Is Tucker Carlson taking to the stump?

Maybe it's an accident, maybe it's intentional, or maybe it's just wishful thinking, but when the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke on stage last week for his first public appearance since his ouster from the cable giant in April, there were some listeners who thought he sounded more like a candidate for office than one of the country's best-known political pundits.

And it came in one of the country's heartland states.

Carlson was the featured speaker Thursday at the Oxford Performing Arts Center in Oxford, Alabama, for a fundraiser benefiting the Rainbow Omega center, an adult residential care facility in nearby Eastaboga, Alabama.

Tickets for the show were sold out, as might be expected from such a high-profile appearance, and the crowd's welcome was overwhelming.

But there was an element of anticipation that might have gone beyond Carlson's debut in the public spotlight again after his unceremonious defenestration from Fox on April 24.

As The Liberty Daily, a conservative news aggregator, put it in a video headline: "Tucker Carlson Sounding Very Candidate-Like in New Speech: 'Our Divisions That We See Are Manufactured, Fake.'"

Check out part of the speech below.

The audio can be difficult to make at points, but the gist is that it's basic human nature to want to ensure better conditions for future generations.

"I think that's the way you need to assess American politics, which is, after all, supposed to be designed to improve people's lives," Carlson said.

Carlson then talked about his career as a political observer who was maybe so caught up in the weeds of the biennial and quadrennial contests for political power in congressional and presidential elections that he missed the forest for the trees.

"The point of the entire exercise should be to help people," he said. "And primarily to help them help themselves."

There might be a better statement of the conservative approach to government out there, but that's among the best.

It's also a statement about human behavior that's almost universally understood outside the context of government.

Parents who are raising or have raised children know the importance of teaching them to function in the world independently -- to be able to survive without the parents' help.

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That, after all, is the duty of all parents to their offspring, whether it's deer or squirrels, killer whales or human beings. Most species even somehow do it with a Department of Education trying to turn bucks into does.

"I'm starting to think -- I've thought for a while, but I'm starting to really believe -- that the divisions that we see in our society are pretty much manufactured, actually. Are pretty much fake," Carlson said.

Here he is at another point, extolling the strength of character to be found in the American heartland -- very much a political candidate's way of speaking.

Some divisions might be fake, but the enthusiasm generated by Carlson's speech was real.

As AL.com reported, the 1,189-seat show was sold out, going a long way toward making the budget for Rainbow Omega, the assisted living facility Carlson was speaking for.

At another point during his speech, AL.com reported, Carlson asked the crowd how individual Americans can help the nation.

“I’m a sincere lover of the country and I want it to get better,” Carlson said. “How do you, all of us, in our small, incremental ways, make it better?”

"Run for president!” a man in the audience shouted, according to AL.com.

The comment drew the crowd's applause.

“Run for president?” Carlson said, AL.com reported. “I think if you run for president, they will assassinate your character.”

Carlson already knows a thing or two about being the target of character assassination. He also knows a thing or two about politics, obviously.

Would he make a good candidate for office? Not even Carlson knows that for sure at this point.

But there are no doubt a whole lot of people in the country who would like to find out.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.