McCAIN, ONLY TALLER:

Thompson's Politics Much Like McCain's: But Unlike the Senator, Actor Is GOP's Darling (Perry Bacon Jr., May 6, 2007, Washington Post)

Fred Thompson fervently backed the Iraq war, railed against an expanding federal government, took stands that occasionally annoyed his party and rarely spoke about his views on social issues during his tenure as a senator from Tennessee or in his writings and speeches since leaving office.

In short, the man some in the GOP are touting as a dream candidate has often sounded like the presidential hopeful many of them seem ready to dismiss: Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

One oughtn't expect the Stupid Party to figure that out.

MORE:
Thompson: How a small-town character made the big time: Prominence followed colorful, conflicted teens (BRAD SCHRADE, 5/06/07, The Tennessean)

The Latin teacher at Lawrence County High School had a warning for Bob Buckner's mother: Your son is hanging around with that troublemaker Freddie Thompson.

With his cutup personality, Freddie was a persistent disrupter of Miss Desda Garner's ninth-grade Latin class — and Bob, the teacher warned, was his cohort.

"Mom told me I was going to be forbidden to associate with him," Buckner told The Tennessean. "That was when we were freshmen. It went downhill from there."

The life of the man now known as Fred Thompson has twisted and turned like the country roads of the rural Lawrence County where he grew up: a used-car salesman's son, a kid who by all accounts was an unimpressive student and who married before he graduated from high school after getting his girlfriend pregnant, but who followed the winding road to Nashville, the U.S. Capitol, Hollywood and now, possibly, the White House.

In sleepy Lawrenceburg, few claim to have predicted the fame and stature that lay ahead of him. They remember Freddie as the class clown — he was likable and smart, though not studious.

They also say he matured quickly and deeply after becoming a young husband and father. They describe him as a genuine and decent man with a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

"He had a way of making you like what he was saying even if you didn't agree with him at first," said childhood friend Jan Clifton, gesturing toward a lamppost on the square. "He had a way, if I didn't think I could climb that pole, of convincing me I could do it."

As for the presidency, Lawrenceburg folks think this is Fred's right time.

"He comes across as so sincere," said Tommy Beurlein, one of Thompson's high school classmates. "He's not trying to answer some way to be popular at the minute."

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 6, 2007 8:56 AM