Thompson set to run, in jolt to GOP field

Republican Fred D. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and star of NBC's "Law & Order," will jump into the 2008 presidential race and start raising money next week, supporters and advisers said yesterday, delivering a jolt to a GOP field that some party activists and analysts believe lacks a viable conservative candidate.

Thompson, who served eight years in the Senate until 2002, plans to establish a presidential exploratory committee in the next several days, allowing him to begin collecting campaign contributions. He will make an initial fund-raising push Monday, when a select group of supporters called "First Day Founders" will attempt to raise at least $46,000 each on that day alone.

Given his comparatively late entrance, Thompson will have to work intensively to build a fund-raising base and political organization. The current leading candidates -- Mitt Romney, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuli ani -- have each raised millions of dollars; signed on scores of advisers, fund-raisers, and volunteers; and built formidable ground operations in key early primary states.

Still, Thompson, 64, is hardly starting from scratch. His acting career, as well as media speculation in the last several months over whether he would run, instantly make him one of the better-known candidates. Indeed, he already registers high -- above Romney, in some cases -- in surveys of likely Republican primary voters.

Thompson's supporters say he can capitalize on a hunger many conservatives feel for a top-tier candidate they can whole-heartedly embrace. For them, McCain has gone against the GOP on too many issues, Romney's recent shifts to the right on high-profile issues undermine his credibility, and Giuliani's more liberal social positions make him a nonstarter.

"Fred Thompson's entry becomes one of the defining events of the summer," said strategist Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. "He's filling this tremendous void in the conservatives' eyes. He's got a good conservative voting record in the Senate and ran on good Southern, Tennessee values."

Thompson has staked out conservative positions on major issues -- he supports gun rights, opposes same-sex marriage, and believes Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion, was wrong. He's also expressed reservations about the Senate immigration reform bill championed by McCain and President Bush.

But Thompson doesn't fit the conservative mold perfectly.

He has made statements in the past in support of abortion rights, and Christian conservatives backed his primary opponent when he first ran for Senate in 1994. Thompson also backed McCain's landmark campaign finance reform bill, which many conservatives vehemently oppose. And he has acknowledged having a spirited dating life between his first and second marriages.

Some prominent social conservatives have privately expressed skepticism about a Thompson candidacy, questioning whether he was an enthusiastic champion for their causes in the Senate. And influential evangelical leader James Dobson, in an interview with US News & World Report earlier this year, said he hadn't seen evidence of Thompson's faith, adding, "I don't think he's a Christian."

"The fact is, a lot of Republican primary voters, a lot of conservatives, are looking at the field and sort of saying, 'Hmm, this is interesting, but isn't there somebody else?' " said David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union . "And Fred is somebody else. . . . The question is, who?"

In recent months, he has delivered high-profile speeches to Republican groups, put together a nascent campaign team, and visited Capitol Hill to gauge support among Congressional Republicans. Earlier this spring, he fueled speculation he would run by disclosing that he had been diagnosed in 2004 with a treatable form of lymphoma.

Now, Thompson faces immediate strategic decisions, including whether to compete in a key straw poll in Ames, Iowa, this August. Success in the poll frequently predicts success in the Iowa caucuses, but doing well in Ames requires methodical -- and expensive -- preparation, something Romney and other GOP candidates have been doing for months.

Some Republicans report that Thompson is already generating excitement among party activists.

"With all the other candidates, when you mention them with the base, it's, 'I like this, but I don't like that,' " said Brad Unruh, chairman of the Young Professional Republican Federation of Alabama. "But you mention Fred Thompson and, 'Bam, there's my candidate.' "

Chip Felkel, a GOP political consultant based in Greenville, S.C., said he's picked up similar sentiments from conservatives there. "The Republican Party is looking for a candidate that has no caveats," said Felkel, who worked on Bush's election campaigns.

Thompson, who first made a name for himself as an aide to the Senate Watergate Committee, had been a Washington lawyer, lobbyist, and actor when he ran for Senate in 1994 to complete Al Gore's term, though he won by running a folksy campaign as a pickup- driving populist. He was reelected in 1996 but did not run again in 2002, saying after his 38-year-old daughter died of a heart attack that January, "I simply do not have the heart for another six-year term." He has since played a steely prosecutor on "Law & Order" and has filled in for legendary radio host Paul Harvey.

Wire services reported last night that Thompson has told "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf that he won't return for the new season in September. Thompson didn't discuss any future political plans but "asked to be released from his responsibilities on the show," Wolf said in an e-mailed statement.

McCain, Romney, and Giuliani all issued statements welcoming Thompson into the race, but his presence complicates things for each of them in different ways.

McCain and Thompson are close -- Thompson helped lead McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, and their Senate voting records have much in common. McCain, who fell short of fund-raising expectations in the first quarter of 2007, cannot afford to lose fund-raisers or potential donors.

Some analysts say Thompson's entry would deny Giuliani his status as the GOP's sole celebrity candidate.

For Romney, Thompson poses a new threat in the contest for conservative voters. Thompson has also stolen away one of Romney's top supporters in Congress, Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who was with Romney until last week.

But with Thompson facing questions about how badly he wants the presidency -- "I have never beaten down a lot of doors in my life," he acknowledged in a recent FOX News interview -- Romney's staff members are convinced that his organization will thwart Thompson's challenge.

Thompson's supporters say he has the experience, the presence, and the demeanor to lead the country and heal some of the divisiveness that has rankled Washington. "I think it's a matter of who can best lead the country, who can win the primary, and who can bring together the Democrats, and the Independents, and certainly Republicans back under one candidate," said Mack Mattingly, a former senator from Georgia.