Fred Thompson's campaign says that in the first 18 hours of his official campaign his new Web site, www.Fred08.com, was viewed by more than 150,000 unique visitors.

That's more than any of his fellow Republican candidates' sites received in all of July.

Thompson announced his intention to run via Webcast just after midnight Thursday -- but as The Washington Times' Christina Bellantoni has written, Thompson was already ahead of the Republican pack with his old site, www.ImWithFred.com.

The good news doesn't stop there -- Thompson also reports more than 3,000 donors contributed online in those first 18 hours. By comparison, Mike Huckabee's surprise second-place showing in Iowa's straw poll last month garnered him about 1,000 donations in the first four days following that showing.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times