President Fred Thompson

Fred Dalton Thompson (b. August 19, 1942) is the 44th President of the United States. He is a former lawyer, lobbyist, character actor, and United States senator from Tennessee.

Early years
Thompson grew up in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, where he attended public school. He received his undergraduate degree in philosophy and political science from Memphis State University in 1964 and his law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1967, working his way through school. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar that same year.

Thompson was an assistant U.S. attorney from 1969 to 1972; minority counsel, then to the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities ("Watergate Committee") from 1973 to 1974. He became special counsel to Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander in 1980, special counsel, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 1980-1981, Special counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 1982. He became a member of the Tennessee Appellate Court Nominating Commission 1985-1987.

From 1975 to 1992 Thompson worked as a corporate lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He represented firms such as General Electric, Westinghouse and the Tennessee Savings and Loan League. In 1982, Thompson lobbyed the U.S. Congress for passage of the Savings and Loan deregulation legislation. Thompson contributed to the the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. In 1991, he worked with the Washington, D.C. firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, & Kahn, representing overseas business entities as a registered foreign agent.

In 1977 Thompson took on the case of a Tennessee Parole Board chairman fired under suspicious circumstances. Thompson's work helped to expose a cash-for-clemency scheme that ultimately toppled the governor. The scandal became the subject of a best-selling book and later a 1985 film, Marie, in which Thompson portrayed himself. The director of that film, Roger Donaldson, later cast Thompson in the part of the CIA Director in his next movie, No Way Out, in 1987. Thompson would go on to appear in many films and television shows, including The Hunt for Red October and Die Hard 2. He was a co-star of the popular television series Law and Order from 2002 to 2007. He frequently portrayed governmental figures; in the 1993 film adaptation of Born Yesterday, Thompson played the character of a United States senator prior to his election to the real-life United States Senate. He portrayed President Ulysses S. Grant in the HBO 2007 original movie Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

In 2002, he joined the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank that promotes improved understanding of international affairs through public and private discussion. He is also a former member of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, researching national security and intelligence. Thompson also serves as a public speaker with the Washington Speakers Bureau and is a special program host and senior analyst for ABC News Radio. He publishes a daily blog and podcast on the ABC Radio web site.

Thompson also is the chair of the International Security Advisory Board, a bipartisan advisory panel that reports to the Secretary of State and focuses on emerging strategic threats.

Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Thompson maintained law offices in Nashville and Washington.

U.S. Senate
In his first campaign for public office, Thompson was elected by the people of Tennessee on November 8, 1994 to the remaining two years of Al Gore's unexpired Senate term. When he was returned for a full term in 1996, he received more votes than any previous candidate for any office in Tennessee history. He won two elections in two years by more than twenty points each.

While in the Senate, Thompson was a member of the powerful Senate Committee on Finance, which has jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare reform, and international trade. From this position, he focused on reducing taxes, reforming the U.S. tax code to make it simpler and fairer, and restoring the Social Security and Medicare programs to long-term solvency.

While a strong supporter of free trade, Thompson advocated a balanced approach to trade and national security. He pushed for an export control policy that protects America's national security without unnecessarily burdening American industry with bureaucratic red tape. He also proposed legislation to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by the People's Republic of China and other countries and to strengthen the United States' response to such activities.

Thompson also served as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security Working Group, which observes and monitors executive branch negotiations with foreign governments.

In 1997 Thompson was elected Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, making him among the most junior senators in history to serve as Chairman of a major Senate Committee. He served as Chairman until June of 2001. The Governmental Affairs Committee is charged with overseeing the management of the federal government. During his Chairmanship, Thompson's committee actively pursued an agenda aimed at producing a smaller, more efficient, and more accountable government. Of his efforts, the Kingsport Times-News wrote, "Sen. Thompson is to be applauded for keeping a watchful eye over Washington fiscal matters. There should be more like him."

Thompson held hearings on topics such as improving the federal regulatory process; reforming the Internal Revenue Service; exploring ways to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; and a number of national security issues, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies. He also investigated and successfully enacted solutions to information management problems such as computer security.

Additionally, the committee was chosen by the Senate leadership in 1997 to conduct an investigation into alleged improper or illegal activities associated with the 1996 federal election campaigns. The Wall Street Journal's Phil Kuntz observed, "Republican Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee and his Governmental Affairs Committee have offered the public a rare peek at the underside of American politics."

Post Senate
Thompson was not a candidate for re-election in 2002. He had publicly stated his unwillingness to have the Senate become a long-term career. Although he announced in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks his intention to seek re-election ("Now is not the time for me to leave," said Thompson at the time), upon further reflection he decided against it. The decision seems to have been prompted in large part by the death of his daughter (Elizabeth "Betsy" Thompson Panici) on January 30, 2002, from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

Thompson married Jeri Kehn on June 29, 2002, at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Naperville, Illinois, having first met her on July 4, 1996. Kehn (born January, 1967) is an attorney and a political media consultant at the Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, and McPherson law firm in Washington, D.C. She had formerly worked for the Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee.

In the final months of his U.S. Senate term in 2002, Thompson joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, playing district attorney Arthur Branch. On May 30, 2007, he asked to be released from the show, potentially in preparation for a presidential bid.

In October 2003, Fred and Jeri Thompson had their first child, Hayden Victoria Thompson. A second child was born to them in November, 2006. Thompson also has two grown children and five grandchildren from his previous marriage, which ended amicably in divorce after 25 years. Thompson has said that his former wife, Sara Lindsey, indicated she would campaign for Thompson if he did run for president.

After the retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2005, Thompson was appointed to an informal position by President George W. Bush to help guide the nomination of John Roberts through the United States Senate confirmation process.

Presidential campaign
Thompson formally announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination in July of 2007. Before Thompson had even committed to the race, he was the clear favorite in the polls, and contributions abounded from political donors. From the start of the campaign Thompson's two most serious rivals for the nomination were former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

Although Thompson won the Iowa and Nevada caucuses in seccessive order, he came in third in the New Hampshire primary. He rebounded to win the South Carolina primary and come in a close second in the Florida primary. On the "Super Tuesday" of February 5, 2008, Thompson won nine of the primaries held that day. After that, Thompson had gain the momentum and he won primary after primary. Although Giuliani won a few additional primaries, Bush took the majority and easily won the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

On November 4, 2008 (Election Day), the Thompson/Giuliani ticket defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her running mate John Edwards with 327 electoral votes to Clinton's 211. In the popular vote Thompson received 54 percent of the ballots cast and Clinton received 45 percent.