Thompson: Town to Town, Week After Week
March 14, 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- They aren't talking about Tommy Thompson on the Sunday morning news shows, or on O'Reilly, Olbermann or Matthews. They aren't writing about him in Newsweek, Time, or In Touch. His comments don't instantly show up on Drudge or the Huffington Post.
When it comes to the Republican candidates for president, it's all Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney. But as many people in Iowa, and maybe more, are at least as vaguely aware of former Wisconsin governor Thompson as former Massachusetts governor Romney. Tommy's from a border state, after all. And that neighbor has logged a lot more time trying to woo support in next January's Iowa caucuses than Romney. Or Giuliani. Or McCain. Or the three of them combined.
"Wisconsin was a debtor state. It was a state where people went to escape their debts. He turned that around," said Jurine Moore of Mount Vernon, who has seldom failed to attend the Iowa caucuses. She came to see Thompson at Konstantino's restaurant in Cedar Rapids Wednesday. That doesn't necessarily mean Thompson will be Moore's candidate. But it does mean, to her, that he is a serious candidate. The same goes for Loren Flater of Toddville.
"Am I totally committed to Governor Thompson?" Flater posed. "I won't say that. I still haven't heard from Giuliani. But I like Thompson's track record. I like his creative thoughts. I like his ideas and have liked his ideas for years, and that's the reason I've come here today. I think I maybe found my man."
Such comments have to offer a little hope to a candidate the national press probably writes off as hopeless. No such national press followed Thompson from Des Moines to Cedar Rapids to Clinton Wednesday. But Thompson keeps covering ground and shaking hands, wearing out car tires and speaking in front of a lot of places where Iowans go to eat.
This day, it was a new Greek restaurant on the bank of the Cedar River. In the last few weeks,Thompson has made campaign stops at Big Muddy's Restaurant in Burlington, Smoky Row Coffee Shop in Oskaloosa, Okoboji Grill in Newton. He's attended a Belgian waffle breakfast at the American Legion in Indianola. He returns to Iowa Saturday, with a stop at the Pizza Ranch in Manchester.
McCain, Giuliani, Romney - they're everywhere, working their national campaign strategies. Most of Thompson's time is focused on Iowa, not New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina. Iowa is his one shot at gaining any sort of traction nationally.
"I've got to win Iowa,'' Thompson said before his 25-minute speech to a group of about 65 Linn County Republicans in the back of Konstantino's. "No bones about it. It's like when Jimmy Carter came up here and put his future in Iowa. I am doing the same thing. I've got to carry Iowa. I believe I can, and I believe I will."
Thompson, 65, isn't glib. He's no surefire sound bite. The next invitation he gets to appear on Letterman or Leno will be his first. He's Elroy, Wis., not Hollywood, Calif. He is, however, relentless.
"Nobody's spending time here like I am,'' he said. "I've been here every single week since the first week of December. I'll be here last night and today and tomorrow. I'll be back Saturday. I want people to get to know me. I want their vote, and I think it's starting to pay off."
In getting elected in 1986 for the first of his four terms as governor, Thompson said "I surprised everybody because I outworked everybody. I outworked everybody in the primary, I outworked the Democratic governor in the general election, and the people responded."
While people lunched on bruschetta and spiced chicken wings and listened, Thompson stood with his back against a window that looks out on the Cedar and gave a 25-minute speech on topics ranging from welfare reform, medical diplomacy, and, of course, Iraq. He then fielded questions. Finally, he stood in a narrow hallway in the restaurant as Republicans paid their respects to him and he to them, one at a time. Even if they hadn't wanted to, they would have had little choice but to converse with the candidate on their way out.
"You're just what I wanted here," one man told Thompson.
"I knew you'd like me if you got the chance to know me,'' was the reply, without an apparent trace of humor.
"I came here just knowing him by his reputation," said Forrest Rosser of Cedar Rapids as he neared Thompson in the reception line. "I was very impressed by his presentation. He could be a good president."
One Iowan at a time, town to town, coffee shop to pizza joint, week after week after week.
That 65-year-old guy buying underwear and toiletries in Coralville's Wal-Mart after 2 a.m. a couple weeks ago? That was the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, a man running for president of the United States. He had flight snafus getting from San Diego to Chicago to the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids because of harsh winter weather, but made it in after 1 a.m. His luggage did not. Four hours later, he was awake to start another day of campaigning, which would be curtailed by an ice storm. He said the weekend before that he had been on a plane in Iowa that sat on a runway for six hours before it finally got the go-ahead to take off.
“I would have to be either running for president or crazy,” Thompson told the San Diego Union-Tribune, before adding “or both.”
"People know that I'm sincere. They know that I care about Iowa,'' he said here Wednesday. "I'm telling them I'm not going to be just a fly-by type of person. I'm going to be here."
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