Nope. In '08 he was never anything more than a stalking horse for McCain. That's it. Worked beautifully, too.
I don't believe any conspiracy theories that Fred Thompson deliberately entered the race to sabotage the other candidates so his buddy McCain would win the nomination. That being said, since Fred Thompson was a long time friend of McCain and refused to go say anything critical of him, he did have an indirect effect of making it easier for McCain to win the primary.
A perfect example was Fred Thompson's "must win" state of South Carolina. Up until that point, McCain hadn't won any state that he hadn't already won in his failed 2000 campaign, the race was still a tossup. The polls showed McCain in first place (by a slim plurality) in S.C., with Huckabee and Romney battling it out for second and Fred Thompson and Giuliani behind them. Fred Thompson really hadn't pushed hard yet and time was running out. The obvious stragedy would for Fred to forcefully contrast his conservative values to McCain and pry McCain voters into his camp. But he wouldn't lift a finger to campaign against McCain. Instead, he ran a bunch of attack ads against Huckabee, which didn't do anything to help Fred's numbers (they were appealing to different consituencies -- Huckabee was focused on hardcore pro-lifers and the FairTax people, neither of whom Fred was going for), but it damaged Huck enough to give McCain a clear victory. Once McCain won in "conservative" South Carolina, he had the momemtum as the strongest candidate for the rest of the primary season.
“In ‘08 he was never anything more than a stalking horse for McCain. That’s it. Worked beautifully, too.”
Exactly — unfortunately, many conservatives fell for the con, including many here.
Result: President Obama.
The FRaudster was nothing more than McLame’s b!tch...hanging in just long enough to pull the McLame ‘straight talk express’ out of the ditch (when the McLame campaign was all but toast). When that mission was accomplished and McLame was a shoe-in for the nomination, the FRaudster made a B-line for the sidelines. No suprises on whom he supports for 2012:
http://race42012.com/2008/02/09/fred-thompson-officially-endorses-mccain/