Word: thompson
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...official candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, but after the day he spent at the Iowa State Fair Friday, Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson may as well be. Who else but a presidential wannabe, after all, would be escorted by the reigning Queen of Pork to see the fair's biggest bull, a 3,422-pound black bull named Lazar...
Like his rivals - Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani - who skipped the Ames, Iowa straw poll for G.O.P. candidates last week, Thompson jetted into Des Moines and spent a couple of hours at the fair before heading off again. While pressing the flesh, he made sure to dismiss criticism that he has been waiting too long to enter the race. "I wasn't around when they made those rules and I'm not abiding by them," he said during a brief speech at the traditional fair soapbox. "We've got plenty of time...
Polls show Thompson placing second behind former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Ames straw poll winner. Ames, though, gave a bump to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is trying to claim the conservative mantle in the race - a title that Thompson was clearly aiming for in his soapbox speech when he proclaimed himself "strongly pro-life" and pro-gun rights...
...number of major auto dealers support his party of choice. Romney was able to purchase (at $35 per entrance ticket) the votes of Kruse and 4,515 others-and it was the prospect of the former Massachusetts Governor's financial firepower that scared Giuliani, McCain and the spectral Fred Thompson away from the event. Romney now has to be considered a strong favorite for the Republican nomination. Giuliani may give him a tussle-and who knows about Thompson?-but in the end, Republicans will probably prefer a squeaky-clean Mormon with a totally focus-grouped pitch to a thrice-married...
...politics of Iraq will only get more complicated for all of the Republican candidates. And the media and public scrutiny, which so far has barely singed Romney, Giuliani, Thompson or Huckabee, will likely produce one brush fire - or massive conflagration - after another. As hot as it was in Ames on Saturday, and as pleased as Romney and his staff are with their win, the challenges ahead for his candidacy will not be much easier because of his straw poll victory...