Opinion: The other Thompson’s challenge
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Fred Thompson surges in the polls of Republican candidates without even declaring his candidacy yet. Tommy Thompson can’t get anywhere in the same polls by working Iowa possibly harder than any other candidate.
The former governor from next-door Wisconsin, who calls himself ‘a reliable conservative,’ has set out to visit all 99 of Iowa’s counties before the straw poll in Ames about a month from now. Which, if you’ve ever tried to drive across Iowa even one way, is an awful lot of driving and visiting. While other candidates come in and hit the Des Moines and Dubuque TV markets the same day by plane, Thompson’s grassroots tour in a Winnebago (Iowa-made, by the way) stopped in Grinnell, Marengo, Mount Vernon, Shellsburg, Gladbrook and Marshalltown yesterday.
Today he’s in Allison, Hampton, Mason City, New Hampton, Waterloo and Grundy Center. Tomorrow it’s Independence, Dubuque, Maquoketa, Clinton, Davenport and Oelwein. The guy just won’t give up. He speaks to...
crowds of 40 to 100, extolling his executive experience in Bush’s Cabinet and running a state for 12 years. He claims to have cut taxes 91 times, vetoed 1,900 bills to save $287 million, signed a partial birth abortion ban and been the father of welfare reform and driven school choice.
Recently, he announced a goal of curing breast cancer by 2015, likening it to President Kennedy’s goal of landing on the moon. He suggests it be up to the Iraqi parliament whether U.S. troops leave that country.
When Rudy Giuliani and John McCain opted to skip the symbolically important but expensive Aug. 11 straw poll in Ames, Thompson vowed to compete. ‘To skip the straw poll is to show fear,’ Thompson said. At one recent stop he set a high bar for himself, winning the straw poll against his main competitor, Mitt Romney, who is better financed and been running an ad campaign for months. ‘The stakes are high,’ Thompson admits. ‘Eight years ago four candidates dropped out as a result of the summer straw poll.’
Friday, Thompson will visit Corydon, Centerville, Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant, Burlington and Keosauqua. Then, on Saturday......
--Andrew Malcolm