Another Beltway Bubba? Fred Thompson has spun an insider background into a good ol' boy image that could take him to the White House.

AuthorCottle, Michelle
PositionCover Story

TRUE STORY: IT IS A WARM EVENING IN the summer of 1995. A crowd has gathered in the auditorium of a suburban high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. Seated in the audience is a childhood friend of mine who now teaches at the school. On stage is Republican Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson, the lawyer/actor elected in 1994 to serve out the remainder of Vice President Al Gore's Senate term (when Gore's appointed successor retired after just two years). The local TV stations are on hand as Thompson wraps up his presentation on tax reform, in the plain-spoken, down-to-earth style so familiar to those who have seen him in any of his numerous film and television performances.

Finishing his talk, Thompson shakes a few hands, then walks out with the rest of the crowd to the red pickup truck he made famous during his 1994 Senate campaign. My friend stands talking with her colleagues as the senator is driven away by a blond, all-American staffer. A few minutes later, my friend gets into her car to head home. As she pulls up to the stop sign at the parking lot exit, rolling up to the intersection is Senator Thompson, now behind the wheel of a sweet silver luxury sedan. He gives my friend a slight nod as he drives past. Turning onto the main road, my friend passes the school's small, side parking area. Lo and behold: There sits the abandoned red pickup, along with the all-American staffer.

Clearly, there's more to Fred Dalton Thompson than first meets the eye--which is saying a lot considering this sleepy-eyed Southerner stands 6'5" and weighs 225 if he weighs an ounce. With his pickup truck, his blue jeans, and his deep, friendly drawl, Thompson has cultivated the perfect political image for today's anti-Washington climate: a straight-shooting, no-nonsense man of the people with a big helping of horse sense and a hankering to clean up our nation's capital. Both his 1994 and 1996 Senate campaigns played up this outsider image, portraying Thompson as an average Joe who shares his neighbors' disgust with a political system that no longer serves regular citizens.

But even without the Hollywood credits, the 54-year-old Thompson is far from your average good ol' boy. In the mid-1970s he served as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, and later as a special counsel for both the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees. Even more significantly, for nearly two decades preceding his election to Congress, Thompson was a high-paid Washington lobbyist for both foreign and domestic interests.

Despite his Beltway ties, Thompson has maintained his just-plain-folks status among voters, a feat critics attribute to the senator's acting talents and his shameless use of "props" like the red pickup. Indeed, the charismatic Tennessean's ability to charm a crowd is undeniable. During the 1994 race, whenever the opposition tried to pin the "insider" label on him, Thompson would drawl a few lines about the kind of world he wants to leave his grandkids, and all insinuations that he was part of the Washington establishment disappeared like wood smoke on a warm breeze.

For those outside Tennessee who've never seen Thompson in action, now might be a good time to run down to Blockbuster and rent a few of his flicks. (Thunderheart is my personal favorite, though In the Line of Fire took in more at the box office.) Take a good look at Thompson's broad, drooping features (which bring to mind a bear crossed with a basset hound). You'll almost certainly be seeing more of this face in the coming months, because Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson may well be the future of the Republican party.

The Great Communicator

By all accounts, Thompson is "a comer" in the GOT?--and not just because Hollywood gave him face recognition and a polished camera presence. With iris traditional Southern values, his common-sense reform goals, and his folksy demeanor, "Ol' Fred," as the senator sometimes refers to himself, puts a populist face on a party struggling with an elitist image. Factor in Thompson's media savvy, and you have the makings of a political icon. You have, in fact, the makings of another Ronald Reagan.

Thompson's acting background alone might have made the Reagan comparisons inevitable. But he also has that innate "Reaganesque" charisma that neither MGM nor Julliard can impart. (In describing the senator, people use "mesmerizing" and "magnetic" often enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck.) Also, like no Republican since Reagan, Thompson embodies what the GOP is desperate to achieve: a marriage between its social traditionalists and its fiscal conservatives. He doesn't even face the gender gap the party grapples with. And unlike fantasy candidate Colin Powell, Thompson is a political animal willing to sling--and get slapped with--some mud if need be.

Thompson's no-nonsense demeanor also marks him as statesmanlike. "In Tennessee, we have two Republican U.S. senators, a majority in the House, a Republican governor--all these people look to Fred as a unifying voice," says Alex Fischer, executive vice-president of Akins & Tombras, a Knoxville-based public relations firm that works with the state's prominent Republicans. "He pulls everybody together and has kept the party here on a more even kilter than in other parts of the nation"

For all of his charm and presence, Thompson is more than just a pretty face. Once people finish gushing over how genuine and friendly he is, they move on to terms like "smart," "intelligent," even "brilliant" (giving him a leg up on Reagan in the brains department). His professional reputation among lawyers and politicians alike is that of a sharp mind and quick wit. "Fred brings with him the grace of a Southern lawyer, and he's an excellent negotiator," says Sam Dash, Thompson's majority counterpart during the Watergate hearings. "He knows how to look laid back even when he's not. He can tell a joke and drawl his voice to make everybody feel he's not under anxiety. He'll get you talking about an entirely different topic, then from out of nowhere comes the punch"

The GOP is well aware of Thompson's potential. Tennessee was the epicenter of the 1994 Republican revolution, with the party picking up the governorship, two Senate seats, and two seats in the House. Republicans credit much of their Tennessee landslide to Ol' Fred.

Buoyed by Thompson's performance at home, party leaders lost no time trotting him out to test on a national audience. In December 1994--having served a total of one day in elected office--Thompson was picked by Bob Dole to give the GOP's response to President Clinton's televised...

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