An article in the Politico discusses the many former Bush-Cheney aides and supporters who are signing up for a potential Thompson campaign, including George P. Bush, a nephew of President Bush:

Mary Matalin, the former counselor to Vice President Cheney, says she will be advising Thompson. A campaign source says she will be an unpaid adviser. Matalin is friends with Thompson and his wife, Jeri, and her involvement began informally, the source says.

Advisers say the head of economic policy for Thompson’s fledgling team will be Lawrence B. Lindsey, who was President Bush’s first economic policy adviser and an architect of his tax cuts. Lindsey was chief economic adviser to Bush’s first presidential campaign and is a former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Lindsey will also have a hand in the campaign’s broader policy formulation, sources say.

The head of domestic policy is to be David M. McIntosh, a lawyer and former congressman from Indiana who was an official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, according to the sources. The chief foreign policy adviser will be chosen soon, the sources say.

Adding to the Bush-Cheney ties, the campaign has said that the chief operating officer will be Thomas J. Collamore, a former aide to the older Bush when he was vice president and also an official in the Reagan administration.

And Michael Turk, e-campaign director for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, will take a leave of absence from his current job with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association to assist in getting the Thompson website off the ground. He may continue in a webmaster capacity for the campaign.

Read the rest of this article here.

The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund reports that Fred “hit his stride” on Saturday in a speech to Virginia Republicans. Fred will “run an unorthodox campaign,” writes Fund, “that will challenge the conventional wisdom about how to run… .” According to Fund’s assessment, Fred’s speech “mixed warnings about the state of the country with optimism that the American people can overcome the challenges facing them.” More Fund:

He called on Republicans to build “a new coalition” in 2008 that avoids some of the mistakes that led to last November’s disaster. “Some of us came to drain the swamp [in Washington] and made partnership with the alligators,” he said, explaining how the GOP Congress ended up tagged as soft on spending.

Mr. Thompson said the next president should have the courage to talk straight with the American people and bluntly say that Americans will have to confront both the soaring cost of entitlements and the need to remain committed in the war on terror, even when Iraq is “in the rear-view mirror.”

Mr. Thompson’s biggest response came when he addressed immigration. “We are a nation of compassion, a nation of immigrants,” he told the crowd. “But this is our home, and whether you’re a first-generation American, a third-generation American or a brand newly minted American, this is our home and we get to decide who comes into our home.” At that, much of the crowd rose and applauded midspeech.

Check out the WSJ to read the entire article.

Fred was the featured speaker tonight at the Virginia State Republican Party dinner in Richmond:

Republican Fred Thompson, making his first appearance since his late entry into the 2008 White House race, criticized the immigration pact in Congress on Saturday and said the United States was battling threats from “forces of evil.”

In a speech at a Virginia state party dinner, the conservative former Tennessee senator and Hollywood actor made only passing reference to his presidential ambitions but took a jab at Democrats while praising limited government and lower taxes.

“There are all kinds of threats out there in America,” Thompson said, citing a disrupted plot at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York as the latest example. He said the United States must send a message to its allies about the dangers of terrorism.

“This is a battle between the forces of civilization and the forces of evil and we’ve got to choose sides,” Thompson said.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Remember this day - Friday, June 1, 2007 - when Fred took action to file papers to establish a presidential committee!  Read about it here:  

Republican Fred Thompson took the first formal step toward a widely expected bid for the presidency, establishing a preliminary campaign committee on Friday.

The “testing the waters” committee allows Thompson—a former Tennessee senator and actor best known for his film and television roles, including as a prosecutor on NBC’s “Law & Order”—to raise money, hire staff and gauge support without officially committing to a White House bid and without having to publicly disclose donations or expenditures.

The “Friends of Fred Thompson” committee was incorporated in papers filed with the state in Nashville, Tenn.

Read the rest of this article here.

Washington columnist and commentator Robert Novak writes about a recent dinner Fred had with journalists here in D.C.:

FRED THOMPSON sat at the end of a long table in The Monocle restaurant on Capitol Hill Tuesday night for dinner with some 20 fellow conservatives, mostly journalists. He sent two signals just hours before word spread that he is likely to enter the presidentiak race next month. First, he sounded like a man who has decided to run for President. Second, his candidacy will be something different from other Republicans, in both substance and style.

This was one of the irregular sessions of the Saturday Evening Club, which is not a club and never meets on Saturday. The name was purloined from H.L. Mencken’s Baltimore discussion club by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. Tyrrell arranges and presides over these events, always featuring a guest newsmaker — usually a Republican presidential hopeful over the past two years. Thompson’s performance Tuesday night, with his remarks off the record, helped show why many Republican insiders are ready to support him. Thompson is winning straw polls at Republican conferences and running well in polls mainly because of dissatisfaction, for varying reasons, with the three leading GOP candidates — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. But Thompson at the dinner table confirmed the widespread perception inside the party of his potential to be an extraordinary candidate.

Read the rest of the Novak article here.

We knew it was just a matter of time….

Fred Thompson, edging toward a presidential run, is giving up his day job playing a prosecutor on the TV series “Law & Order.”

Thompson asked Wednesday to be released from the show after five seasons, series creator and executive producer Dick Wolf said.

“Although he told me he has not made a firm decision about his political future, he felt that given the creative and scheduling constraints of the upcoming season,” he should leave “Law & Order,” Wolf said in a statement.

The producer lauded Thompson’s commitment to “Law & Order” and the new TV movie “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” in which the actor plays a president _ Ulysses S. Grant. The film, which Wolf produced, premiered last Sunday on HBO.

Read the rest of the article here.

Fred is ALL OVER THE NEWS today as he begins to make his move to enter the presidential race.   Fred’s forming a presidential committee, filing FEC papers, preparing a website - it’s all great news!  Check out the latest from the Washington Post: 

Thompson, who has been fueling speculation that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination with a spate of appearances and speeches around the country, urged a group of donors in a conference call yesterday to each attempt to raise a total of $46,000 from 10 couples starting on June 4, according to two participants in the call. Once the money begins flowing, Thompson will begin to hire a campaign staff and set up headquarters in Washington and Nashville, his advisers said.

In addition, the nascent campaign is planning to launch a Web site in the next 10 days, according to one person familiar with campaign planning. Thompson will give a speech in Virginia this weekend and is scheduled to appear on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” next month.

The papers Thompson intends to file on Friday with the Federal Elections Commission will allow the former Tennessee senator to test the waters by raising money that could be used once he declares officially, several sources said. The committee he will establish will be called “Friends of Fred Thompson.”

“It allows for testing the waters, to see if the financial resources are going to be there to mount a campaign, set up an operation and continue to get ready to announce his candidacy,” said one source with knowledge of Thompson’s immediate plans.

Thompson’s advisers have discussed making that announcement over the July 4th weekend, using the hoopla of the national holiday as a backdrop for the official launch of the campaign. But those plans are in flux and could change, two sources said today. One source said a formal announcement is likely to come “around that time.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Here’s the latest report on Fred’s jumping into the Presidential race!!

Fred Dalton Thompson is planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico.
 
Thompson, the “Law and Order” star and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, has been publicly coy, even as people close to him have been furiously preparing for a late entry into the wide-open contest.  But the advisers said Thompson dropped all pretenses on Tuesday afternoon during a conference call with more than 100 potential donors, each of whom was urged to raise about $50,000.
 
Thompson’s formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson’s first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal.

A testing-the-waters committee is to be formed June 4 so Thompson can start raising money, and staffers will go on the payroll in early June, the organizers said. A policy team has been formed, but remains under wraps.

The supporters on Tuesday’s call make up a group the campaign is calling “First Day Founders.” When launched, the campaign will have offices in Nashville and Northern Virginia, the advisers say.

Read the rest of the article here!

We’re happy to see Rep. Blackburn’s support of Fred.  I think we can expect many more to do the same!

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn on Friday swung her support from the Republican presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to the as-yet-unannounced White House bid of actor-politician Fred Thompson.

Blackburn, who served as a senior adviser to the Romney campaign and as national co-chairwoman of Women for Romney, cited her long association with Thompson, a fellow Tennessee Republican, as the reason for supporting him.  

Read the rest of the article here.

Check out Fred’s latest posting - read what he has to say about growing up in this great nation of ours….

I remember when I was a kid; one thing was clear to me. The more I learned about the rest of the world, the luckier I felt just having been born in America. The more I learned about America, the more I appreciated what those who came before us built; and how exceptional they were.

Not that there aren’t other great places to live, but America is unique. It’s not just that we are the freest and most prosperous county the world has ever seen. America has also freed more people than any other nation in history.

A lot of people have done their part to see that we are blessed with the advantages we enjoy — from hardworking pioneer mothers to the Framers of the Constitution. Memorial Day is coming up, though, and I’m thinking more about American soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice — those who died to protect our way of life and make the world safe for democracy.

Read the rest of Fred’s story here.