The Doug Marlette cartoon shows a huge billboard hawking the slogan, “NONE OF THE ABOVE 2008.” A woman driving by cracks, “Looks like Fred Thompson’s getting serious.”

That telling comment is only partly true. Yes, the Thompson fantasy is fueled by a deep disenchantment with the current field of Republican candidates. The former Tennessee senator and movie and television actor has emerged as an idealized – and largely imaginary – alternative. Voters know very little about him, which is precisely the point.

No facts, no flaws.

If that billboard fully reflected the anguish rippling through Republican ranks, it would also contain a huge portrait of Hillary Clinton linked to a dire warning: “STOP THIS WOMAN.” What was once a distant nightmare for GOP loyalists has now jelled into a very real possibility: The junior senator from New York could well become the nation’s 44th president.

Thompson is keenly aware that the strongest emotion driving his candidacy is fear. “I don’t want to turn the keys of the country over to Hillary Clinton,” he told a California audience. “I think with me you wouldn’t have to do that.”