No Fun Being a Front-runner

Big Fred, the not-yet-candidate, has finally learned what fun it is to be a front-runner. And after the rough month Rudy Giuliani has endured, he is probably pleased to share the spotlight and some of the heat.

Thompson has faced some noise from detractors who question his pro-life credentials, waving around some questionnaire he once filled out. In response Fred has stood comfortably behind his record with National Right to Life, with whom he voted his entire Senate career. Now comes news that Thompson helped out the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, according to minutes of a board meeting from 1991 showing the group hired Thompson that year. Thompson was working for a Washington firm and according to Judith M. DeSarno, then president of the organization, he agreed to lobby the White House on behalf of their effort to soften or lift a ban on abortion counseling at federally funded clinics. DeSarno offered her detailed recollection of Fred delivering a data dump on the topic for her at a Washington restaurant, complete with one of his cowboy death reenactments. His job was to contact John Sununu, George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff. DeSarno told The Los Angeles Times that Thompson told her he had multiple conversations with Sununu about the “gag rule” and mentioned that Sununu gave him tickets for a VIP tour of the White House for one of Thompson’s sons and his wife.

Team Thompson denies he lobbied for this group. Strangely there are no billing records to speak of, and most importantly Sununu denies ever knowing anything about it. But one former congressman, Michael Barnes, a Democrat, backs up DeSarno. He worked at the law and lobbying firm with Thompson and had recommended him for the job. “This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up,” he says. “This is fact.”

A mystery indeed, but clear evidence that scrutiny of Thompson will be intense and unrelenting. Thompson’s campaign now knows his rivals aren’t going to roll over and play dead, and that being a front-runner — even before you really are one — isn’t any fun.