Tommy steps aside

And the campaign of Tommy Thompson for president is over. The Journal-Sentinel did a pretty comprehensive job of blogging his post-mortem.
After finishing sixth in the Iowa straw poll on Saturday, he acknowledged that he'd fallen well short of his goal of at least second. This, coupled with his ninth-place finish in fundraising for the last quarter, sounded the death knell.

I say good for him; it's time.

It's not that I don't think he would make a good president. As much as libs and Dems hate him, even they've acknowledged relative success with his BadgerCare, SeniorCare and welfare reform, and a reasonably gay-friendly record as governor and during his time in the legislature.
But even when given opportunities to directly discuss these hot-button issues, he ignored his health initiatives and stumbled all over himself by portraying himself as a discriminatory bigot by saying employers should be allowed to fire employees for being gay.

May his campaign manager, Steve Grubbs, never manage another campaign. Grubbs, who graduated from the University of Iowa in 1994, managed Bob Dole's 1996 campaign in the Hawkeye state. He lost that one, too, by 10 percent to Bill Clinton.