It is a curious song to reference on the front page of RedState.com, Metallica’s Enter Sandman, and I will not link the lyrics. However, to a New York Yankees fan, it’s not about nasty dreams or drummer Lars Ulfsbane throwing fits at the old Napster. Rather, it usually means that Mariano Rivera has entered the game and the win is secure. It is the song they play as he walks from the bullpen to save a game.

Pitchers like Kyle Farnsworth, Mike Myers, Scott Proctor, and Luis Vizcaino are all major leaguers, capable pitchers, but they’re not going to get the Yankees into the hunt for wildcard spot, let alone strike at the Boston Red Sox, if they cannot hold ballgames.

Candidates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney are all capable politicians and would probably make for decent national management. So would the rest, save one or two. President Reagan was that, and he was more, and the GOP needs a closer.

Mariano has not had many opportunities to save games this year, but he was lights out last night, when he ended the potential nightmare Farnsworth was creating. Mariano River is possibly the most exciting player to wear the pinstripes since Mickey Mantle.

Fred Thompson is possibly the most exciting candidate with a Republican lapel pin since Ronald Reagan.

“The Fred has Landed.”

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Because some of you find perfect bliss is Rudy, McCain, or Mitt, I will insert TCrown’s newly minted and wonderfully stipulated disclaimer:

Mandatory note to the retarded among our readership: The foregoing sentence does not represent, and is not intended to represent, the views, opinions, and snark of RedState; the Directors; the Contributors; the parent company’s owners, agents, employees, and officers; or indeed, of anyone. I add this simply because some people who support a guy whose name rhymes with Bomni are not alone in believing that front-page content is indicative of site positions.

That being said, it looks like what has happened to this point will become trivia. (NOTE: I could say that about any nominating contest at the beginning of the summer before the election year.) As RedState reader heath suggests: Redraw Your Maps.

My lovely wife, a Law and Order viewer, let me know this morning that that he is quitting the show with two years left on his contract to, raise money and hire a staff. On Friday, Thompson will form “Friends of Fred Thompson,” to start those processes.

Count me in. I have not decided to support him at this early date, but I want Mariano Rivera to enter the game in a save situation. This is it.

“We’ll go into the testing the waters phase and that will allow us to raise some money and start building a staff to get out there and make sure that what we feel like is going on is going on,” Thompson said. “There’s a desire for someone to come in and run a different kind of campaign and come with a different message and address some of the issues our country is facing.”

I was excited at the beginning of 2007, when I began blogging Lynn Swann’s campaign for Pennsylvania governor for RedState. I compare this to that not to compare the two candidates, but really because there is so much promise, so much potential. I am convinced that Fred Thompson will live up to that potential, and if I’m captured, I’ll probably back him in July. Perhaps on the 4th.

Enter Sandman? In our context, perhaps. Remember, Mo Rivera is a first-ballot hall of famer; when he retires, he will train to become a minister. He’s only started. At this stage in Fred Thompson’s life, it could be that he, too, has only started.