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Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson and ''undecided'' are in a virtual tie among likely Florida Republican primary voters, according to a new poll released Thursday. The new Mason-Dixon poll, based on 400 telephone interviews conducted Sept. 17-18, shows Giuliani at 24 percent and Thompson at 23 percent, with undecided voters at 22 percent. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent. Trailing are Mitt Romney at 13 percent and John McCain at 9 percent, followed by Mike Huckabee at 6 percent, and Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo at 1 percent....

Recent Rasmussen polling provides important insights into why Fred Thompson has a real chance to win the Republican nomination for President. The most recent Rasmussen polling shows Thompson leading the field with 28% of likely primary voters followed by Rudy Guiliani (19%) and John McCain (13%). Mitt Romney is in 4th position with 11%. Thompson is doing so well with likely Republican primary voters because he is perceived as the most conservative candidate in the race. The Republican primary electorate is made up predominantly of ideological conservatives, with better than half of likely voters characterizing themselves in this way. So...

After officially declaring his candidacy, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson moves ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who say they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. On the Democratic side, Senator Hillary Clinton continues to build...

Other than the right to bear children well into one’s 60s and unashamedly express the love of one’s own mama, former Sen. Fred Thompson and I agree on just about nothing. He’s anti-choice (and would overturn Roe v. Wade), he doubts humanity’s responsibility for global warming and he not only supported the invasion of Iraq, but wants to keep boots on the ground till the proverbial cows come home, which, hope-soaked hearings to the contrary, seems to be when the whole Middle East is turned to pasture. Granted, the man thinks “mistakes have been made,” but he also believes that...

As soon as former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson announced that he was mulling over a run for the presidency, pundits and voters alike began to announce comparisons between Thompson and Ronald Reagan. Now that Thompson is in the race with both feet, it is worthwhile to examine more carefully ways in which he is or is not somehow parallel to Reagan. It is important to note at the outset that Republicans have to come to grips with the facts that there was only one Reagan and that he was not perfect (though he was very, very good). Constant seeking after...

We’ve put up a new section on the website. You can now dig into Fred’s stance on issues like national security, the budget, taxes, and healthcare. Fred believes these are serious problems which will require us to unite behind common sense solutions; and this section of Fred08.com will provide some insight into his approach on these topics. Let us know what you think. What issue concerns you the most?

Candidate Fred Thompson breezed through my town recently, and naturally I went to join the cheering crowd of Fred Heads and hear what he had to say. The crowd warmed up to him quickly and cheered with unabashed enthusiasm for the man many of us hope will be the conservative alternative to the neo-cons. And I have to admit, I loved all of it. I loved his humor and style. I loved his humility. He is a man who doesn't seem quite comfortable in the role of presidential candidate, but has given up an easy and enjoyable acting career to...

Go to a Fred Thompson rally and for $5 you can buy an "I'm a Fred-Head" button. But you might not be able, at any price, to learn what exactly is in Fred's head. After six months of Waiting for Thompson, the former Tennessee senator has arrived on stage. Unfortunately, Thompson's dialogue so far consists of folksy platitudes and broad pronouncements, unobjectionable yet unenlightening. "We do whatever's necessary, hitch up our britches and come out the other end," Thompson said during a campaign rally in Iowa. He was talking national security, but, hey, a little britch-hitching can't hurt, whatever the...

I have been touting Fred Thompson since January 2007, and it has been several months since I have written an article about him. Among other things, I have noted that Thompson antagonizes no one and would unite the Republican Party – no one really had anything bad to say about him in the New Hampshire debates, and the closest anyone came was John McCain, a close friend of Thompson. I have noted that Fred got the gay marriage issue precisely right – a constitutional amendment which does not require states to give full faith and credit to gay marriages is...

FORT WORTH, Texas --One of the names coming up most frequently as the 2008 presidential campaign gears up isn't even a candidate. It's Rick Scarborough, an East Texas Baptist minister and evangelist determined to bring conservative Christian Republicans back to the polls next year. The presidential election is still more than a year away, but the primary campaigns are in full swing, and Scarborough and other religious leaders are stepping up in the battle being waged for control of the White House, Congress and the GOP itself. They want the full force of conservative Christian voters to be felt in...

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Presidential campaign newcomer Fred Thompson is moving faster than any other candidate to attract well-known Alabama Republicans who want to be his delegates to the Republican National Convention. The Alabama Republican Party opened qualifying last month for people who want to be elected delegates for a candidate at the party convention next September. While it's still early in the qualifying process, more people have signed up to be Thompson delegates than all other candidates combined. The former Tennessee senator is the only Republican presidential candidate with direct Alabama ties. He was born at a hospital in...

LAKELAND - Fred Thompson is aiming his campaign at the conservative end of the Republican Party and he's shaking up the Florida presidential primary. Drawing large, excited crowds during his first tour of Florida as a declared candidate last week, Thompson sought to offer Republicans something many feel has been missing in the GOP field - a Reaganesque communicator with the charisma to lift the party out of its deep political hole. But his initial effort also showed rough edges: a reluctance to get specific on issues and an occasionally lackadaisical campaign style that left some wondering whether he can...

There has been a void in the Republican presidential race. The party's candidates have spoken about immigration, taxes, social issues and the war in Iraq. Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain have also spoken frequently about Ronald Reagan in order to position themselves as the political heirs to the great president. The candidates, however, have overlooked a central idea that animated Mr. Reagan's view of government. That was federalism, the constitutional principle that the federal government's responsibilities are "few and defined" as James Madison put it. Mr. Reagan believed the federal government had grown too big and swallowed up...

NEW PORT RICHEY - Fred Thompson got a strong endorsement from gun control opponent Bill Bunting, who's also chairman of the Pasco County Republican Party, during a campaign stop Friday. Thompson spoke at the county party's Reagan Day fundraising dinner to a packed room at Spartan Manor in New Port Richey. Thompson, just starting out as an announced candidate in the GOP primary, appears likely to find strong support in Pasco County, some local GOP leaders said. Attorney General Bill McCollum, the Florida chairman for Thompson's competitor, Rudy Giuliani, was planned to be keynote speaker at the dinner for months,...

As Fred D. Thompson moves around the country delivering his folksy stump speech, he routinely makes his way through a laundry list of top concerns: national security, immigration reform, federalism and activist judges, among others. But he seems most energized when he discusses the ballooning cost of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and what he calls a need for more fiscal responsibility and less government in Washington. It is a recurring campaign theme of his. Mr. Thompson, a former Republican senator from Tennessee, made his greatest plea for the presidency, for instance, at the end of such remarks...

SUMMARY: Fred Thompson has been consistent — though not perfect — on issues of federal power over states. But it sometimes comes at the expense of conservative ideals. WASHINGTON – Fred Thompson is casting himself as the conservative’s choice for president. The question is, whose version of conservatism is it? In explaining his opposition to certain positions considered sacrosanct to the Republican Party’s conservative base, Thompson, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, describes his views as federalist and calls himself an old-school conservative whose philosophy was once mainstream for the GOP but in recent years has been squeezed out. “I’ve...

From Thompson for President Communications Director Todd Harris. Statement on Romney's South Carolina Cover-Up "Fred Thompson entered the race for president just days ago, talking about uniting our country around a core set of conservative beliefs. According to the Washington Post, it is now clear that while Fred Thompson is working to bring our country together, an increasingly desperate Mitt Romney and his campaign are already hard at work to divide us, practicing the lowest kind of politics. "Today's half-baked cover-up attempt by the Romney campaign does not even pass the laugh test. The Romney campaign has paid Warren Tompkins...

Last week Fred Thompson was speaking to a crowd of close to three hundred people at the Music Man Square in Mason City, Iowa, explaining how he accidentally fell into a movie career. In the early 1980s Hollywood producers came to Tennessee to make a film about a famous case Thompson had handled as a young lawyer. "They asked me to play myself," Thompson told the audience in his folksy, Southern drawl, "and I said, well, they can't tell me I'm doing it wrong - although they still did from time to time." The line always gets a big laugh,...

Des Moines, Iowa - Fred Thompson hit the campaign trail Thursday, telling supporters he's the Republican running for president who can best sell a traditional-values, limited-government and strong-defense message to mainstream America. A few hundred supporters gathered at the Polk County Convention complex. With the exception of a few shout-outs and applause, their reaction wasn't as overwhelming as it was warm and approving. In his speech - the first since announcing he'd seek the GOP nomination for president - Thomp son said that "the American people have opened up a door of opportunity" for him, and he promised to campaign...