DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican Fred Thompson remained upbeat despite failing to win or finish second in the Iowa caucuses.Thompson congratulated his opponents -- Mike Huckabee won the vote and Mitt Romney finished second -- and said he was looking forward to the contests in New Hampshire next Tuesday and beyond.

As of midnight, Thompson and John McCain were in a close race for a third-place finish.

"It looks like somebody is going to need to carry a strong, consistent, conservative message -- and it looks like it ought to be me," Thompson told a cheering crowd of supporters.

It was a message they were eager to hear.

"We're ecstatic with third," said Tim Blakeman, a telephone technician from Altoona, Iowa.

Jessica Van Dyke, a stay-at-home mom from West Des Moines, agreed.

"Second or third is good for Iowa, considering he probably hasn't had as much chance to get to know voters," Van Dyke said, predicting a better showing down the road in South Carolina and beyond. "Hopefully in the South, people are a little more enlightened."

Thompson was thought to represent the Republicans' best hope for retaining control of the White House, given the former Tennessee senator's conservative voting record, his fame as a television and movie actor, and his Southern appeal.

But he waited until September -- some say too long -- to enter the race, then followed with a series of dispassionate campaign events. The most recent polls showed him in the high single digits or low teens, and just last week Thompson said he wasn't consumed by presidential ambition.

Until a prolonged bus tour at the end of December, Thompson spent far less time in Iowa than Romney and Huckabee. He also didn't have the money needed to saturate the airwaves with campaign ads as Romney did throughout the summer and fall.