LOS ANGELES: Fred Thompson did not enter the 2008 presidential race Tuesday, but he talked like he was getting close to jumping in.

Asked by Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" if he'd like America's top job, the former Tennessee senator said, "I've never craved the job of president, but I want to do some things that only a president can do."
"So," Thompson added, "the answer is yes."
Thompson -- a Republican best known for playing a prosecutor on NBC's "Law & Order" television series -- has formed a presidential exploratory committee and is expected to join the Republican race this summer.
He insisted he was not ready to make any announcements on Leno's show, but made a point to mention the Web site for his political committee. When asked by Leno about his reaction to the political waters, Thompson said he found them "warm."
"I'm at a stage of my life now when I think about my country, I think about the kind of country my kids are going to grow up in," he said.
He griped about campaigns that "are entirely too long." And he took a swipe at Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying she was "trying to balance ... her prior positions with the new requirements of politics in the Democratic Party."
If he runs, it will be as a Washington outsider.
Referring to his time in the U.S. Senate, he said, "I often say after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood."

International Herald Tribune

Fred Thompson, Frontrunner?

The latest Rasmussen poll has Hollywood Fred in a first-place tie with Mr. 9/11 at 24 percent. That’s pretty stunning --- and Thompson deserves credit. His quietly confident above-the-fray campaign has left the actor as a clean receptacle for much of the strong-brewed, none-of-the-above sentiment that’s fueling the GOP base right now.

But clearly the "Thompson epiphany" as some top conservatives are calling it, springs less of love for the Law & Order Republican, and more out of a sense of desperation among base voters who see the former Tennessee senator as the lesser of four evils. "We know that the Ronald Reagan white knight is not going to come flying down the street on his golden horse," Bill Donohue of the Catholic League told me recently. All Republicans are hoping for at this point, he says, is a "serious-minded person, who’s pro life, not flip flopping, and shows presidential leadership skills. Thompson apparently fits the bill."

I fear, though, that Fred’s numbers are softer than his Dixie Drawl. While Thompson may play a Reagan Republican on television, his real-life record is that of a lazy man’s John McCain. Thompson co-chaired his friend’s presidential campaign in 2000, and helped fine-tune McCain’s conservative-detested campaign finance reform law. He’s also has a well earned reputation for laziness. "I don’t do frenetic," he said recently, predicting a low-key campaign. "The challenge for Fred Thompson," conservative strategist Frank Luntz told me recently, "is whether he’s passionate enough. Republicans are so afraid of losing the White House just like they lost the House and Senate that they will only vote for someone who they think desperately wants it."

-- Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone