Fred Thompstone and the Modern Stone Age Candidacy
By Special Correspondent T.S. DeHaviland
It all begins in an Iowa snowstorm, the sort that makes the whole world
appear tinted with a dark blue as it rolls in from the west and begins
to fill the valleys between Iowa’s hills with a sticky, thick
layer of snow the consistency of cake batter. Thomas Hart Benton got
it right, of course, and the open-faced men and the broad-shouldered
women are still here, but now they’re busting sod with $200,000
monsters replete with GPS and articulated abdomens, neo-sauruses in
aluminum and cast iron. The days of the quaint, green John-Deere have
gone the way of Moxie and Beeman’s gum.
Inside a stifling community center in the tidy village of Bedrock,
Iowa, Fred Thompstone was not exactly rallying the crowd. Their interest
seemed tentative, their enthusiasm default. “I’m still not
sure about the leopard skin toga,” a pert, 30ish blond with frosted
bangs admitted to a reporter. “But at least he’s pro-life.”
She paused to adjust a cuff. “I think.”
At that moment, Fred Thompstone appeared on the stage, all 6’3”
of him, dressed in his signature skins but donning a more formal look
with a new tie around his neck. A 5 o’clock shadow crept on toward
dark, giving his jutting jaw and heavy brow a prehistoric caste. His
stump speech ran the course of the standard Rockpublican talking points:
anti-abortion, pro-war, anti gun-control, pro-execution (though Thompstone’s
favored “activist judge-proof” method, stoning, did strike
many in the crowd as a bit odd). The candidate elaborated on the expected
in all else but one at this stop: anti-immigrant, pro-free market, anti-gay
marriage, pro-expanded drilling for fossil fuels. This last point seemed
to be an important one for Thompstone, as if he had a personal investment
in dead dinos. He took pains to wax sentimental about brontosauruses
wandering about in a “simpler, warmer, happier clime,” and
to note the glory of a pterodactyl “graceful on its bat-like wing.”
Thompstone extolled the “friendliness of a stegosaurus,”
as if he had known a few himself.
Later, the smatterings of applause capping the evening with respectable
anticlimax, a reporter relaxing in his motel room and perusing over
Thompstone’s campaign literature found the true reason for the
Rockpublican hopeful’s embrace of the fossil-fuel programme. He
packages it to the masses in typical homespun fashion: tradition, history,
greatness, pride. But details of his plan involve an actual goal
of “1-12 degree increase in global climate by 2100” in an
attempt to “right a climatological wrong” begun by the last
ice age. Backed up by “facts” from energy-sector-funded
scientists, Thompstone’s position asserts that the extinctions
of the dinosaurs “sequestered great quantities of carbon underground”
where their “proper place keeping the atmosphere warm enough to
sustain substantial populations of industrial-strength mega-fauna”
could not be maintained. If released, their argument goes, “whole
lost worlds of reptile/human collaboration” could be restored,
“returning this great nation to the Gondwana it used to be.”
Accompanying this is an artist’s rendering of a primitive phonograph-like
device, a prehistoric bird, beak-to-disk, projecting out the sound.
No such quasi-eschatological/utopian language was present during his
speech, but that is no surprise: Thompstone’s true position would
be palatable only to his core constituency, so-called “Mundi-mentalists”
who contend that our biggest mistake was coming down out of the trees
to begin with, and they have the biblical passages to tell you why.
Theirs is no end-world prophecy, but an attempt to “take humanity
back to its womb,” using Genesis’ story of the Fall of Man
as proof that our antediluvian garden was a warmer, wetter, more hospitable
place to live. One would think such a message would poll well with Iowans
in the throes of winter, but as one Thompstone handler put it on condition
of anonymity: “We have to careful because it’s also a bit
of an insult, since they chose to live here.”
Whatever Thompstone’s strategy is for avoiding the more controversial
aspects of his candidacy, they seem not to have excited the Rockpublican
rank-and-file. This surprises most analysts, as Thompstone was seen,
previous to his entering the race, as a highly-anticipated savior-figure,
able to overcome the obvious shortcomings of the other contenders in
the general election. The mainstream media touted his conservative credentials:
one time prosecutor in the Nixstone administration; five-term congressman
from Flint, Michigan; recent TV personality playing the traditional
patriarch of a sitcom cave man family—it all seemed to state,
boldly and calmly, “I stand for traditional values.” But
that last role, as an actor, is both Thompstone’s Ace in the Hole
and his Ace of Spades: his creation as a household name banks on that
role, a role he is suited for in terms of attitude, physiognomy, and
personal style. But it has also typecast Thompstone as, perhaps, less
than presidential. “We like our presidents to be leaders and not
just lawyers,” asserts Loyola poli-sci professor Leila Lenovitch.
“Thompstone may be the world’s greatest caveman-prosecutor,
the ur-patriarch, but because of that he’s not yet seen as a potent
presidential possibility.”
Thompstone’s personal past may also be part of what’s hampering
his progress with religious conservatives in particular. His first wife,
Wilma, disappeared under mysterious circumstances on a trip to the famed
La Brea tar pits; neither her body nor any signs of how or why she disappeared
have since surfaced. Thompstone’s second wife, Betty, was once
married to his former best friend, and the Hollywood rumor-mill has
it that the former prosecutor and his best friend’s wife were
involved long before Wilma’s disappearance or his best friend’s
estrangement.
But beyond that, the failure of Thompstone’s campaign to really
take off appears surprising. Despite the misgivings of the woman at
the Iowa rally, most Rockpublicans embrace Thompstone’s cave man
image as a “no-nonsense, back-to-basics” approach, the outward
manifestation of what was so appealing about George W. Bush intellectually.
Perhaps a better explanation of the ho-hum response to Thompstone’s
bid for the White House is the relative glut of Rockpublican candidates,
from Silt Romney’s clean-cut run to Rock Paul’s dark horse
internet campaign, Rockpublican voters already had a bewildering array
of options before Thompstone stepped in. Or it may simply be that likely
voters just don’t know quite what to do with the gravelly voice
and faux-blue-collar demeanor of Thompstone. His constant references
to terrorists as “sabre-toothed tigers,” and to the slow
pace of government as “like a frozen mammoth in a Siberian glacier,”
fail to resonate with voters whose most likely points of comparison
run on electricity. “Still,” writes conservative columnist
Saul Underall, “There’s a Ralph Kramden aspect to him that
traditional women seem to love.” One wonders, though, how many
Phyllis Schlaflys there really are out there anymore, even in darkest
Iowa or swing states like Florida or Ohio.
Meeting Thompstone’s plane at the tarmac in the Granite State,
supporters were greeted by still more cold. The primeval wind blew now,
a Nor’easter, upwind of where the chartered Beechjet waggled on
final approach, as if against the inexorable stream of time itself.
The smattering of supporters here, unlike in Iowa, took on a cultlike
quality rare in the more reserved Midwest. A few had taken up Thompstone’s
leopard skin sartorial theme, with one man shivering in his off-the-shoulder
one-piece and no coat. A perhaps more sensible female supporter, just
breaking into her obvious middle-age, dressed in a Lycra leopard-print
jumpsuit with a matching fur hat and muff. Perhaps in keeping with Thompstone’s
platform of a “Neanderthal-style aristocracy of believers”
the woman felt the need to emphasize to a reporter that the hat and
muff were “totally real,” and that America’s entrance
into international treaties to curtail the trade in endangered species
was “a crock,” and “an affront to our most basic liberties.”
She elaborated: “I mean they’re predators, the leopards—it’s
not like they’re fuzzy-wuzzy widdle puddy-tats. They’d kill
us if they had the chance. This isn’t endangerment; it’s
self-preservation!”
True to form, Thompstone addressed this issue as well as “the
steady encroachment of modern advancements such as the ‘wheel’
and the ‘bow and arrow’” which “threaten the
sanctity of the tribe.” His rhetoric became here more basic, more
raw, appealing to the very heart of the heart of his base. He appealed
to the crowd to demand the “banning of graphic depictions in ochre
or blood or any other medium” of sexuality, fearing they may besmirch
“the very hearth of the family cave.” The applause by the
ardent few was enthusiastic if not a bit muffled by the sheer size of
the airport concourse.
None of this should suggest that Thompstone’s message isn’t
getting out to the Rockpublican party more broadly. The president himself
said this recently in a speech about Iran, echoing a Thompstonian ethos:
"Our nation cannot remain sedimentary while Iran arms itself."
And while it’s to be expected that during the Rockpublican primaries
the major candidates would push each other steadily rightward, a trend
steadily backward through time is a bit less expected, at least not
in such an overt form. Not since Wagner attempted to reclaim Germany’s
pagan past has the move toward out-and-out barbarism been so prominent
a part of politics. Even such consummate campaign operators as John
McClams have “heard loud and clear” that their conservative
constituents believe securing our borders against the “homo-erectus
hordes” should be the “nation’s #1 concern.”
It wasn’t until after his fourth place finish in the Granite
State primary that Thompstone really began to polish his Rockpiblican
street cred. The former congressman has always been against what he
calls “willy-nilly progress,” but by now it was time to
go negative, always a good move in a party that traditionally rewards
strength and punishes weakness. Sometime front runner Mica Huckleberry
was “endorsed by the NEA” during his campaign to reform
the schools in Stonybrook, where he was mayor, contended
Thompstone during a recent debate. In contrast, Thompstone was “endorsed
by the National Rock to Life Committee,” a Neolithic advocacy
group. This comment garnered Thompstone a near-immediate ten point jump
in the polls, reflecting a hostility among Rockpublicans toward the
“dangerous innovation” represented by education.
But this still had Thompstone running third, although perhaps a less
distant one. The election of 2008, no matter what the base says, still
seems to be about change, with reform-minded candidates on both sides
taking consistent leads. A week after New Hampshire, at a gathering
of his faithful in Cenoza, Florida, Thompstone finally had his chance
to transform his message from the past to a change to the past. Local
conservative luminaries, business types, even the occasional activist
hob-nobbed their way through tables laden with $500 a plate lobster.
Thompstone again took the stage, in a more formal lion skin this time,
a black tie bobbing up and down on his Adam’s apple as he spoke.
Now, and perhaps for the first time, a crowd would feel the full force
of a modern stone-age man.
“I believe in this country,” he thundered, his jowls shaking,
the huge, prognathic jaw projecting the grating power of his voice all
the way through the room’s back wall. “I believe in our
ability to defend ourselves from terroristic sabre-toothed tigers! I
believe that the Wooly Mammoth will come back to clothe and feed us
and give us its rich fat for to render into our light and our heat!”
He was positively bellowing now, the great promontory of a forehead
glistening with sweat.
“I will not let the forces of defeat and iron-age skepticism
derail our march steadily into the past! I will not allow our simple
faith in burning the blood of animal sacrifice to be shaken by such
sophistications and abstractions as an ethereal and transcendent god!
Oh no!”
And then the props came out. First the dead goat that Thompstone raised
above his head as he spoke: “I need—we need—this country
needs a God we can touch! A Big Man in the Sky whose lightning will
fire forth to vanquish our enemies in our struggle with the dark forces
of civilization, against their effete ineffectuality and Volvo-driving
snobbery!”
Down went the goat, and up came the club, as did the zenith of Thompstone’s
exhibition, of his exposition as well. He sat down, and, for the first
time, I saw a Thompstone gathering go wild with enthusiasm, despite
the rare Florida chill, despite the seeming decorum implied by the black
ties and the designer gowns. You can take a Rockpublican out of his
cave and put him in a suit and tie in a high-rise apartment, they seemed
to be saying, but you can’t take the flint-knapping, spear-chucking,
wife-clubbing pre-humanoid out of the Rockpublican, no matter how many
lattes he’s forced to drink.
That it was not enough is instructive. For just a week after the rally
in the Everglades, Thompstone was forced, by lack of money and lack
of momentum, to bow out. This leaves the path open to the more modern
morphologies of Silt Romney and John McClams, indicating that the Rockpublicans
are willing to package their retrograde politics in the new-fashioned
skins of change. If the last eight years of Rockpublican rule are any
indication, that change will be only fur deep. But re-imaging could
mean revitalization in the minds of voters, and that may mean a brontosaurus
burger on every griddle, the vision of a party that sees the future
only in tenses past.
