Fred: First on tackling illegal immigration, First in common sense.

From Numbers, USA

(January 18) The day before South Carolina’s Republican Primary, the Rasmussen Poll of the state shows the frontrunners as McCain (24%), Huckabee (24%), Romney (18%) and Thompson (16%). Of the four, according to NumbersUSA President Roy Beck’s Presidential Grid that rates each candidate in 16 immigration categories, Fred Thompson scores the highest. And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) scores the lowest overall. The ratings are based on how well a candidate’s immigration stances would protect American workers, taxpayers, communities, infrastructure, individual freedom and the environment.

Fred on Gitmo:

SENECA, S.C. --

(AP) -- Republican U.S. presidential candidate Fred Thompson on Friday defended the detention of foreign nationals at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

''The last thing in the world we need is a bunch of enemy combatants over here in our court system,'' the former Tennessee senator said during a radio interview in front of a couple hundred people at a restaurant.

He said closing the detention facility would allow prisoners to demand rights given to U.S. citizens and would not help ``buy off world opinion.''

The Guantánamo remarks were a slap at Arizona Sen. John McCain, the winner of the New Hampshire primary and former Vietnam-held prisoner-of-war, who has called for the facility to be shuttered in part because it is harming the United States' global reputation.

Fred on issues:


No. Contest.

Full Speed Ahead, Fred! (c)