After a miserable performance in the Ames Straw Poll, former Wisconsin governor and former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson is leaving the Republican presidential field just a little smaller.
After a sixth-place finish in Saturday’s Iowa Straw Poll, Tommy Thompson, the four-term governor of Wisconsin and former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said he was ending his presidential bid. […]
Mr. Thompson focused his campaign on building support in Iowa, visiting all of the state’s 99 counties. But he had been saying for weeks that without a strong showing in the straw poll, he was likely to bow out.
[Saturday], he won about 7 percent of the vote, putting him behind five of his rivals, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won the straw poll handily with 32 percent of the vote, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the runner-up.
Thompson was, at the risk of sounding uncharitable, an awful presidential candidate, with very little money, a weak stump speech, dreadful debate performances, and a Richardson-like belief that an impressive-on-paper resume is enough to qualify as a credible presidential candidate.
That said, Thompson’s campaign did leave its mark on the race — he’s the one who made the dumbest public comment of any candidate this year.
In April, Thompson told a Jewish group that earning money is “part of the Jewish tradition.” It was his idea of a compliment.
“I’m in the private sector and for the first time in my life I’m earning money,” Thompson told the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “You know that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that.”
After he left the stage, someone apparently told Thompson, who is Roman Catholic, that this was an incredibly dumb thing to say, so he went back to the podium to “clarify.”
“I just want to clarify something because I didn’t [by] any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things. What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You’ve been outstanding businesspeople and I compliment you for that.”
And just to top things off…
During the speech, Thompson also called himself the governor of the first state to buy “Jewish bonds” — presumably meaning Israel Bonds — and said his friend who persuaded him to buy the bonds was also a big supporter of the “Jewish Defense League” — probably meaning the Anti-Defamation League, not the militant group.
So long, governor, we hardly knew you.