A New Role for Fred Thompson

By Mark Halperin

As former Republican Senator Fred Thompson ponders a late entry into the 2008 Presidential race, the actor's biggest advantage just might be that people feel they already know exactly what he would be like as Commander in Chief.

Even before his Law & Order depiction of district attorney Arthur Branch, Thompson nearly always played variations on the same character -- a straight-talking, tough-minded, wise Southerner -- basically a version of what his supporters say is his true political self. And he is often cast as a person in power -- a military official, the White House chief of staff, the head of the CIA, a Senator or even the President of the U.S. It could be called the Cary Grant approach to politics. As the legendary actor once explained his own style and success, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and I finally became that person."

On the strength of that visibility and image, Thompson, 64, has vaulted in public-opinion polls to within striking distance of the leading Republican candidates. In the latest TIME poll, he's at 10%, matching Mitt Romney. But Thompson is under no illusion that winning the White House would be easy, despite (or perhaps because of) his frequent acknowledgment that "certain doors have opened to me from time to time in my life."

That is not to say Thompson hasn't had to overcome many personal hardships -- a marriage while in high school after conceiving a child with his teenage girlfriend, a subsequent divorce, a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma 2 1/2 years ago and, perhaps most traumatic, the sudden death of his daughter Betsy in 2002 from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. He is now married to a Republican political strategist and has two small children.

Born in Alabama and raised in Tennessee, Thompson, the son of a used-car salesman, had no family ties to big-time politics or Hollywood, but his charisma -- and luck -- eventually helped him succeed in both. After putting himself through college at Memphis State and law school at Vanderbilt, he spent several years in private practice and as a prosecutor and then went on to Washington in 1973 to work on the Watergate investigation. His foray into acting began accidentally. Film director Roger Donaldson interviewed the young lawyer while doing research for a movie about a corruption case and offered Thompson the chance to play himself. His political career also took advantage of good timing. When Al Gore vacated his Senate seat, Thompson entered the race for it and won handily, after driving his trademark red pickup truck all over Tennessee.

The single most compelling feature of a Thompson candidacy would be his magnetism. A natural storyteller, he speaks with a relaxed cadence and unhurried confidence, peppering his remarks with language such as "fella" and "bad guys," pausing expertly to make a point, relish an applause line, set up a joke. He is most effective when he makes fun of the superficial glamour of Los Angeles and the tangled hypocrisy of D.C. In a recent appearance, he supplied a cheeky anecdote about a fellow Senator coming up to him after he gave his first speech on the Senate floor, which was on the topic of "having Congress abide by the laws that everybody else had to abide by -- a novel concept at the time." His colleague, however, merely wanted to ask him about the submarine from the film The Hunt for Red October.

Thompson is most often compared to Ronald Reagan, and the comparison is apt. Neither would be mistaken for an intellectual, but both got plenty of mileage out of regularly concealing their smarts. Both placed an emphasis on grand, classic American themes, and both offered a folksy way of describing the holy trinity of conservative dogma (lower taxes, less government and a strong national defense).

But unlike the genial Reagan, Thompson's manner can be brusque and his most natural expression is a scowl. Critics question his endurance: he has a reputation for resisting a demanding schedule and is undisciplined as a campaigner. In a recent speech to California Republicans, Thompson began with some jokes that were well received but then abandoned his carefully written text and rambled through remarks that left many in the audience underwhelmed. His high school football coach in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., told the Nashville Tennessean, "He was smart, but he was lazy. He probably could have been a straight-A student if he'd applied himself." With eight years in the Senate, his legislative record was thin. Says a former adviser: "While the Senate is filled with ambitious men who aren't in a rush to get home at night, Senator Thompson kept a lean formal schedule, did the bare minimum to get by and then hightailed [it] to the Prime Rib or the Capital Grille."

But these critics may be underestimating his strengths. As with Hillary Clinton, this is not his first rodeo (a phrase that rolls smoothly in his accent). Like Barack Obama, he is poised and compelling. Like Rudy Giuliani, he can fall back on bold self-confidence in the face of tricky questions. Like John McCain, he can appeal to independents. And like George W. Bush in 2000, he presents a decided equanimity toward his future. As he told an interviewer, "One advantage you have in not having this as [a] lifelong ambition is that if it turns out that your calculation is wrong, it's not the end of the world."