Thompson to face high expectations

The former senator plans to officially kick off his presidential bid Thursday.

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 5, 2007 edition

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Washington - He has played both a real president (Ulysses S. Grant) and a fictional one on TV, and now, at last, former actor/senator/lobbyist Fred Thompson is ready to audition for the real deal, as he unveils his presidential campaign via webcast on Thursday.

The 6-foot, 6-inch Tennesseean enters the race late and with sky-high expectations. National polls of Republican voters typically put Mr. Thompson in second place, behind former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

But polls also show "none of the above" scoring well or even at times in the lead – a sign, say Thompson backers, that GOP voters are unhappy with their choices. That's good news for Thompson, who was drafted to run after another former Tennessee senator, Bill Frist, opted out of the race. Now that Thompson is a full-fledged candidate, his supporters say, voters once hesitant about buying into a quasi-candidate can say he's their man.

In a way, Thompson has been running for months. He's been building his campaign staff, giving speeches, and raising money. But by keeping himself in "testing the waters" mode, not even filing papers to establish a exploratory committee, he has avoided some of the scrutiny that the fully declared candidates have faced.

He has not taken part in any of the Republican debates – and will miss the next one, on Wednesday night, preferring instead to appear on "The Tonight Show" – and has not competed as a coequal with the other GOP candidates in the fundraising race otherwise known as the "money primary."

Still, his long-developing sort-of campaign has kept political reporters busy, given the turmoil and regular turnovers among top campaign staff, mixed reviews for his speeches, and fundraising that had not met his team's stated expectations. Now, Thompson says, he's ready to go. But he has, in effect, skipped spring training and is going right into the regular season. With the entire political world watching intently, there is little margin for error.

"There's really no clear Republican front-runner and he continues to do reasonably well in the polls, so he has a shot," says John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. "But at the end of the day, what really matters is, does he come out with a message that resonates with Republicans?"

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