The Who's Tommy?

April 9, 2007 — -- Presidential candidates who are not on the front pages of national papers or frequent subjects of network news have been trying to drum up support the old-fashioned way -- asking people to vote for them.

From a smoke-filled stogie shop to private dinners and house parties, Republicans Tommy Thompson and Tom Tancredo -- the former a popular ex-Wisconsin governor and Bush Cabinet member, the latter an anti-immigration congressman from Colorado -- are slugging through the surprising late spring snowstorms, trolling for support.

Both are hoping for a surprise of their own in the early contests of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Money begets buzz and, for the moment, Thompson and Tancredo need a little bit of both.

Neither has raised much more than $1 million in campaign funds, a paltry amount when put up against the tens of millions raised by other candidates.

And the names Thompson and Tancredo are not exactly as household as Clinton or Giuliani, the branded political equivalent of Kleenex or Coke.

But it's those millions of dollars of campaign cash that would seem to separate candidates into the haves -- those with money that can hire enormous staffs and buy expensive advertising -- and the have nots.

"I am not going to be able to compete with that kind of money. And I don't intend to," Thompson, the former Badger State governor and Health and Human Services secretary under President Bush, told a New Hampshire AM talk show last week, shortly after rivals Romney, Giuliani and McCain reported in excess of $20, $15 and $12 million respectively.

"What I've got is different," Thompson said, arguing that he has been hard at work campaigning in Iowa and has a mature ground operation there. A strong showing, he said, could bounce him into the ranks of viability. "The money follows those people."

A surprise win in Iowa propelled no-name Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter into the race for the Democratic nomination in the 1976 presidential primary.

Thompson has also hired consultants in New Hampshire and on his first trip to the first-in-the-nation primary state as a presidential candidate, the former secretary of HHS attended a house party with 15 curious Republicans at the home of New Hampshire's HHS Commissioner John Stephen, who said at the party that he cannot endorse candidates but respects Thompson after working with him as Cabinet secretary.