Amateur Hour? Fred Thompson, an old pro, has had lots of campaign growing pains.(2008)

The great hope and fear that conservatives feel about Fred Thompson is best summed up in the words of one Washington activist who has not yet chosen his presidential candidate: "I want to believe," he says. "But is there anything there?"

Conservatives were waiting for someone to save them from a field of top candidates they found uninspiring. Fred Thompson, an actor and former senator from Tennessee, seemed to fit the bill. It was no surprise when he got a bounce in both state and national polls immediately upon his September 5 entry into the race.

The demand for a "Fred" is clearly there, but what of the supply? The campaign was not pretty in its first two weeks. Most of the "Fred-lines" in the newspapers have been bad, revolving around heavy staff turnover and controversy over three of his old lobbying clients. Inexplicably, this elementary opposition research was buried until now, not leaked and preemptively defused months ago.

But worst of all, candidate Thompson often seems unprepared. He may have been wise to wait an extra month or two before entering the race, but he does not appear to have used the time to prepare for even obvious questions he was sure to face.

In August, Thompson's campaign hired Jim Mills--a Fox News producer with no previous involvement in Republican politics. Mills was to shape a creative, unconventional campaign for Thompson--the kind that would have sent its candidate to make a last-minute appearance at the September debate in New Hampshire, to upstage the other candidates and win favor with Granite State voters; the kind that might have disclosed its donations instantly online, embracing transparency and highlighting Hillary Clinton's felon fundraiser.

But days after being hired, Mills was gone, and it isn't that hard to see why. Thompson doesn't need an artist right now--he needs a drill sergeant. Time is running short, and creativity can hardly solve Thompson's frequent episodes of message confusion. Before he can get fancy, Fred has to start getting it right.

No one should have been surprised that, while visiting Florida, Thompson would be asked about Terri Schiavo, the disabled Floridian whose husband wanted to remove her feeding tube in early 2005. Was Congress right to pass a law in an attempt to save her life? After noting that he generally favors local control, Thompson answered that, as for this particular case, "I don't remember the details." Did no one think to brief him on this? A campaign spokesman declined to talk about the candidate's briefings.