Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich earned an endorsement from former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson Monday.
Mr. Thompson made the announcement Monday during an appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity, as Mr. Gingrich and his rival candidates participated in the presidential debate moderated by NBC News in Tampa Bay, Florida.
Mr. Thompson served in the Senate from 1994 through 2003, where he was the chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, as well as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Following his career in the Senate, the former Tennesse senator joined the cast of NBC’s “Law and Order” television series as a conservative District Attorney.
He left the show to lead an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008.
Although it is unclear how much of an impact Mr. Thompson’s endorsement will have, he still provides support from someone who was in Congress while Mr. Gingrich was the speaker of the House in the 1990s.
Mr. Gingrich has not received many endorsements from former senators and lawmakers that worked with him during that time period, a criticism that rival candidate Mitt Romney has recently unleashed on him.
However in his appearance on Fox News Monday, Mr. Thompson looked to downplay the negative connotations that still linger from Mr. Gingrich being fined for ethics violations by members of Congress in 1997.
“I came to Washington in 1995 in part because of what was going on in the country right now that had generated in large part by the leadership of Newt Gingrich,” said Mr. Thompson Monday. “He conceived and carried out really a revolution in American politics at that time. We were able to balance the budget for about four years in a row, pass welfare reform and begin to rebuild a depleted military.”
In addition to his comments Monday, Mr. Thompson released a video Tuesday morning explaining his reasons for why Mr. Gingrich is the best Republican candidate to defeat President Barack Obama in the fall. The video was also posted to the Gingrich campaign website.
Mr. Gingrich thanked the former Tennessee senator for the endorsement via his Twitter account Tuesday.
“Glad to have the support of fellow conservative @fredthompson. We both understand DC is broken & needs real change,” tweeted Mr. Gingrich.
An Insider Advantage poll released Monday shows Mr. Gingrich holding a nine percentage point lead over Mr. Romney in Florida.
