NEWSWEEK: Thompson's Strategy on Key Issues May Cost Him the Conservative Vote

Combing Though Records Shows He Has Been Against GOP on Issues Such As

Abortion and Campaign Fund-Raising

    NEW YORK, June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Unofficial GOP candidate Fred
 Thompson, who according to the latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll,
 came in a close second behind the current leader, Rudy Giuliani -- and beat
 everyone, including Giuliani, among self-described "religious right" voters
 -- may be in danger of losing supporters because of his record.
     (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070616/CLSA011 )
     In the June 25 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, June 18),
 Correspondent Holly Bailey reports that the charismatic and down to earth
 potential GOP candidate has avoided the kind of scrutiny his rivals have
 faced. But as he prepares to become an official candidate, his record in
 Washington will be given a closer look, and conservative voters
 disappointed to find that Thompson has been on the other side of some of
 their most important issues, including abortion and campaign fund-raising.
     Combing through Thompson's archive, Newsweek found several files on his
 campaign strategy on abortion that could roil his 2008 bid. On a 1994 Eagle
 Forum survey, Thompson said he opposed criminalizing abortion. Two years
 later, on a Christian Coalition questionnaire, he checked "opposed" to a
 proposed constitutional amendment protecting the sanctity of human life. In
 a campaign policy statement filed in the archives, he also said he believes
 "the decision to have an early term abortion is a moral issue and should
 not be a legal one subject to the dictates of the government." During an
 interview with the Conservative Spectator, a Tennessee newspaper, he
 claimed to be pro-life but also said that, "The ultimate decision on
 abortion should be left with the woman and not the government."
     Thompson drew the ire of his party in 1997 when he was appointed to
 lead hearings into Democratic fund-raising abuses in the 1996 campaign, and
 then broadened his investigation to look into alleged abuses by Republicans
 as well. This probe left him on the outs with GOP heavyweights and it is
 still unclear whether his public efforts to make amends will be accepted or
 backfire.
     (Read story at www.Newsweek.com)
     http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19263100/site/newsweek/
 
 

SOURCE Newsweek