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Posted: July 12, 2007 3:14 PM
Tommy Thompson Pledges to End Breast Cancer
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Former Wisconsin GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson pledged this week that if elected, he would work to end breast cancer during his presidency, saying that he would double the budget of the National Institutes of Health from $28 billion to $56 billion.

Thompson’s interest in breast cancer is personal — his daughter, wife and mother-in-law have all had the disease.

“I am committed to deploying the vast resources of the United States toward the goal of ending breast cancer by 2015 just like President Kennedy committed our nation to the moon,” Thompson said in a press release.

His plan includes recruiting a team of doctors, researchers and patients to establish goals and make research funding suggestions, and establishing five $10 million prizes for universities or companies that solve problems related to breast cancer.

Thompson is discussing his breast cancer proposal, as well as other issues, on his bus tour of Iowa. The expedition, which he is calling the “common sense solutions” tour, kicked off July 6 in Ames, Iowa. However, plane troubles stranded the former governor at a Colorado airport and so the Ames kickoff rally had to go on without him, the Des Moines Register reported. About 85 people came out to the rally anyway, the paper reported.

Thompson joined the tour the next morning in Webster City, Iowa. He plans to make more than 100 stops, hitting all 99 Iowa counties before the Aug. 11 straw poll.

A Washingtonpost.com blogger had an unusual take on the “serious poundage” Thompson risks putting on during the tour, which is packed with pizza parties, cookouts, ice-cream socials and more calorie-laden events. “Salads don’t go over well with voters,” campaign spokesman Rennick Remley told the reporter. “The [junk] food gets the voters out.”

Also last week, Thompson’s campaign released its second-quarter fund-raising numbers, saying it raised $473,126 between April and June. That’s an improvement over its January through March take of $328,000.

“We saw a strong growth in fund raising. Granted, we’re not swimming in Barack Obama money, but we have what we need to execute our strategy,” senior campaign adviser Steve Grubbs said in a press release.