Fred: Post-partisan talk on real issues?

According to David Broder, Fred Thompson wants a change of pace. He wants to talk about important issues:

[H]e "will take some risks that others are not willing to take, in terms of forcing a dialogue on our entitlement situation, our military situation and what it’s going to cost" to ensure the nation’s future. …

But he says he thinks the public is looking for a different kind of leadership. "I think a president could go to the American people and say, ‘Here’s what we need to be doing. And I’m willing to go halfway. Now you have to make them [the opposition] go halfway.’ "

This sounds like the constant refrain from the John McCain campaign, "John McCain showed that he will take on the hard issues like immigration and national security." And it is consistent with Thompson’s character and his support for McCain in 2000 and 2006-2007. Thompson is said to have left Washington because he felt it was impossible to address real challenges from the Senate.
So far from the Thompson campaign, we have seen red meat, but this piece shows another side:

"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges."

Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could ensure a better future for their children.

Perhaps it is a problem solving, post-partisanship? I am convinced that Thompson is not the person that conservative activists fantasize him to be. This seems like supporting evidence

UPDATE:   Jim Geraghty thinks this is big and sees something similar to what I do. Allahpundit does not.