jeri thompson

Sources close to Fred Thompson's campaign tell The Brody File that Fred's wife, Jeri Thompson will be featured in People Magazine. The article is expected to run next week.

Jeri Thompson has pretty much stayed behind the scenes and not granted interviews. Clearly, what the People Magazine article will show is a different side of her, a side that shows her to be a mom of two young children. A lot of stories have been written about her (many of them not very flattering) but let's remember here that while she's active in her husband's campaign, she's more active in raising two young children.

On a separate note, Fred Thompson has agreed to attend and speak at the Family Research Council's Value Voters Summit next month in Washington. You can read more about it here. This is a good move by Thompson and it's an event he really had to do. All the other GOP contenders will be there (Giuliani hasn't committed yet) and the straw poll held afterwards is shaping up as a watershed moment for those candidates looking to gauge the social conservative movement.

The question for Thompson going forward is will his campaign style and philosophy work in the long term and deliver the nomination? He's not coming out with 10 point plans and promising this and that. He's not running a traditional style campaign with three or four public events every day. He's on his own timetable and he's staying above the fray and using his "first principles" theme to carry the day. His rise in the polls may be attributed to an intangible connection with voters.

A source close to Fred Thompson's campaign tells me this: "The connection that people are making with him on a personal level is something the mainstream media chooses not to report. It confuses the mainstream media to have someone play by his own rules. The experiences he has lived give him a unique opportunity to relate to the American people. From the factory floor to United States Senator - he has an American story and one that people relate to. He is an honest, principled man who knows who he is and knows what this country needs to secure its future."
WASHINGTON (AP) ― Jeri Thompson, wife of GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson, shakes off the "trophy wife" label critics have tagged her with for being 24 years younger than her husband.

"It's hard not to be defensive," she told People magazine in her first solo interview. "To think back on how hard you've worked, and all anybody thinks about is that you're a trophy wife."

In a story for Monday's issue, Thompson said: "I almost think they had to fabricate that trophy-wife stuff because there's nothing interesting to say."

Jeri Thompson is a Naperville, Ill., native who has worked for the Republican National Committee, on Capitol Hill, and at a public relations-lobbying firm.

Thompson, 41, says she met her future husband at a Nashville supermarket on July 4, 1996, a few years before she moved to Washington. To hear her tell it, the then-U.S. senator from Tennessee was standing in line with a can of beanie weenies and half a premade tuna fish sandwich.

"I looked at him and just said, 'I'm so sorry,'" Thompson says, adding that he carried her groceries to the car, and she invited him to a friend's party that night.

Years later, she tells People: "I was never an older-man-dater kind of girl before."

They married in June 2002, and have a daughter, Hayden, who turns 4 in October, and a son, Samuel, approaching 1. gets the first interview with both Fred and Jeri Thompson since Fred Thompson announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination. The interview airs tonight on Hannity & Colmes.

Visiting Chicago to raise funds after an extended Iowa visit with a tour of an ethanol plant, Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson said the world has changed since he voted against ethanol subsidies while serving as a Tennessee senator.

"Well, when I was in the Senate, oil was, I think, like $23 a barrel," Thompson told reporters outside his first fundraising event in Illinois since declaring his candidacy last month.

"It's a different world now, not only the price of oil but what's going on in the Middle East, what's going on with regards to Russia, which is becoming a major oil country," he said. "We can't afford that kind of dependence."



Thompson voted against tax credits for ethanol producers in 1998 and voted to eliminate ethanol subsidies a year later. Iowa, which is home to the country's first presidential caucuses, also is the nation's largest producer of ethanol, and supporting the fuel additive has become almost a prerequisite for support by voters in the state.

Thompson's campaign said it expected the fundraiser would generate more than $100,000, with invitations starting at $1,000 and offering a donor a photo with the candidate for the federal maximum contribution of $2,300 for the primary season.

Facing his first debate with the earlier-declared Republican contenders next week in Michigan, the former Law & Order actor declared himself "probably a little rusty on my sound-bite responses as you can tell."

Appearing to lessen expectations on his performance, Thompson said, "I'm not used to playing by strict rules either on the Senate floor or in the courtroom or anyplace like that."

"These other guys are polished and they're very smooth in their responses and they've had a lot of practice," he said. "I just hope I'm able to hang in there with them."

Thompson also said he saw "real prospects" for success in Illinois and its Feb. 5 primary and noted that his wife, Jeri, was from suburban Naperville and thinks "we've got some real possibilities here." Borrowing from the Tennessean way of pronouncing Nashville, Thompson pronounced the Chicago suburb "Nape-uh-vul."

State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, who has been leading Thompson's campaign effort in Illinois, said grass-roots support for the former senator has grown steadily since he formally announced his campaign.

"No one was willing to commit to Fred until Fred got in the race," Brady said. "Now that he's in…people around the area are starting to resonate toward the campaign―people who may have even given to other candidates because they're good guys, but now they know" Thompson's in the race.