Is Fred Thompson too lazy to be president?

I have to say, I am impressed by how quickly Fred Thompson has risen in the polls. As Fz points out below, Thompson is now even with Giuliani in the race for the Republican nomination. Will he be able to hold on to his commanding numbers? Tom Dickinson at National Affairs Daily has his doubts:

I fear, though, that Fred’s numbers are softer than his Dixie Drawl. While Thompson may play a Reagan Republican on television, his real-life record is that of a lazy man’s John McCain. Thompson co-chaired his friend’s presidential campaign in 2000, and helped fine-tune McCain’s conservative-detested campaign finance reform law. He’s also has a well earned reputation for laziness. “I don’t do frenetic,” he said recently, predicting a low-key campaign.

Newsweek has the rundown on Fred Thompson's reputation for being a little light on the work ethic:

The former senator turned "Law & Order" actor, who launched an exploratory committee last week, has been dogged by rumors that he doesn't have the work ethic for a long campaign. "The book on him is he's lazy," David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, said last week. The criticism seems fed by Thompson's time in the Senate, where he maintained a less rigorous schedule than his colleagues and was known to duck out of late-night debates. Of the 90 bills he introduced during his eight years in the Senate, only four became law.

Then there's this amusing quote:

In his yearbook at Lawrenceburg County High, Thompson put this quote next to his senior portrait: "The lazier a man is, the more he plans to do tomorrow."

Which completely sums up how I felt in high school. In any case, it does seem like the issue will be a problem for him. Over at Slate, John Dickinson argues that whether or not Thompson really is lazy (and Dickinson seems to think he is), the charge will hurt him:

Fair or not, the laziness rap against Thompson is like the rap that former presidential hopeful Sen. George Allen isn't a genius. Or that John McCain is a hothead. It's an unresolved issue waiting for its moment to become a crisis for the campaign. Thompson's spokesman, Mark Corallo, brushes off critics with a line Ronald Reagan used when belittling what he considered his opponent's hysterical distortions: "There they go again."

The laziness charge can be deadly because however much voters like the notion of no-sweat solutions, they also want to be sure that their president is up at night worrying about terrorist attacks so they don't have to. They also like to know they're getting their money's worth from their public officials. After the early-to-bed Bush administration, this may be truer than ever.

Yikes. And the laziness issue isn't his only problem. Check out what he had to say about abortion a while back:

I can't wait to see what happens when the campaign really heats up and Rudy McRomney let loose their attack dogs.