Fred Thompson Releases Television Ad Prior to Thursday Presidential Bid 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 5, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The next Republican presidential candidate, actor and attorney Fred Thompson, is releasing a television commercial for stations to begin playing at midnight. The ad is a preview of the campaign for the Republican nomination for president that Thompson is expected to announce on Thursday.
"On the next President’s watch, our country will make decisions that will affect our lives and our families far into the future," Thompson says in the 30-second commercial.
"We can’t allow ourselves to become a weaker, less prosperous and more divided nation," the former Tennessee senator adds.
The ad encourages viewers to head to his campaign web site, the exclusive location of his campaign announcement.
Thompson’s commercial will also air on Fox News, which is televising a debate featuring all of the GOP candidates for president and will lead-in to an appearance by Thompson on Jay Leno’s "Tonight Show."
His staff hopes Thompson’s new commercial will bring in new volunteers and create a national buzz surrounding his entrance into the race, which most observers expected months ago.
"The goal between now and the minute Senator Thompson is on Jay Leno is to drive as many people as we can to our website in anticipation of the launch video," communications director Todd Harris told the Washington Post.
"Success for us will be if we are able to communicate Senator Thompson’s mainstream, conservative message to a Republican electorate that, frankly, until now, has been hungry for a new voice," Harris said.
In recent months, Thompson has been touting his pro-life credentials.
"I think Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. I think it was bad law and bad medicine," Thompson said in a recent appearance on CNN.
"You don’t just get up one day and overturn the entire history of the country with regard to nature and major social policy, without any action by Congress, without any action by the American people or constitutional amendment, and that’s what happened," Thompson explained.
The former Tennessee senator continued, "It shouldn’t have happened. It ought to be reversed."
Those comments came on the heels of news reports that Thompson did some work for a pro-abortion group in 1991 when his law firm was hired by an abortion advocacy organization to lobby the White House on abortion issues.
His most comprehensive treatment of pro-life issues came in a video message he gave to attendees at the National Right to Life convention.
The video showed the former Tennessee senator with his wife and two young children and he told pro-life advocates that his family helps him appreciate pro-life values.
“When I was in the Senate a lot of people would come to see me and it usually would have to do with business matters or financial matters," Thompson said. "When you came to see me, I always knew it was about something much more important than that, the most important thing of all in this World and that is life."
"I must say that those issues are even more profound to me as the years go by. Jeri and I have truly been blessed," the well-known actor added.
Thompson said he has been pro-life at least since he first ran for the Senate in 1994 and received National Right to Life’s endorsement and that he’s been with the pro-life movement ever since.
"On abortion related votes I’ve been 100 percent," Thompson explained saying he’s voted against federal funding for abortion, Roe v. Wade and partial-birth abortion — a procedure he called "infanticide."
The potential presidential candidate also spoke extensively on the issue of embryonic stem cell research for the first time since the buzz built up about the possibility of him running.
His comments put him in line with the pro-life movement at a time when other candidates who oppose abortion, like John McCain, favor the destructive science.
"On stem cell research, I’m for adult stem cell research not stem cell research where embryos of unborn children are destroyed. It looks to me like there is a lot of promising developments as far as adult stem cell research is concerned anyway and we don’t need to go down that other road," Thompson said.
