eight years of Bush, Republicans don’t do the moderate thing like they used to. And the thing is, I know a ton of moderate Republicans but for whatever reason it’s not translating to national races these days. I guess what I’m saying is he didn’t seem like a bad guy at all.  I didn’t vote for him, mind you, but as a rural reporter on the beat back in the day, he was a fun interview.

But that fire is no longer there. Could it be the cancer battle he recently endured? Could it be that he was “expected” to run?  Is he sticking around to help out McCain, as some pundits believe?  Is he going to stick it out until Super Tuesday?

Either way, a third-place finish in South Carolina is bad news for Fred Dalton.

I found this little new addiction over at The Boomer Chronicles.

Want to know what your neighborhood is donating to politicians? Interested in the trends of your neighbors?

Here’s a little bit of political voyeurism for you at FundRace which is over at the Huffington Post.

I discovered that a bunch of people from where I live are donating to, you guessed it, Fred Thompson.

Very addictive.

We haven’t talked politics in a couple of days.

I read this story this morning in the Tennessean  about Fred Thompson on the campaign trail and there was one line that caught my eye.

MANCHESTER, Iowa — Most of the top Republican candidates for president don’t have the foreign policy experience to handle the dangers the U.S. faces, Fred Thompson said in an interview Tuesday.

“The fact of the matter is that among the so-called top candidates, (Arizona Sen.) John McCain is the only one with any experience in these areas,” Thompson said.

Then he goes on to talk about Mike Huckabee is a weakling and something about world domination. (I’m kidding although he did say Huckabee was too nice.)

Then there was the line that gave me pause:

That’s what he told a crowd of about 40 people who gathered Tuesday morning at a hotel here to hear him speak.

40 people?

When venues are filling up for Oprah, I mean Obama, it must be odd for just 40 people to show up. That’s like the equivalent to a classroom of third graders.

Now, it could be argued that he’s going out meeting folks one at a time. I’m sure I will hear that from some folks but still …

Remember when the buzz was all about Fred?

That lasted all of about fifteen minutes.

Last night at a local watering hole, I had three young men sitting next to me. What were they talking about?

Ron Paul.

This election cycle is just boggling my mind.  I think, at this point, it’s anybody’s race.