Fred Thompson FINALLY enters the race.

Former Tennessee Senator and actor Fred Thompson finally entered the race for president four years after former Senator John Edwards started to run and a year after his GOP rivals. He did so by announcing on the Jay Leno show in September of 2007 the same evening as all the other Republicans were debating in New Hampshire. This came months after Thompson lost most of his campaign staff (Thompson's chief spokesman from early on, Mark Corallo, became the fourth communications aide to leave in a month) and his controversial wife Jeri was rumored to be personally trying to run his campaign.

Here is what some bloggers had to say:

And Fred thinks he has a chance? Hell, he can't get his own house in order - do you really think he can get the country in order?

The ship that sank in port, the Freddy boy.

Looks like Jeri Thompson has two more campaign roles to fill now. What's that, like 15 now?

On his first trip to Iowa as a declared candidate at an evening event at a park in Council Bluffs, Thompson was mistakenly introduced as "Senator Roberts from Tennessee". “At his first event in Des Moines, Thompson walked on stage with his wife, Jeri, and their two young children as "Heartland" by George Strait blared. The stage was erected a third of the way into the exhibition hall to make the room appear smaller and better attended” according to AP. So much for the “great white hope” og the GOP making his triumphant entrance to Iowa.

In fact, many Iowa Republicans are very annoyed that he is as one GOP activist told me “the marathon racer who comes in halfway through the race.”

Thompson’s story is emblematic of what the American presidential selection process has become.

It is fundamentally a psychological war between huge egos. It is spin Judo and “Gotcha” politics. It is tactical moves, and perception.

Thompson’s biggest problem is that the decisive leader could not make up his mind and decided that he could gain the calendar. His second biggest problem is that his record and the long lead time he gave his opponents to prepare opposition research. His “zigzags on such key issues as abortion rights, immigration, a gay marriage ban, and campaign finance reform” as the Boston Globe said, make him less than the “true conservative” he’s trying to be and make him another very flawed candidate.

One of my best students pointed out that no bald man (Thompson’s six strands are not hair) has been elected president since Eisenhower and John Quincy Adams was the only other Chrome Dome president in history. When Goliath’s locks were cut he lost his strength.

Good Luck Senator!