Fred Thompson
Republican Presidential hopeful, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson speaks during a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa, Friday, Dec. 21, 2007. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver)

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Actor-politician Fred Thompson is making an eleventh-hour push to convince Iowa voters he is the only real conservative in the presidential race, contrasting his ideas and record on immigration and abortion with those of his leading rivals.

His job isn't getting any easier. Thompson suffered a stinging setback Thursday, when conservative Rep. Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential running and endorsed another rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Tancredo, a Colorado congressman, is a hero to many voters who are furious at illegal immigration in this country, and a lot of them are Iowa caucus goers. The endorsement was a disappointment to Thompson, especially since his week had begun on a high note with the unexpected backing of another anti-immigration hero, Rep. Steve King.

King, an Iowa congressman, said volunteers are frantically calling Tancredo supporters to try to recruit them for Thompson. Two senior officials came on board Friday, campaigning with Thompson in Sioux City in conservative western Iowa, which King represents and where he traveled with Thompson this week.

"I am convinced the majority of Tancredo people will end up with Thompson," King said in an interview.

Thompson is barnstorming across Iowa by bus to make the face-to-face contact that voters in Iowa have come to expect. The state begins the nominating process in just two weeks, on Jan. 3.

A long shot because of his late and sluggish entry to the race, Thompson is battling for third place to keep himself in the running. No one has gone on to win the nomination without a top-three finish in Iowa.

He shrugged off polls, saying he has the potential to come on fast in the final days of the Iowa campaign. If history is any guide, Thompson may be right.

"The experts don't know nothin'," Thompson said Friday in Sioux City. "It's the people of Iowa who decide these things, and momentum makes a whole lot of difference."

Later in Sioux Center, he laid out his conservative credentials for a community college audience: "We ought to be a nation with high fences and wide gates, but we get to decide when we open that gate and how long we leave it open."

Thompson wants to force employers to verify they aren't hiring illegal immigrants. And he says the government should yank federal dollars from "sanctuary" cities that don't report illegal immigrants, a dig at Romney and especially former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani sued the federal government to keep from having to report illegal immigrants. The reason: New York officials wanted to encourage people to report crimes, send their kids to school and seek medical treatment. And cities in Massachusetts had similar policies while Romney was governor.

Thompson also took a swing at Mike Huckabee, who has risen to the top of Iowa polls, for trying to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for scholarships and in-state college tuition when he was governor of Arkansas.

Thompson called for "stopping sanctuary cities or giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, which would lure people in, and lure them to bring innocent children in, in the future by the millions."

At the same time, Thompson is emphasizing endorsements from at least 10 anti-abortion groups, including the National Right to Life Committee and nine state groups. His record is not perfect to abortion foes he made conflicting statements in his Senate races and as a lawyer lobbied on behalf of an abortion-rights organization.

But Romney's and Giuliani's records are even less agreeable to abortion foes. Romney switched from supporting to opposing abortion rights before running for president, and Giuliani still supports abortion rights.

Thompson tries to close the deal with an appeal that is broader than those two issues, saying he is the best person to sit down at the negotiating table with the nation's worst enemies, an argument he made in a debate performance that won him praise earlier this month in Des Moines.

He argues his experience as a senator and on foreign policy is better than Romney's and Huckabee's experience as governors and Giuliani's as a mayor.

"When it gets right down to it, you're not electing a set of plans or position papers," he said. "You're going to be electing a leader for dangerous times. Nobody likes to be a fear monger, but I've been there. It is no exaggeration in this country to say that for a long time to come, I fear, we're going to be one terrorist plot away from nuclear disaster.

"This is not the time for on-the-job training."

(This version CORRECTS Rep. King to Steve, not Peter)

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