DES MOINES - Iowa's premiere political columnist tells The KY3 Political Notebook that he doesn't believe Fred Thompson could win the presidency if he decided to run, because the former U.S. Senator has cancer.
David Yepsen, a columnist for the Des Moines Register, said that cancer is a disqualifier for potential presidential candidates.
Fred Thompson, who has been drafted to run for President by a majority of Missouri House Republicans, is considering jumping into the crowded 2008 campaign.
But last week he revealed that he's been battling lymphoma for the last three years.
Is cancer an automatic disqualifer?
"Fred Thompson has cancer. You just can't get elected if that's the case," said Yepsen in an interview in Des Moines this weekend. "Look what happened to Paul Tsongas."
Tsongas ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1992 with cancer. He died in 1997.
Yepsen said the cancer hurdle is too high for a candidate to overcome. "I'm not sure how serious he was before," Yepsen said about Thompson. "But I think he's going to run into some people telling him he's wasting his time."
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