From New York magazine: Fred Thompson is laying on the southern-fried charm. It's a tire-melting afternoon in June, and the son of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, turned two-term United States senator, Law & Order star, and now almost Republican presidential candidate has just arrived at the Clarion Townhouse hotel in Columbia, South Carolina, for a state-party fund-raiser. A crush of reporters has swarmed him, one of whom has just asked if today will be the day Thompson makes things official. Thompson delivers his honey-smooth reply as if on cue. "I'm just testing the waters, but the water is pretty warm," he says as he plows toward the ballroom.

Inside, his wife, Jeri, and 3-year-old daughter, Hayden, hug Thompson. The family settles on the dais and is consumed in a lightning storm of flash photography. The six-foot-five, cigar-smoking Thompson's calling card is his cozy, avuncular folksiness, and he seems nothing if not at home here among his people. Jeri is a formidable woman -- a former Senate staffer and spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee who is said to be the true force behind her husband's decision to run and a key operative in his campaign. She also happens to be blonde, gorgeous, and two dozen years younger than her husband. ...

Read the rest of the New York profile of Tennessee's next presidential candidate, Fred Thompson.