Tommy didn't have the "staying power" to run for prez in 96. Why would he now?

Who said Tommy Thompson didn't have the staying power in 96? Tommy Thompson did. In a story headlined "Thompson says he lacked staying power for primaries" from the 2/14/96 issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

That's right, 1996.

So why is anyone surprised now that Tommy's presidential bid is "below the radar," as Katherine M.  Skiba informs us, more than a decade later:

Two and a half weeks ago, Tommy Thompson said from Iowa's hallowed political turf that he might run for president in 2008.

The Associated Press promptly carried the news of Thompson's intentions - to form an exploratory committee early next year - as an "urgent" dispatch, and CNN carried it as "breaking news."

Since then, a deafening silence.

Thompson, 65, a lawyer and consultant here with his hand in a host of business ventures, was out of the country last week, reportedly in Spain, and definitely unavailable to be interviewed and unresponsive to interview requests.

There's a lot to chuckle over in these paragraphs. "Reportedly in Spain" -- he's an international man of mystery, that Tommy. "Definitely unavailable to be interviewed" -- do they have phones in Spain or whatever undisclosed location in which he is occupying his hands?

But the second one, in which Katherine M. talks about other media outlets' keen interest in Tommy's choice is also a hoot. As if Katherine and the JSOnline haven't been the most breathless of all in reporting the thoughts rolling around in Tommy's mind.

But seriously, how much longer is the JS going to subject us to Tommywatch? Does anybody care? Or take it seriously? This stuff belongs on the comics page.

Here's the context for the leadoff quote:

Had he run for president, Gov. Tommy Thompson said Tuesday, he would have finished second or third in Iowa's Republican precinct caucuses.

And, Thompson predicted, he also would have done well in Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire. But he would have "faded" after that, he added.

"I didn't have the staying power" to run a national campaign in states like Arizona and South Carolina, Thompson told reporters.

You have to admire Tommy's humility about Tommy's chances. But you also have to wonder if he didn't have the staying power then, why would he now? Granted there have been medical advances since then.

But one suspects there's no little blue pill to power Tommy through the primaries.

Comments

[Anon]

Thanks for calling out the JS on this -- I laughed at so long a story about so little! There is so much that needs coverage in this city and state. Yet we got several feet of a Seinfeldian story about . . . nothing.

The new JS slogan: Non-news you can't use?