So says Tommy Thompson (hadn’t he already announced once before?), whose candidacy initially provoked my derision, but who seems to be making his mark in Iowa and filling the gap that the Republicans need to fill: the competent administrator (sans friends with mob ties!) from a purple state who has a record of reform achievements and a history of effective collaboration with both parties.  In other words, the exact opposite of Bush.  If he manages to become a truly competitive candidate, I will be glad to eat my earlier words.  This isn’t because I have any great interest in Tommy Thompson becoming the nominee (I suspect he is more Ross and Reihan’s kind of candidate), but I would prefer to not see one of the Terrible Trio in that position, and right now he appears to be the more plausible, non-Brownback alternative.   

He does have a position on Iraq that would make him a very good general election candidate:

Thompson said he would have a “completely different” strategy in Iraq, promising to remove all U.S. troops if Iraq asks the United States to leave.

“If the government duly elected . . . says, ‘We want the American troops, the American government out,’ we should leave,” Thompson said.

On the other hand, the GOP primaries will require him to say things about Iraq that make no sense:

But he said he would have voted against the Democratic-led effort in Congress to establish a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, saying that to set a timeline would “really just target to the enemies that we are not there for the long haul, we’re not there to defend our troops.”

Um, but we’re not there to defend our troops–our troops are allegedly there to defend the Iraqi government against [fill in the blank with latest enemy], and quite a few Americans no longer see the point.