Before Tennessee Republican Fred Thompson began running for president, the South did not have a top-tier Republican candidate in the field — even though that region is fertile political ground for that party. Thompson, an actor and former U.S. senator (1994-2003), last month formally joined a field in which the best-known Republican contenders were either from the Northeast (former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney) or from the West (Arizona Sen. John McCain). So it was not exactly shocking that a detailed campaign finance report Thompson’s campaign filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission...