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Tommy Thompson Falls Short on Fundraising NewsMax.com Wires WASHINGTON -- Presidential candidate Tommy Thompson raised just under $400,000 in the first quarter of the year, putting him well behind leading Republican candidates. His campaign said he had done little fundraising so far but would be stepping up his efforts. According to numbers provided to The Associated Press, Thompson raised $386,795 in the first three months of the year and finished the reporting period with $139,723. The top Republican fundraiser, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, raised $23 million in that time. Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor who formally announced his candidacy this week, spent "very little time" fundraising in the quarter, spokesman Tony Jewell said. "Governor Thompson spent the last three months building a strong organization in Iowa and meeting with caucus voters to gauge support for his message and candidacy," Jewell said. "Now that he has entered the race, we will intensify our focus on raising money. We are confident the campaign will attract strong grass-roots support to fund the governor's Iowa and New Hampshire strategy." Jewell said the strategy is to do well in an August Iowa straw poll, which will help Thompson raise more money and expand operations to early primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. Iowa is home of the nation's first nominating caucuses.
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"We have already seen a significant increase in unsolicited donations since he announced his candidacy," Jewell added. In addition to Romney's fundraising, Thompson lags behind Rudy Giuliani, $15 million; John McCain, $12.5 million; Sam Brownback, $2 million. Fellow candidates Mike Huckabee and Duncan Hunter are also ahead with $500,000 each. Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, said Thompson isn't running the kind of high-cost, national campaign that the leading candidates are running. "Everything that he's betting, he's betting on Iowa, and that his personal touch in Iowa on weekends is going to be enough to help him do well in the straw poll in August," he said, adding that the strategy was "perfectly reasonable" for someone polling in the single digits, as Thompson is. "You design a campaign that doesn't require multiple, multiple millions of dollars," Franklin said. "He has to get credibility from having some success with voters in some way, and that's the key thing for him. That straw poll coming up, and the caucus itself, are his chances to do that."
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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