For an undistinguished one-term senator who gave up politics for a television career, Fred Thompson's delayed entry into the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination certainly made a splash when he finally plunged in.

He pulled off a triple somersault on the same night: a much-ballyhooed announcement on the Jay Leno late-night television show, followed by a video encore on his Web site, while drawing comments about him in absentia from previously announced GOP hopefuls in a televised debate.

As they griped or chided him for his no-show at their confrontation in New Hampshire, Thompson through the magic of electronics pulled off his trifecta that made his entry more notable than anything the others had to say about their own campaigns.

The Thompson announcement, coupled with the bashing from his opponents, underscored two things — how his candidacy has rocked their own boats, and how it has dramatized wide voter dissatisfaction up to now with the Republican field. The "Law and Order" D.A. may not be the answer, but he clearly has shaken up the race, for now anyway.

The GOP front-runner in Iowa, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who got in early and has spent heavily, sounded churlish when he asked the missing Thompson: "Why the hurry? Why not take some more time off?"

The response to that one, unspoken by Thompson, is that while he has saved a bundle of money with his late start, he now needs to catch up with Romney and others in grassroots organizing in the early-voting states, including Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Republican front-runner in the national polls, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, needled Thompson about his television celebrity, and in doing so made a case for himself. "I think he's done a pretty good job of playing my part in 'Law and Order,' he said. "I personally prefer the real thing."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee took a poke at Thompson by comparing him to Nashville country singer George Jones, "who was often called No-Show George for not showing up at his concerts." Maybe Thompson, he went on, "will be known as the no-show for the presidential debates."

That was a weak shot, inasmuch as Thompson had already said he intended to join the Republican debate gang later on. But at one point he risked a putdown of the state parties sponsoring future debates by saying "it's a lot more difficult to get on 'The Tonight Show' than it is to get into the presidential debates."

Thompson also told the late-night television host: "I don't think that people are going to say, 'That guy would make a very good president, but he just didn't get in soon enough.' " And he quipped that Americans "treat politicians like dentists. They don't have anything to do with them until they have to."

But Thompson himself can't afford to treat caucus-goers and primary voters like dentists, especially in states like Iowa and New Hampshire that have long traditions of having an early say on the nomination's outcome. In fact, he's in Iowa now and will go on to New Hampshire next.

In politics, as in any job-seeking enterprise, the first rule is getting the boss's attention. Thompson certainly has achieved that with his unorthodox entry into the 2008 race — assisted by the televised sniping of some of his peevish rivals.

The former Tennessee senator has stirred enough public interest to leapfrog over most of the previously declared candidates into third place behind Giuliani and Romney in the national polls. He can thank Arthur Branch, the role he has played on the television crime series, for that showing more than he can thank his ho-hum service of one term-plus in the U.S. Senate.

In kicking off his formal candidacy, Thompson is taking dead aim at the traditional conservative domination of the GOP, advocating a limited federal role, individual freedom and leaving important controversial decisions to the states. Most of the other leading candidates, especially Giuliani, Romney and McCain, don't pass all of the litmus tests of the true believers. Neither, in fact, does Fred Thompson, but he will attempt to play the part.

Jules Witcover's latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship, "Very Strange Bedfellows," has just been published by Public Affairs Press. Reach him at juleswitcover@earthlink.net.