Worst Candidate Name Ever Joins Presidential Race

Former Wisconsin governor and secretary of the department of health and human services Tommy Thompson will be joining in the fun over the next two years as he began fundraising for his bid to get the Republican nomination for president.

"This is not easy. By June he's got to have raised between, let's say, $35 (million) and $50 million to be considered a viable candidate. And he's not alone," said Jennifer Duffy, editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Cook Political Report, an independent nonpartisan newsletter on electoral politics.

Thompson, 65, became the latest Republican to file paperwork establishing an exploratory committee for president when he registered this week with the Federal Election Commission. That allows him to start raising and spending money on a presidential bid. It also requires him to disclose that information, giving competitors and the public a chance to see how much financial support he has received.

Earlier this month, Thompson signed up Iowa consultant Steve Grubbs to run his campaign there, said Rodman P. Hise, treasurer of the Thompson Presidential Exploratory Committee 2008.
Thompson is best known for having one of the stupidest monikers in politics. Honestly, if CNN can discount Barack Obama because his name sounds like a foreign terrorist, then I can rule out Thompson because his makes him sound like the cross-eyed kid who ate paste in kindergarten.

Names aside for the moment, what does Thompson bring to the table? His political record is fairly impressive; he is the only person to ever be elected to four consecutive terms as governor of Wisconsin, itself an interesting political animal. Wisconsin is one of those rare midwestern states that typically votes Democratic for presidents and senators (including Russ Feingold, a high-profile target for conservatives as one of the more liberal members of the senate), so the fact that Thompson could maintain such popularity there for such a long time means that he's able to please both liberals and conservatives, at least to an extent. Governors have considerably better luck getting elected president than senators or congressional representatives, probably because being president requires knowing how to actually govern and build a consensus, and reputation and efficacy in the senate are often judged by how partisan one can be.

Thompson's terms as governor were marked by his championing of welfare reform, which angered some on the left who accused it of being too harsh a system, and increasing problems like homelessness as people stopping qualifying for state assistance. His other key issue was school choice, which he was supposed to bring to Washington as director of HHS, though that issue fell on the back burner after Iraq and terrorism became the main foci of the Bush administration. Vouchers have definitely not been accepted nationwide as a viable alternative to regular school funding, and their remaning a contentious issue could be a political liability for Thompson.

Thompson's two biggest weakness are likely to be foreign policy and name recognition. With virtually no political experience in dealing with anything but domestic issues, he's going to be facing stiff competition from John McCain, and with McCain and Giuliani's near constant, fawning attention from the media he's already way behind in name recognition. Still, early polling predictions are rarely reflective of the way things actually work out, and if Thompson manages to get the media to consider him to be an actual candidate rather than one on the fringe he could be a serious contender.

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