The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> FRED br> The signs are getting larger and louder that former Sen. Fred Thompson is moving toward a decision to get into the 2008 presidential race. His recent posting on the popular conservative community site RedState (on a Saturday no less) garnered a surprising amount of traffic, and the fact that Thompson is reaching out so readily online suggests he's looking to do something more than blog. /p>

Another sign: other campaigns appear to be getting nervous. Increasingly minions for the Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani camps have been extending a whispering campaign against Thompson, both online and elsewhere.

Sometimes it isn't even a whisper. The former Massachusetts governor has taken to dismissing Thompson as a "TV personality" and nothing more.

Beyond attempting to diminish Thompson in the minds of voters, both campaigns -- and their online messengers -- are taking up two lines of attack: that Thompson is a flip-flopper like Romney on the abortion issue, and that Thompson's support of campaign finance reform somehow makes him less of a conservative.

According to Thompson supporters who have been reviewing his Senate records, there is no evidence that Thompson took a pro-abortion position during his time in Washington.

"As far as we can tell, Senator Thompson never cast a pro-choice vote in his eight years in the Senate," says an aide to a current Republican U.S. Senator who asked that his staff look into Thompson, perhaps with an eye to an endorsement down the road.

In fact, The American Spectator's Philip Klein reported that back in 1994 National Right to Life executive co-director Darla St. Martin interviewed Thompson leading into his Senate campaign and confirmed he was pro-life.

"I interviewed him and on all of the questions I asked him, he opposed abortion," St. Martin told Klein. "He has a consistent voting record that is pro-life," she said.

Some believe that where confusion has arisen is not on his votes -- which are clean and straight pro-life -- but on his lack of enthusiasm for a Constitutional amendment banning abortions.

"Thompson was a pretty clear cut state-rights guy, so it follows that he'd be supportive of Roe being overturned and everything being tossed back to the states," says a longtime Senate staffer familiar with Thompson's Senate career. "A constitutional ban wouldn't have been something he'd be particularly warm to, I'd think."

topics:
Bill Clinton, Abortion, Constitution, Law, NATO, Medicare