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Posted: June 29, 2007 4:50 PM
Low on Cash, Tommy Thompson Forges ahead in Iowa
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Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson touted his win this week of the Linn County Republican straw poll, held Saturday, June 23, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Thompson won the straw poll with 33 percent of the vote.

“Linn County is Iowa’s second largest county and is traditionally a bellwether county. Today’s victory reflects the strong grassroots campaign that Governor Thompson is building in Iowa,” Chad Olsen, Thompson’s Iowa campaign manager, said in a press release.

Thompson has staked everything on Iowa, visiting the state at least once per week since December. He’s spent time in 54 of Iowa’s 99 counties and says he plans to visit at least 100 communities before the Aug. 11 Iowa straw poll, in what he’s calling the “common sense solutions” tour. He’s also running an ad on Iowa radio stations.

Thompson spent much of last week in what seems to have become his second home in Iowa — Saturday in Cedar Rapids and Richland and Tuesday and Wednesday in Muscatine, Wapello, Fort Madison and Iowa City. He also visited Hanover, New Hampshire Monday evening. This coming Saturday he will return to Iowa, visiting Marshalltown, Des Moines and Council Bluffs.

Still, a poll of 600 likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers by the firm Strategic Vision showed Thompson in fifth place, trailing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Thompson campaign spokesman Rennick Remley told the Journal Sentinel that the campaign had taken in more money in the second quarter than its first quarter total of about $314,000, but said the specific number wouldn’t be available until the FEC makes the reports public July 15. In contrast, Romney brought in more than $20 million in the first quarter and Giuliani and McCain each brought in more than $10 million.

“It’s no secret we’re not doing as well as the top three candidates,” Remley told the paper.