It’s a bug.
At least that’s what Fred D. Thompson said between harumphs about his very noticeable harumphing this morning in a campaign appearance here at a local restaurant.
But if it is some sort of bug, it is a mighty persistent one, as it is a tic that everyone from television producers fretting about their audio to members of the audience at his speeches have noticed since he declared his candidacy for the presidency back in early September.
Mr. Thompson was animated this morning, addressing a packed room full of supporters, continuing a pattern he began at last Sunday’s Republican debate when he began to more aggressively take on his rivals.
Mr. Thompson’s repeated throat clearing and coughing has received some attention. “With me, what you see is what you get,” he said. “I was a conservative yesterday. I’m a conservative today and I’ll be a conservative tomorrow. And all my new buddies now running for president who have found the beauties of conservativism, I say, ‘Welcome to the club.’ But I gotta wonder if old Ronald Reagan is not smiling somewhere and looking down, shaking his head and says, ‘Who are these fellas who are using my name so often in these debates?’”
But his repeated clearing of his throat was an irregular metronome throughout his speech and the rest of the day.
Take his response to a question about the size of the military, which went something like this: “Military experts need to tell us (harumph) the exact numbers (harumph) that they think we need (harumph).”
That’s when he paused to offer his explanation.
“When you got a four-year-old and a one-year-old at home, there’s almost always something going around (harumph),” he said, drawing appreciative laughter from the audience. “It’s on its way here right now, I think (harumph).”
He offered the same explanation earlier in the week in Celebration, Fla., according to our correspondent, Marc Santora.
Sitting at a table with 11 elderly women, Mr. Thompson said about the frog that seemed to be in his throat: “Around our house, you know, there is always a little bug traveling around sometimes. Sometimes we all pick it up. A couple weeks ago, you know, I picked up a little one along with everyone else in my household.”
His repeated throat clearing and coughing got something of a national airing at his first debate in Michigan on Oct. 9.
But in an interview in Iowa with The Times’s national political correspondent, Adam Nagourney, a week before that, Mr. Thompson, with his wife, Jeri, at his side, offered a somewhat different explanation. He had been coughing throughout a morning event just before and during the interview his wife quietly slipped him a glass of water.
Mr. Thompson explained that he had drunk coffee with milk in the morning, which his doctors told him had caused throat congestion.
“When I get up in the morning, the first thing I wan to do is load myself with caffeine,” he said. “And they said, ‘Kind of like my wife’s diet. Tastes good, don’t eat it.’”
(Harumph.)