"They have imbued him with the characteristics of 'Mr. Right,' "

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Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is now hovering near the top of the heap of Republican presidential hopefuls in most polls, but critics say he will begin a precipitous descent when more primary voters learn more about his record.

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"I think Thompson already has peaked, especially because people are being reminded of his deep involvement in supporting McCain-Feingold," said James Bopp Jr., a Republican lawyer who specializes in campaign and election law.

"His McCain-Feingold problem is worse than just the law,” said Mr. Bopp, a supporter of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Mr. Thompson also “signed a subpoena that cost the Republican National Committee millions of dollars to comply with, and his name is on an amicus brief” defending the 2002 campaign-finance law, Mr. Bopp said.

Conservative skeptics say Mr. Thompson's supporters have imagined him to be the second coming of Ronald Reagan. "They have imbued him with the characteristics of 'Mr. Right,' " said Mr. Bopp.

In private meetings, Mr. Thompson has managed to win over — some skeptics
say "con" — top social and religious conservatives while also winning support
from Republicans more concerned about economic and fiscal issues.

"I haven't been conned by anybody — I'm keeping my powder dry," says
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle forum, a grass-roots conservative lobby.

Many conservative critics have focused on Mr. Thompson"s abortion stance in
the wake of newspaper reports that he lobbied for a pro-choice group in 1991,
but Mr. Bopp says that McCain-Feingold and Mr. Thompson's chairmanship of a
Senate probe of the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign are greater
vulnerabilities.

Mr. Thompson's Governmental Affairs Committee hearings were convened in
1997 to investigate foreign contributions to the Democratic campaign that were
clearly illegal under federal law. The hearings instead ended up treating legal Republican donations as part of a bipartisan scandal, a perception eventually used to justify the 2002 law best known by the name of its Senate sponsors, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat. "He subpoenaed a number of conservative issue organizations — he wanted to be even-handed after issuing subpoenas to a number of left-leaning groups and unions," said elections-law attroney Cleta Mitchell, who advises conservative clients.

"He shouldn't have subpoenaed any of the citizens groups in the first
place," she said. "He should have concentrated on the illegal activities of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee in the 1996 election. ... Instead, Thompson let the Democrats on his committee run roughshod over him and the only thing that came out of the entire effort was the record the Supreme Court used to validate McCain-Feingold."

Mr. Thompson's vulnerability to charges of campaign-finance hypocrisy
was highlighted over the weekend, when ABC News ran an online "analysis"
accusing the Republican of taking advantage of "loopholes" in federal law to
avoid reporting his fundraising amounts, as other candidates were required to do
by midnight Sunday.