Political Portfolios
By Bob Frick, Senior Editor
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, January 2008
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FRED THOMPSON
NET WORTH: $2.6 million to $8.3 million
PORTFOLIO: Bank accounts.
On the Republican side, the three contenders closest to front-runner Giuliani have made their fortunes in very different ways. The current number two in the polls, Fred Thompson, is a former U.S. senator from Tennessee who started his career as an assistant U.S. attorney, then handled personal-injury claims and other legal work in Nashville and Washington, D.C. But income from acting is his current bread and butter.
Thompson pulled down between $2.5 million and $16 million from January 2006 to September 2007 in income from the various movie and television roles he's played over the years. He's best known as the folksy-yet-crusty New York City district attorney on NBC's Law and Order. From the Screen Actors Guild pension plan, the 65-year-old Thompson collected between $500,000 and $1 million. His net worth is between $2.6 million and $8.3 million, according to his FEC filing, which didn't match the time frame of the other candidates' filings because he entered the race relatively late.
Thompson's stream of income also includes earnings from the other day job he's held for many years: lobbyist. In 2006, a British company, Equitas, paid Thompson $180,000 to lobby Congress concerning federal asbestos legislation. (Insurer Lloyd's of London set up Equitas to protect its interests with regard to payments to victims of asbestos exposure.) Thompson's lobbyist income hasn't amounted to much compared with his acting and legal spoils, but it doesn't support his claim of being a Washington outsider.
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