Reporters looking for the Clarion Hotel where Thompson was set to speak at a $50-a- head luncheon didn’t have to look hard. His soon-to-be GOP rivals had blanketed nearly every vacant corner near the hotel with their own campaign signs—as though warning Thompson that he was walking into a fight. Across the street from the hotel’s entrance, there were 33 John McCain signs alone, ranging in size from small to gigantic. The reminders of his rivals weren’t limited to real estate. Every few minutes, a Ron Paul supporter drove by, with signs touting the Texas congressman’s campaign taped to each side of his car.
A lone protester arrived early, staking out his spot on a front sidewalk. “Fred is not pro-choice!” he shouted, waving a sign that said, you guessed it, “Fred T. is not Pro-Choice.” He was later joined by dozens of activists waving signs urging changes in the nation’s tax laws. “I hear that he’s either already here or on his way,” their leader announced of Thompson’s whereabouts. “All right!” someone responded, the group chattering in anticipation.
Inside the hotel’s small lobby, the star-struck clutched their cameras and waited to claim their seats. “I know ‘(The) Hunt for Red October’ like the back of my hand,” one man giddily confessed to his companions. A woman wearing a giant button emblazoned with a picture of Thompson as “Law & Order” district attorney Arthur Branch began distributing campaign paraphernalia, including “imwithFred.com” stickers and “FredExpress” signs.
An hour before Thompson’s speech, South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson stood at a podium inside the hotel’s small ballroom, practicing his introduction of the former Tennessee senator. He aimed for formal, but off-the-cuff. “Oh!” he announced in a surprised voice to a mostly empty room. “Ladies and gentleman, I see that our featured speaker has …” He paused, eyeing his notes. “I see that our guests have arri…” he said, stopping in mid-sentence. “I see that our very important guest has arrived with his lovely wife, Jeri,” he said. Dawson shook his head, clearly unhappy. He tried again. “I see that our guest of honor has arrived,” he declared excitedly, glancing toward an empty doorway. A few feet away, a lone security guard, dressed in a suit and wearing an earpiece, stood expressionless.
A little before noon, the ticketed GOP faithful began to arrive, 300 strong. Party officials ushered them to their seats, urging them to eat up. “We don’t want too much clanging during Fred’s speech,” an organizer told one table near the front. Suddenly, there was an audible gasp. Thompson’s wife, Jeri, had entered the room through a side door. Thin and tan, her long blond hair pulled back in a low-slung ponytail, she escorted the couple’s 3-year-old daughter, Hayden, to their reserved on-stage seats. People in the audience cooed, snapping photos of the young family.
Suddenly, it was show time. Thompson arrived, surrounded by TV cameras and men in suits. The audience jumped to its feet, camera bulbs flashing. Thompson stopped to shake hands with stunned audience members along the way. Reporters swarmed, some standing on their seats to get a good look at the towering 6-foot-6 actor who stands poised to shake up the race for the GOP nomination.
Yet Thompson was careful not to admit as much. In a half-hour speech that seemed almost rambling at times, the former senator never mentioned his presidential ambitions—mindful of the fact that once he officially says he’s running, he will fall under the scrutiny of campaign-disclosure laws. Instead, he focused Wednesday on a variation of what most likely will be his eventual stump speech: a talk about reforming the government and rising above Washington partisanship and a call on Republicans to bring their party back to its conservative ideals.
It was a broad speech painfully short on specifics. Thompson talked about Iraq, describing the global war on terrorism as a “war of wills” that must be won. He decried the immigration proposal pending in Congress, citing in particular the number of Cubans immigrating to the United States. “I don’t imagine they are coming here to bring greetings from Castro,” Thompson declared. He warned of suitcase bombs and terrorists sneaking through the border. America is “our home,” he said, “and we get to decide who gets to go into our home.”
Thompson’s speech was littered with his trademark down-home talk. He said he didn’t buy talk from President Bush and other immigration reformers that the current bill will crack down on border security. “The dog isn’t eating the dog food,” he said. The audience ate it up.
Thompson mentioned social issues only fleetingly and only, it seemed, because he had to. Near the end of his speech, he included one line about bedrock American beliefs, including respect for “the sanctity of life.” Mostly, Thompson railed against Washington, citing out-of-control spending as the key reason he believes the GOP has lost its way. “Some of our folks went to Washington to dry the swamp and made partnership with the alligators,” the former senator said.
Thompson seemed more enthusiastic than he had in previous speeches (especially a widely panned talk he gave in California last May). Still, he struggled at times to stay on message. He’s a guy who enjoys talking more than sticking to a speech. Some in the audience seemed disappointed not to hear more specifics on what he’d do as president. But Wednesday’s stop—as well as a speech scheduled for Thursday night in New Hampshire—are being billed as mere warm-ups to a potential candidacy, and Thompson admitted as much yesterday.
Wrapping up his speech, Thompson coyly told his audience that he looked forward “to working in that vineyard” when it came to the issues he brought up. “Maybe I can come back a little bit later in a different capacity, and we can talk a little bit more about some of these issues,” Thompson said. He received a standing ovation.
Later, speaking to a swarm of reporters, he was less discreet, telling the assembled media mob he had no qualms about catching up to the other contenders in the race. “They said you’d have to raise $100 million (to run), and without a dime, I’m in the pack,” Thompson laughed, adding that he’d already saved $50 million by waiting to get in the game. Sounds like he’s ready to take the stage.
