WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee will make the long-awaited announcement of his Republican presidential bid in a broadcast on the Internet on Thursday.
The Webcast will be followed by a five-day tour of the first three states in the primary parade: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina; and capped by a homecoming event Sept. 15 in his hometown, Lawrenceburg, Tenn.
"I believe that there are millions of Americans who know that our security and prosperity are at risk if we don't address the challenges of our time," Thompson said in a written statement issued after a half-hour telephone conference call Thursday with supporters.
He listed those challenges as terrorism, taxes, excessive federal spending and government incompetence.
In the five months since Thompson, known to many Americans for his role on TV's Law & Order, first expressed interest in running, he has vaulted into second place in most national polls. As the months wore on without an announcement, questions have arisen about a Thompson candidacy. He will face those questions with a smaller margin of error.
The man has been running second--sometimes first, and no lower than a close third--in almost every poll, without even being in the race officially. Once he gets his machine up and running, I don't see him going anywhere but up. He has not been one to mince words about what he would like to do when elected, he doesn't pussy-foot around the issues. And he has done so knowing that if he does run, he will not be able to "gloss over" what he said, and make some kind of political maneuvering to make it look like he didn't say them.
There may be some questions about who he dealt with and who he defended or lobbied for some twenty years ago. What somebody believed twenty years ago has no bearing on what they believe today, unless they try to deny what they believed previously. Twenty years ago, I was very much pro-abortion. I voted for Dukakis. And Cuomo. Now--well, read what's underneath the title of this blog and you'll see where I stand now. So what if Fred! lobbied for a pro-abortion group twenty years ago. Look at his record in the Senate, and he voted pro-life 100% of the time. Not like Romney, who was pro-abortion, but is now pro-life, although he just might consider thinking about maybe discussing whether he might entertain the idea of changing his mind...maybe.
