Day: May 30, 2007

Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and "Law & Order" actor, is taking significant steps toward an expected summer entry into the crowded but extraordinarily unsettled Republican presidential race.

His likely candidacy could give restless conservatives somewhere to turn.

A crucial bloc of the GOP, those voters have not fully embraced the leading contenders, giving Thompson what his backers argue is an opening for a "true conservative" who can triumph in November 2008.

Republican Mitt Romney said Tuesday he would likely donate his salary to charity if elected president, a financial freedom he described as a byproduct of a successful business career.

"I never anticipated that I'd be as financially successful as I was, and then my business went far better than I expected it would," Romney told a woman at a Liberty Mutual office in Dover, N.H., when she asked if millionaire candidates could resolve government problems in Washington.

"I wouldn't disqualify somebody by virtue of their financial wealth or their financial poverty," Romney added. "I would instead look at their record, what they've done with their life and whether they can make a difference, whether the things they have learned will enable them to be an effective leader."

How would have voters of the day reacted to the disclosure that Franklin Roosevelt's marriage had been in name only for many years and that he had intimate relationships with at least two women including Lucy Mercer with whom he carried on a decades long love affair?

What would have been the public's view of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had it known that Gen. George C. Marshall, his boss as Army chief of staff, had summoned him to Washington during World War II to order him to break off any relationship with Kay Summersby, Eisenhower's British chauffer and nearly constant companion overseas. Whether rumors of an affair were true or not, Marshall reasoned that even a hint of infidelity would severely damage home front morale among women left behind.