Thompson Criticizes Democrats, Talks Terrorism in Virginia GOP Speech

ABC News’ Jake Tapper Reports: One day after filing papers to create a fundraising committee as he prepares for a likely ’08 White House bid, actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson R-Tenn., offered a positive assessment of his party’s future. In a 35-minute keynote address to 450 attendees of the Republican Party of Virginia’s annual gala Saturday night, Thompson said that the Republican party is down but not out.

"Folks, we’re a bit down politically right now, but I think we’re on the comeback trail, and it’s going to start right here," he said.

Citing the disrupted terror plot at JFK Airport, Thompson said "This is a battle between the forces of civilization and the forces of evil and we’ve got to choose sides."

To meet the challenges facing the nation, Thompson said, "we’re going to have to be more focused, we’re going to have be smarter and we’re going to have to be more determined and we’re going to have to be more together as a nation than we’ve ever been before."

Thompson — who voted in 2002 to authorize use of force against Saddam Hussein — assailed the way Democrats were, in his view, using the war for political ends. "I listen to the Democratic congressional leaders and I hear them talking about how many seats they’re going to pick up because of this war. I listened to one of their presidential candidates talk about that this is a phony war, the war on terror. This is what passes for policy today in the Democratic party."

He also went after Democrats for planning to rescind the Bush tax cuts. "The Democrats are hot after repealing all of that, the engine that’s driving this economy."

The most enthusiastic response of the evening reportedly came when Thompson criticized the immigration reform proposal President Bush is pushing. "We are a nation of compassion, a nation of immigrants," he said. But this is our home and we get to decide who comes into our home."

He drew a standing ovation for saying, "you’ve got to secure the border first before you do anything else."

"It’s time we leveled and are straight with the American people about the situation" the country is in, Thompson said. "The American people are waiting."

Before his speech in Richmond, Thompson also sat for an interview with the Associated Press, Thompson would not detail why he believes he might make a good president and had difficulty naming his greatest accomplishment in the Senate. He mentioned that he managed the homeland security bill, saying, "There were a lot of things. … It doesn’t always have to do with putting your name on a piece of legislation. There was an awful lot of bad legislation that I helped to stop for one thing."

"We’ll have a chance to get into all that when I start telling everybody what a wonderful person I am. But we’re not quite at that stage."

Thompson dismissed the notion that candidates in order to run serious races need to raise at least $100 million with campaign organizations in place for months. "I don’t know who made those rules. I don’t know who the experts are. I’m too late to follow those rules even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to. At the end of the day, the people have to be receptive to you and your message. It doesn’t matter how many campaign advisers you’ve got or how much money you can spend. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be."