Features

The Actor

In 2002, Thompson married Jeri. The couple met in 1995 (Jeri was a Republican spokesperson at the time) on the Nashville yacht of Dale Gish, on the Fourth of July. Their relationship was on and off for years, with Kehn memorably complaining about other rivals to the New York Post in 2000. “They just won’t leave him alone,” she said. “I can’t get up to get a cocktail at a party without coming back and finding some girl sitting in my chair.” Fred and Jeri have since had two children, Hayden and an 8-month-old son named Samuel.

Last November, Thompson said he wouldn’t run for president, telling a political dinner-party gathering, “I would have had to start two years ago if I was going to run. I don’t think I’d ever want to jump back in.”

But with Giuliani, McCain, and Romney appearing vulnerable, Howard Baker began making calls around Washington to gauge the interest for a late-entering telegenic southern senator.

Or so the story goes. Some Republican insiders say it is Jeri who is fanning Thompson’s presidential aspirations. While Ingram won’t confirm that, he does say Jeri played an influential role in the handling of her husband’s April announcement that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but is now in remission. The move was seen as a way of clearing the decks for a Thompson presidential run. “He relies on her,” Ingram says. “They’re definitely partners.”

To some, Jeri has already become a target. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough mused, “You think she works the pole?” and the New York Times “Styles” section raised the question of whether America was ready for a trophy-wife First Lady.

After getting the high sign from Thompson, Ingram began talking up a Thompson candidacy on Capitol Hill, where Ingram now works as Lamar Alexander’s chief of staff. “I was at the Capitol Hill Club at Bill Hecht’s table,” recalls Ingram, name-dropping the presence of a prominent Republican lobbyist. “Congressmen and lobbyists were coming up to me, and they were all really excited. It’s the closest thing to a presidential draft in my lifetime,” Ingram insists. I asked him whether the well-heeled well-wishers were familiar with Thompson from his Senate days. He hemmed and hawed a bit. “Well no, they mostly know him more from Law & Order than the Senate, but Fred’s not acting on the show. That’s exactly the way Fred was in his Senate office.”

Now comes the hard part. With Thompson all but officially in the race, the media has begun training its sights on his backside. First, the Times dissected the political-consulting careers of Thompson’s two sons and mentioned the payments totaling $170,000 from Thompson’s political action committee to his son Daniel. Then Thompson’s previously noble Watergate image took a hit in the Boston Globe when Scott Armstrong, a man Thompson had labeled a leaker 30 years ago, exacted a measure of revenge by calling Thompson a Nixon “mole.”

The most damaging allegation was a Los Angeles Times story claiming that Thompson lobbied the first Bush White House in 1991 on behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, a pro-choice organization. At first, Thompson’s people denied it. Then they said he didn’t remember it. On day three, Sean Hannity, quickly becoming Thompson’s Boswell, offered the senator an opportunity to explain himself. Thompson replied, “In the first place, you need to separate a lawyer advocating a position for the position itself.” The answer may have been factually correct, but it came across as the kind of dissembling voters—especially conservative ones, in this case—despise.

Meanwhile, Thompson pushed back his official announcement from early to late July and now, perhaps, to after Labor Day. All of this only sharpened the lingering question of whether Thompson is up for the job. He’s also got to raise millions and build a campaign team in a hurry.

Thompson’s supporters point to his folksy charm, which they insist will play especially well in key southern and midwestern swing states. And the lack of anyone to the right of Thompson, however imperfect he may be as a conservative, means that the party base will ultimately be forced to back him, they say.

But Thompson’s strongest card, his backers say, is his Hollywood-fueled image of strength. “People think that with presidential candidates, you need a lot of information about them,” says Tony Fabrizio, a GOP pollster not affiliated with any of the presidential campaigns. “That’s wrong. It’s all about the concept. He has the Schwarzenegger Factor. Just like it’s impossible to make Schwarzenegger look weak because people see him as the Terminator, voters see Fred as the tough-talking D.A. or the captain in Hunt for Red October. It’s powerful.”