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He can act, but can he debate?

In an unusual political season that seems to offer up a presidential debate every week or so, the Republican debate tomorrow is expected to offer something new: Fred D. Thompson.
Fred D. Thompson, left, at a 1994 debate against Representative Jim Cooper, whom he defeated to win a Senate seat.
Fred D. Thompson, left, at a 1994 debate against Representative Jim Cooper, whom he defeated to win a Senate seat. Kent Phillips / AP file via NYT
/ Source: The New York Times

In an unusual political season that seems to offer up a presidential debate every week or so, the Republican debate tomorrow is expected to offer something new: Fred D. Thompson.

Untested in debate against his opponents until now, Mr. Thompson, a late entrant to the race, chose to skip the last contest in favor of announcing his candidacy on “The Tonight Show” early last month — a decision for which he was roundly criticized.

Many have been wondering how Mr. Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, will do. By his own admission he is “a bit rusty” when it comes to debating, and he has said he hopes he will be able to “hang in there” with the other candidates, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the sharp-tongued former New York mayor, and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who is known for his polished delivery.

A look at some of Mr. Thompson’s debates years ago offers a mixed picture, with the candidate mostly projecting calm and confidence against Representative Jim Cooper, his Democratic opponent for the Senate seat in 1994.

Mr. Thompson’s delivery back then was usually smooth and expressionless, not a monotone but not displaying much charisma, either. He sounded articulate, speaking in full, well-rounded sentences, but stopped short of eloquence.

Even when he was on the attack, or firing back at a rough question, he rarely lost his cool.
Speaking of Mr. Cooper, he deadpanned, “There’s nothing more desperate than a career politician facing the prospect of having to get a real job for the first time in his life.”

In one of the only heated exchanges in a debate broadcast on WMC-TV Memphis in October 1994, Mr. Thompson responded to charges that he was a rich, out-of-touch Washington lobbyist by continuing that same line of attack about Mr. Cooper’s career. “You know, you’ll never be a lobbyist and you’ll probably be few other things either,” he told Mr. Cooper, not even raising his voice. “You were born to great wealth and privilege. You’ve never had a real job in your life.”

Measured approach
In another debate, at the University of Memphis, Mr. Thompson was similarly measured, even when Mr. Cooper provoked him, mocking his use of a rented pickup truck on the campaign trail as a Hollywood-style gimmick.

“Lay off my pickup,” Mr. Thompson said flatly, adding a quick defense: “The pickup’s good for me. It reminds me of my roots, and growing up down in Lawrence County. It reminds me of my daddy. It’s a good way to campaign. And another advantage is it just seems to bug the dickens out of Jim.”

In one radio debate in 1994, however, things were different. Mr. Thompson showed his teeth. As one radio announcer put it, “Thompson appeared to rattle his Democratic opponent by relentlessly and aggressively mocking him.”

At one point, Mr. Thompson was sarcastic: “Today is Thursday, Jim. What’s your position on term limits today?”

At another point, Mr. Cooper asked Mr. Thompson whether he lobbied Congress on behalf of foreign companies. Mr. Thompson lashed out, losing his cool.

“The answer is no,” he said, before being interrupted and adding, “Shut up! Just shut up just a minute!” Then he called Mr. Cooper a liar.

Facing debate veterans
Tomorrow, Mr. Thompson will be facing a field of candidates who are already veterans of numerous other presidential debates and well-versed on the issues. But so far on the campaign trail, Mr. Thompson has stumbled at times when pressed for his views on certain local and national issues, like not knowing of the fight over oil drilling in the Everglades and in referring to Russia as the Soviet Union.

To help prepare, Mr. Thompson, who has also been an actor, has enlisted the aid of Alfonse M. D’Amato, the former senator from New York, who has been playing the role of Mr. Giuliani. But whether these rehearsals will help is an open question.

“There’s the expectation that if you’re a performer, you’ll be good at any kind of performance, but that’s not true,” said Shannon Jackson, a professor and chairwoman of the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. “Certain performers are used to having scripts that they can practice and rehearse. They find challenges when they don’t have a script, or the required script changes and they have to improvise.”