Grin and Bear It

There may be something to the chatter. Thompson has never been an enthusiastic politician. GOP elders in Tennessee had to plead with him to run for the Senate in 1994, and he never felt at home in the Capitol, with its arcane rules of order and endless late-night jawboning sessions. This time around, some close to him question whether moving into the White House is truly Thompson's life ambition—or more the dream of his second wife, Jeri, a former GOP operative who is his unofficial campaign manager and top adviser. People "wonder if she's more into this than he is," says a Thompson adviser, who asked not to be named talking about private matters.

Thompson knows what people say about him—and it bugs him. "Fred was grumping to me about that the other day," says Howard Baker, the former Tennessee senator and Reagan White House chief of staff who was one of Thompson's political mentors. "I told him, 'They've got to criticize you for something, and that's not a bad one, because you can disprove it'."

Like most political attacks—aimed at defining an opponent before he can define himself—the claim that Thompson has spent a lifetime skating by on his God-given talents is a little too easy, and more than a little wrong. Thompson has doubtless had his share of lucky breaks; throughout his life, he's shown an enviable knack for being in the right place at the right time. But in his long, meandering career—as a young Tennessee prosecutor who won 14 of 15 bank-robbery cases, a twice-elected senator and Washington lobbyist and an accidental actor who stars in one of the most popular shows on television—Thompson has never lost a job, or a campaign, because of a lack of effort. "If I had to pick one thing that qualifies him to be president," says Baker, "it's this: he approaches things calmly, deliberately—and he doesn't shoot from the hip."

If anything, Thompson has so far used his laid-back style to his advantage. In a GOP field crowded with accomplished strivers who will seemingly do or say anything to get noticed, he has stood out for his practiced indifference to presidential gamesmanship. His reticence may strike his doubters and detractors as a weakness. But for many voters put off by the other candidates, Thompson's stately but somewhat detached approach to the campaign is reminiscent of another actor turned president. "You're the next Ronald Reagan!" a man tells Thompson at the fair. Thompson, not quite convincingly, downplays the comparison. "No, no, don't say that," he protests. "I have a lot to live up to."

It's no wonder other candidates and their oppo-research teams are so eager to marginalize Thompson: Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani would surrender vital organs to be compared with the patron saint of the Republican Party. It must be just as maddening that Thompson is running second to Giuliani in national polls. This despite the fact that the former New York City mayor—as well as McCain and Romney—has spent millions more than Thompson has raised. Thompson has pulled this off in part by sitting out for so long. He's had the luxury of ducking the endless procession of debates and the tough scrutiny that have left the other contenders a bit banged up. So far, whenever he's been pressed on the issues, Thompson has largely stuck to generalities about tough borders, free markets and states' rights. It hasn't gone unnoticed that he picked this Thursday to enter the race—the day after the fifth Republican debate. When he takes the stage for the next debate in Baltimore later this month, he will be among road-weary rivals who will be only too happy to haze the rookie. If Thompson is worried, it doesn't show. "They've been spending hundreds of millions of dollars running flat-out for a year," he told reporters last week. "That doesn't bother me. I don't pay attention to that. I'm going to do things at my own pace, my own rate and my own way."

That line might just as well sum up Fred Thompson's whole life. Now 65, he has been trying to shake the lazy rap from the time he was a kid in tiny Lawrenceburg, Tenn., the son of a used-car salesman and a stay-at-home mom. Neither of his parents made it past eighth grade, and young Freddie, as he was known, didn't have much use for studying. Big and gangly—his friends called him Stick—Thompson clowned around in class and was a regular in the principal's office. It wasn't that he was stupid—far from it. "He was smart; everyone knew it," says Chunky Moore, a former classmate. "He just wasn't real interested in school."