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PJM political analyst Bill Bradley watched Fred Thompson announcing last night at Jay Leno that he's in the race for the White House. He ponders his chances and how the celebrity card will play on his behalf.

Fred Thompson’s Tonight Show announcement for president last night had none of the drama of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Tonight Show announcement for governor of California four years ago. It could not have, for it’s been expected for months. But it was probably more revealing.

Thompson missed the latest of the Republican presidential debates, but those haven’t amounted to much and he impacted far more people with his Tonight Show/Internet video announcement than by going the traditional route.

While the parallel with Schwarzenegger was unmistakable — both actors, both announcing their candidacies on The Tonight Show — the differences were greater. Schwarzenegger, with whom I was in contact throughout the run-up to his candidacy, had made it plain he intended to run, if he could work certain things through. The rest of the press chose not to believe that, which irritated the action superstar at first but in the end made him quite happy. While I expected him to run, I didn’t know for sure that he would until the day before. I don’t know if host Jay Leno knew for certain that his old friend Schwarzenegger was running when he showed up at the Burbank Studio to tape the show, but some of what they did was worked out in advance, such as the famous gag with the sound going out the first time Schwarzenegger said what he would do. The Fred Thompson had none of those dynamics.

Superficially, however, it began in a familiar vein. With Leno in quipster mode in the monologue: “He has something major to announce. He’s either pregnant, gay, or running for president. Have you seen Fred’s wife? She’s beautiful, I think you can rule out the gay part. He got married when he was 17, which caused a huge scandal in his small town in Tennessee. Apparently, he chose to marry outside the family.” And so on.

When Thompson came on the set, Leno started out with a little humor: “You said you were testing the water in June. You’ve been in the water for a while now. Are you getting a little wrinkly?”

“These wrinkles,” replied Thompson, looking fit in a sharp black pin-striped suit with red tie, “don’t come from the water.” As for testing the water, “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I’m running for president of the United States.”

“It took a long time to decide this,” Leno began.

“Not really,” said Thompson, interjecting a bit defensively. “We started mentioning it for the first time in March.” Thompson went on to talk about the other candidates starting much earlier than usual.

Intriguingly for a veteran performer, Thompson cleared his throat repeatedly in the beginning, and spoke fairly rapidly. When he speaks more slowly, his voice has a deeper timbre. More rapidly, it has less resonance, less of the air of casual authority that is his trademark.

“I don’t think people are going to say, you know, ‘That guy would make a very good president, but he just didn’t get in soon enough.’”

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