HE IS running for president – literally. Every day Fred Thompson rises at dawn and hits the gym to get himself into shape for the White House race, according to a close confidant.

“He’s really prepping himself physically and mentally for the campaign. It’s like Bruce Spring-steen getting ready for the big tour,” the source added.

The fitness drive is part of Thompson’s attempt to inject energy into his 2008 presidential bid, which he will launch formally on Thursday.

At 6ft 5in in his gym shoes, the former senator for Tennessee and star of the television series Law & Order is not short on stature, but he has been putting aside time for a personal trainer and is said to be “svelte and in tremendous shape”.

A battle bus is ready to roll with the slogan “Security, Unity and Prosperity”, taking him to five states. He will appear on the Jay Leno Show, where Arnold Schwarzenegger launched his campaign for California governor.

He had better get cracking, Republicans warn. Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W Bush, said: “From the moment that Thompson declares, he has about a one-week window for people to say he’s for real or not. If people get a let-down feeling after his announcement, because he got in so late, it will be harder for him to recover.”

After a phenomenal start to his unofficial bid for the White House last spring, Thompson’s campaign nearly ran out of puff over the summer as the would-be candidate dithered about when to enter the race.

The high point was an audience with Baroness Thatcher in London in June – the nearest thing to a blessing from the late President Ronald Reagan. Thompson had been expected to announce a fortnight later, but feared his organisation was in poor shape. As the weeks drifted by, the enthusiasm of his “Fredhead” supporters waned, his fundraising hit a wall and his poll numbers deflated.

A series of top aides were hired and fired and his wife Jeri, a former Republican consultant, was accused of micro-managing his campaign. She was the one person on top of the job, friends say, and will remain influential.

By the time Thompson was lolling around the Iowa State Fair last month, wearing Gucci loafers on a golf cart instead of going on a walkabout like every other candidate, his closest advisers were appalled by the squandered momentum. The YouTube clips of a seemingly “lazy” Thompson played to the image of a candidate who lacked the fire in the belly to run.

Speculation mounted that Thompson, 65 – who has suffered from lymphoma, a form of cancer, which is in remission – was in poor health. He was losing weight, it was noted. But he was in reality turning into a lean campaigning machine, according to friends. “He knows the race is going to be physically gruelling and he is all psyched up,” one said. “It’s look at you, man!”

Supporters hope Thompson’s summer of playing “footsie” with the voters will be forgotten once he campaigns in earnest. He intends to fill a gap in the presidential market for a robust conservative with a populist touch.

“You look at my voting record on taxes, regulations, national security, abortion-related issues and guns,” Thompson said. “By any measure, I’ve got a conservative voting record and I think those are the principles our country was founded on.”

The mantra of the new revitalised effort is “Let Fred be Fred”. Bill Lacy, who recently took charge of his White House bid, ran Thompson’s senatorial campaign in Tennessee in 1994. He was lagging in the polls when he climbed into a red pickup truck, drove around the state and impressed people with his southern good ol’ boy style. Lacy had initially thought the truck was a bad idea. “Fred had the good sense to ignore my advice,” he recalled. “It was classic Hollywood. A happy ending.”

This time, Thompson intends to use the internet to maximum effect, having noted early on how a video produced by a supporter of Barack Obama showing Hillary Clinton as 1984’s Big Brother went viral.

He is pursuing a risky strategy, however, by snubbing traditional voters in New Hampshire, a key primary state. He is skipping this week’s Republican presidential debate, although the other top contenders will all be present. Thompson also faces a strong rival in Rudolph Giuliani, who has consolidated his position as Republican frontrunner over the summer and leads him by nearly 12 points. However, the thrice-married former mayor of New York is vulnerable to attacks over his private life.

Thompson will be seeking to detach voters from Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a Mormon, who has a slick, well financed campaign and is beginning to win over evangelical Christian voters. “If we had Romney’s organisation and Fred’s personality, the race would be over,” said a Thompson insider. He has already had a near fatal impact on John McCain’s campaign. The Vietnam war hero is now down to 11% in the polls.

If Thompson falters, Newt Gingrich, the conservative ideologue, is waiting in the wings. He told conservatives privately last week that if he could get $30m in pledges by the end of October – admittedly a tall order – he would run for president.

Track the latest polls at www.realclearpolitics.com

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