15 of the nation's 41 presidents served in the Senate.
If you mean "directly from the senate", TWO presidents were elected out of the Senate, not one.
And Thompson is not IN the Senate today, so he wouldn't count.
And Thompson is not IN the Senate today, so he wouldn't count.
To the first point, I think I said "in our lifetime" -- I assume most of us on the Freep extend back to JFK's election.
I'll grant you: Thompson is not IN the Senate today. How many President's jumped from starring in a TV show to President with no real political activity in between? Yes, I know RR was a movie actor and TV personality -- but those roles were almost 2 decades before Reagan was elected President. And in the interim, he was elected to 2 terms as Governor of the then second largest state in the Union. And the balance of his time, he was pushing conservative policies and philosophy (that he wrote himself) on the radio and on the mashed potato circuit.
I like Fred Thompson but I just don't see the compelling leadership resume. I'm afraid he's more like Warren Harding whom everyone thought "gee, he looks like he'd be a great president."