Another fly has dropped

Another 2008 Presidential hopeful has given up the quest.

MILWAUKEE - Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll.

"I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign.

"I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America."

The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing.

Thompson joins Jim Gilmore and Tom Vilsack as candidates who have withdrawn from the 2008 Presidential race. Note AOL's headline for Tommy Thompson's withdrawal. It almost had me thinking Fred Thompson had given up his 2008 ambitions.(I saw the headline before finishing the consumption of my first cup of coffee this morning)

You needed a microscope to find Thompson in the polls. The results of the Ames caucus were almost certainly the kiss of death for the former Wisconsin Governor. Still, I don't see the winnowing down of candidates for next year's primaries as good news. I'm not a registered Republican, even if I was my voting for Thompson was unlikely to happen. Still I think voters need to have choices. All this campaigning a year or more before any actual voting place I think has a negative impact in regards to who will be the next President.

Feel free to disagree.

Also discussing this news- James Joyner at OTB, Kim at Wizbang, Below the Beltway, Bright & Early, Iowa Voice, State of Sunshine,
Linked to- Bullwinkle, Pursuing Holiness, Right Wing Nation,