Family ties helped shape Thompson's political career

McClatchy ^ | Jan. 07, 2008 | Meg Talev

[jdm]

WASHINGTON -- Fatherhood and ambition.

In Fred Thompson's life, they rise and fall together, a recurring couplet in the nostalgic story of a Tennessee fella who's guided more by life's surprises and others' expectations than he is by any master plan.

**snip**

The unlikely 65-year-old comeback kid, now remarried with a 4-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy, who's running for the Republican nomination for president.

On the campaign trail, Thompson treats criticism that he doesn't have enough fire in the belly with a father-knows-best attitude.

"I've had the worst thing that can happen to a father, and the best thing that can happen to a father," Thompson told retirees this fall in South Carolina, in the drawl that's central to his persona. "I think you come out from the other end of that with a sense of what's important and not important."

**snip**

Seeing daughter Hayden's sonogram -- the first time he'd glimpsed any of his children in the womb -- strengthened his anti-abortion views, he says. Wanting a stable world for his second family helped nudge him to audition for a part that would be less fun than TV shoots, but more consequential.

His wife, Jeri, a former Republican consultant, said that one night while they were still mulling whether to make the race, they sat at their kitchen table in Northern Virginia and saw their little girl perched at the top of the staircase.

"He had this very strange look on his face," she recalled of her husband. "I said, 'What are you thinking?' and he said, 'A lot goes through my mind from the time she's at the top step to the time she's at the bottom.' It's when he decided, I think. In his mind, there was a decision made."

[jdm]

ping.

[skinkinthegrass]

BUMP. :/

[Always Right]

Yep, a very influential show.

[Soliton]

The only question now is will he out poll Rue Paul?

[Borges]

I clicked on this thread to post that but somehow I knew I would be too late.