WASHINGTON (AFP) — He was billed as the charisma-fueled Ronald Reagan-style conservative savior -- but screen star Fred Thompson is drawing mocking reviews for his latest role, as a Republican White House candidate.
"Lazy," "subdued" and "rambling," blared recent media critiques of the ex-senator's first month in a fluid 2008 Republican field.
Thompson's short-lived honeymoon might have been expected: he teased the media and surfed a wave of favorable coverage by hovering on the edge of the Republican field for months -- and so had huge expectations to meet.
If pundits are to be believed, the "Law & Order" star's campaign is yet to convince, and he faces fierce pressure in his first debate clash with Republican rivals in Michigan on Tuesday.
But could the Washington insider media and pundits, who built Thompson up only to knock him down, be missing his appeal to heartland conservatives still desperately searching for a champion?
Not according to George Will, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post who last month mocked Thompson as the political version of "New Coke" soda quickly pulled from the shelves after a lackluster launch.
Quin Hillyer, a senior editor of the conservative magazine American Spectator wrote that the Thompson campaign was a "themeless pudding."
"You come across as unprepared, soporific, and vague," Hillyer wrote in an open letter to the candidate.
However, Thompson runs a solid second in national polls of the Republican field behind former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and is competitive in Iowa and New Hampshire, early voting states in the party nominating race.
A Des Moines Register poll Sunday showed Thompson on 18 percent among likely Republican caucus voters in Iowa, second behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney on 29 percent. Giuliani trailed on 11 percent.
Thompson is also in the vital money game, last week announcing he had piled up 9.3 million dollars in his first full three-month period of fundraising.
Some saw that as a disappointment, but supporters noted it was close to the third quarter 2007 take of top rivals Giuliani and Romney, who have been chasing campaign cash for months.
Thompson's haul was "a considerable sum, but nothing along the lines of what he would have needed to raise to cause a big splash," said Costas Panagopoulos, a campaign finance expert at Fordham University.
Campaign manager Bill Lacy said Thompson's donor base of 80,000 people reflected "huge grass roots appeal."
Thompson, a craggy 65-year-old, has a tough hide, and has shown little sign he cares about criticism that he lacks fire in the belly.
In Washington Friday, he delivered a broad-brush speech on economic policy, and was at times self-deprecating and laconic, prescribing a back-to-basics conservative formula of small government and low taxes.
In place of the soaring rhetoric pioneered by revered former actor-turned president Reagan, were nuggets of what Thompson calls "tough truth."
At times, he seemed rusty -- he has not been in the thick of day-to-day politics since leaving the Senate in 2003.
"My friends, I think Americans are waiting," Thompson said, laying out his message in a campaign which he says finds America at a crossroads, facing future financial crises and a deadly threat from radical Islam.
"I think they're waiting for us to take that case to them as to what is ... the responsible thing to do for our generation."
Thompson has eschewed a typical barnstorming White House race -- keeping up a leisurely pace on the road, and is almost running an anti-campaign.
"People who say this has not been a lifetime ambition, I plead guilty, that is absolutely true," said Thompson in an interview Wednesday with Fox News.
But to heartland Republicans, earning the scorn of Washington pundits could be a selling point.
"He has certainly been criticized by the national media and the key journalists quite a bit," said John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University in Thompson's home state of Tennessee.
"I think there is kind of a disjuncture between that criticism and people who attend his presentations -- people tend to like what he is saying."
"I sometimes wonder if the news media is just not happy with the fact that he is just not playing by the rules that they would want him to play with."
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