Thompson Losing Evangelicals

Fred Thompson, once the longed-for alternative to a field of uninspiring GOP candidates, didn't get through his campaign's first official month before the religious right started jumping ship, Politico reports. Thompson's refusal to back a gay marriage ban, past lobbying for an abortion-rights group, and refusal to talk religion has conservatives scrambling to find a different candidate to stop frontrunner Rudy Giuliani's nomination.

Support for Thompson is "just not going to happen now," said a member of a loose federation of conservative groups. And an email from evangelical heavyweight James Dobson saying Thompson "can't speak his way out of a paper bag," had others rethinking. But supporters point to another non-churchgoing actor with gay friends and a mixed record on abortion: Ronald Reagan. (More Fred Thompson stories.)