Thompson won’t sign Norquist’s no-tax pledge

Presidential candidate and former Sen. Fred Thompson’s (R-Tenn.) campaign said Monday he will not sign Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) pledge against raising taxes.

Echoing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in a GOP debate last week, a Thompson campaign spokeswoman said the former senator’s record speaks for itself, and Thompson does not want to be boxed in by signing any pledges.

{mosads}“Fred Thompson’s record of cutting taxes and pushing for reform speaks for itself,” spokeswoman Karen Hanretty said in an e-mail. “This is the approach he will take as president. He is bound by that principle and does not make a practice of signing pledges.”

Thompson, who is trying to run as the true “consistent conservative” in the race, could find himself running afoul of Norquist and other hardcore fiscal conservatives and party insiders by refusing to sign the pledge.

In an interview with The Hill last week, Norquist said he was led to believe by Thompson’s economic advisers that Thompson would sign the pledge.

“I think he will,” Norquist said. “However, he did not sign the pledge when he was in the Senate.”

Norquist added that Thompson’s hesitance to sign “makes me nervous.”

Perhaps sensing that Thompson would rule out signing the pledge, Norquist said such a decision could come back to haunt Thompson’s campaign in conservative areas.

“If he decides not to [sign], it wouldn’t end his race tomorrow,” Norquist said. “But over the next several months, I think it would be a tremendous drag on the ticket.”

Thompson’s campaign, however, was quick to point to the former senator’s record on cutting taxes when he was in the Senate. ATR gives Thompson a lifetime record of 83.75 percent for voting against tax increases during his time in the Senate. McCain is close with an 82.7 percent rating.

McCain and Giuliani both made similar statements last week during a debate in Durham, N.H., hosted by Fox News Channel.

When McCain was asked why he wouldn’t sign the pledge, he responded: “Because there’s no point. I stand on my record. I don’t have to sign pledges. My record stands … for itself. It’s very clear to the American people. I’ve been in this business a long, long time.”

Norquist said he was under the impression that former McCain adviser John Weaver was responsible for McCain’s refusal to sign the pledge. But the senator’s campaign said Monday, months after Weaver’s departure from the campaign, that there are no plans to change position.

“I hope he does,” Norquist said. “And if he does, we’ll praise him for it.”

Giuliani said he wouldn’t sign the pledge as “a matter of principle.”

“I think if you’re president of the United States, you take one pledge: to uphold the Constitution of the United States,” the former mayor said. “There would be literally thousands of issues on which you would take a pledge if you let groups do that to you. So I’ve always taken the view that you take one pledge, it’s to uphold the Constitution of the United States.”

Giuliani added: “So my record is very, very strong as a tax cutter, but I only think a man running or a woman running for president should take one pledge and that is to uphold the Constitution of the United States.”

While most of the GOP front-runners have said they will not sign the pledge, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback all have done so.