Thompson not always at conservative core - As a senator, he had a maverick streak that infuriated many.

"Has Fred Thompson Blown It?" blared a headline in a conservative magazine, accusing him of squandering an opportunity to use a set of 1997 hearings to nail Democrats for illegal fundraising.

A decade later, as Thompson prepares to formally announce his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination, he is being promoted as a godsend for conservatives dissatisfied with the established field of Republican candidates.

But during his eight-year Senate career, his only stint in elected office, Thompson was far from a champion of the party's conservative core. In fact, in the two enterprises where he made his biggest mark -- the fundraising hearings of 1997 and the successful drive for campaign finance overhaul -- Thompson infuriated conservatives.

While he compiled a largely conservative voting record, he also carved out a maverick profile akin to that of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with whom he co-sponsored a landmark campaign finance measure along with Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.).

Ironically, in the 2008 campaign, conservatives are looking to Thompson as an alternative to McCain and other GOP candidates whom they consider unreliable allies on key issues.

An actor, lawyer and lobbyist, Thompson seems to have earned more forgiveness than McCain for breaking with conservative dogma, in part because his maverick streak was tempered by an easygoing manner and a willingness to stick with the GOP on most issues. But it may also be because conservatives who back him now know less about Thompson's Senate record than they do about his performance as a district attorney in the television hit "Law & Order."

"He carries the same baggage that McCain carries," said James Bopp Jr., an antiabortion activist who is backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. "Time does dim memories, and people need to be reminded of his support for McCain-Feingold."

"Thompson had a chance to show leadership and did not," said Larry Klayman, the conservative lawyer who issued the "wanted" poster to criticize Thompson for not running more aggressive hearings on President Clinton's fundraising.