One person I love (my wife Donna) and another person I like (Pat Powers at SD War College) are swooning over former U.S. Senator/faux New York County District Attorney Fred “Arthur Branch” Thompson.

Donna gushes about his down-home style.  Pat thinks he’s a GOP savior in the 2008 Presidential sweepstakes, a Ronald Reagan for the 21st Century.

I just think he was a middlin’ U.S. Senator and a middlin’ actor.  All his character does on NBC’s Law and Order is sit around and second guess Sam Waterston’s Chief Deputy ADA character and occasionally push his ample weight around when a judge does something he doesn’t like.  He reminds me of a cross between a laconic Tony Soprano and Deputy Droopy from the old MGM cartoons.

But I digress.

Don’t take it from me, take it from the late, great playwright Arthur Miller (via columnist Dick Polman) when it comes to our country wanting politicians who are also thespians.  (From the Sacramento Bee):

Playwright Arthur Miller would have been fascinated by the rapid ascendancy of the GOP’s purported celluloid savior, Fred Thompson, R-Hollywood… .

Miller understood the art of political role-playing: “The Stanislavsky method was an attempt to systematize the actor’s search for authenticity as he works to portray a character different from his own. Politicians do something similar all the time; by assuming personalities not genuinely theirs — let’s say, six-pack, lunch-box types — they hope to connect with ordinary Americans.” The cable TV shoutmeisters are swooning. On Hardball the other night, Chris Matthews was free-associating about Ole Fred: “Do you think there’s a sex appeal for this guy? He looks sort of seasoned and in charge of himself. … Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man’s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved?” One of his guests, Ana Marie Cox, founder of Wonkette, offered this tidbit of political analysis: “I do like the way he drinks his whiskey on ‘Law and Order.”’ Thompson has worked this trick before. Back in 1994, he decided to stop acting and run for real. But his bid to become a senator from Tennessee was a flop — until he made a crucial decision. He shed his expensive Washington threads and put on flannels and blue jeans. He hid his luxury sedan and rented a Chevy pickup. He made sure everybody saw him driving that pickup. He soared in the polls and won handily.

I would compare Fred to a different character than his current Arthur Branch gig.  I’d compare him to Hamlet, of the eponymous title, written by another playwright with some boffo street cred—William Shakespeare.

Will Fred decide to “be” or “not to be” a candidate for President?

Because if he waits much longer, he’ll certainly lose the one race no candidate can afford to lose—the money race.  With front-loaded primaries in big states in early 2008, the laconic, aw-shucks, velvet-hammer approach might be endearing, but not effective.