BABE WIFE, 40, BOOSTS GOPER, 64 HOT RUNNING MATES THOM & JERI
By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent
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June 1, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Gruff, graying Republican Fred Thompson has a proven track record of tapping into a younger generation - starting with his wife.
The 64-year-old ex-senator wowed Generation X with his movie roles in "The Hunt for Red October" and "Die Hard 2," and he won over his bombshell blonde wife, Jeri Kehn - 24 years his junior.
Kehn, a former Senate staffer and Republican National Committee mouthpiece, fought hard to land her man, beating back a slew of D.C. power types to win the honor of being locked on his left arm.
"I'm crazy about him," she told The Post in 2000, two years before she and Thompson married.
Kehn first met Thompson in his hometown of Nashville, Tenn., on July 4, 1996, and she followed him to Capitol Hill two years later, after landing a job with a fellow GOP senator. They began an on-and-off relationship.
Thompson, who was 17 when he married his first wife, divorced her in 1985. From then on, he was one of Washington's most in-demand bachelors.
He had been linked to country singer Lorrie Morgan and GOP fund-raiser Georgette Mosbacher.
"They just won't leave him alone," Kehn griped. "I can't get up to get a cocktail at a party without coming back and finding some girl sitting in my chair."
Kehn previously told The Post that she won Thompson all to herself in 1999: "We were serious [that] spring, broke up in June, got back together on his birthday in August, and have been together since."
Kehn scored a coup in convincing Thompson, who had won the nickname "The Tennessee Stud" during his D.C. bachelorhood, to meet her at the altar.
They wed in 2002 in Naperville, Ill., where her family lives.
On that sweltering June day, Kehn was radiant in a Valentino wedding gown, while a darkly clad Thompson waited in an air-conditioned car until the last moment.
Only about a dozen guests were invited to the small family ceremony.
To keep his nuptials largely out of the public eye, Thompson sought out Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who's now also running for president. Dodd was tapped for his wisdom because he was able to avoid publicity when he also wed a Senate staffer, according to reports.
Thompson and Kehn now have two children, a 7-month-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, and live in McLean, Va., not far from former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Fans of Thompson say Kehn is a sassy political pro who could help his cause in the White House - and point out that unlike Rudy Giuliani, Thompson was divorced well before he began seeing his current wife.
But critics contend Kehn is a political liability: a trophy wife whose mother is four years younger than Thompson.
Kehn was still in grammar school when Thompson, a Vanderbilt-educated lawyer, cut his political teeth as a GOP lawyer during Watergate.
Should Thompson win the Republican presidential nomination and face off against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, Kehn could find herself in a cookie-baking contest with the man she used to skewer.
Appearing on Fox News Channel in 1999, Kehn sniped that Bill Clinton "is more credible as a clown than he is as a president."
If Thompson wins the White House, Kehn would also join Jacqueline Kennedy as one of the youngest first ladies in U.S. history.
ian.bishop@nypost.com
Fred Thompson
Political analysts widely regard Fred Thompson as a potential, if not likely, candidate in the United States presidential election in 2008. Thompson is a lawyer, lobbyist, character actor and former Republican Senator for Tennessee now residing in McLean, Virginia near Washington D.C.

A recent article in ''The New York Times'' (NYT) labelled his wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson as a "trophy wife" and a potential liability in the 2008 race. The NYT article described her as having "youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blonde hair" and wonders if "so-called values voters" would "accept this union." 

Thompson and Kehn, married in June 2002, when he was 60 years old and she 35. 

Television commentator and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough compared Kehn to a stripper and asked if "she works the pole." 

According to the ''Associated Press'', "trophy wife" originally "meant the second (or third) wife of a corporate titan, a woman who was younger, beautiful and — equally important — accomplished in her own right."

''ABC News'' says that the current definition of "trophy wife" suggests Donald Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples and the late Anna Nicole Smith as examples.

However, ''ABC News'' also questions whether Kehn fits this definition. "Though she's blond, beautiful and nearly 25 years younger than her husband, Kehn Thompson, a political media consultant who previously worked for the Senate Republican Conference and a prestigious Washington law firm, doesn't appear to fit the typical description," wrote Emily Friedman.

Karen O'Connor, a political scientist and the director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University, said Thompson may lose support from Republican women, a group he needs. It may also make it difficult to gain the support of the "value voters", already skeptical after the report that he lobbied for an abortion-rights group.

"You have a situation where a candidate happens to have an attractive wife, therefore it’s open season for smutty thoughts and lowbrow humor, and no concern for the fact that this is a wife and mother, a professional woman?" said Mark Corallo, a former Justice Department official who is a consultant and the chief media adviser to the Thompson campaign. "One picture on the Internet and all of a sudden she’s reduced to being a bimbo?"