Free Republic

After John East, a stalwart conservative from North Carolina, entered the U.S. Senate in 1981, wags began referring to Jesse Helms as "the liberal senator from the Tar Heel state." We are reminded of this tale as Republican activists rush to encourage, if not yet fully embrace, the presidential candidacy of Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee. The Republican base is evidently unimpressed or uninspired (or both) by the conservative credentials of the top three Republicans (John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani) seeking the 2008 presidential nomination. Mr. Thompson's most-oft-cited conservative credential is his 86.1 percent lifetime (1995-2002)...

Supporters of Fred Thompson are seeking to raise $4.6 million to help launch the former senator and "Law & Order” star’s expected run for president in 2008. A group called the First-Day Founders got the ball rolling when all 100 members each donated the primary maximum of $2,300 on June 1, the day Thompson’s exploratory committee filed with the Tennessee secretary of state, allowing the committee to begin fundraising. If the First-Day Founders come through with their fundraising efforts, "Thompson presumably would start off with $4.6 million in ‘seed money,’” The Hill newspaper reported. "Speculation has been rampant as of...

If you’re Fred Thompson, you’ve got to be encouraged about jumping into the race. In the wake of Tuesday’s debate among Republican presidential candidates, it was the former Tennessee senator who topped the field in YouTube views — and he wasn’t even participating. Online intelligence firm New Media Strategies measured which candidate got the biggest YouTube bump from the May 15 debate in South Carolina. It also counted the number of viewers of Thompson’s video responding to Michael Moore, which was viewed online concurrently with the GOP debate. As of Wednesday afternoon, Thompson’s video, in which he suggests that Moore...

COLUMBIA -- Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson has told Republicans that if he decides to run for president, he would enter the race earlier than anticipated -- perhaps as early as the second week of June. A Tennessee Republican said that Thompson has been convinced that he will not win unless he recruits a good staff, and that he cannot recruit a good staff unless he gets in the race. Several RNC state chairs said that representatives for Thompson had tentatively accepted invitations to candidate events scheduled for later in the fall, a sign they interpreted as evidence of his desire to...