Inside Politics

Thompson quits

Former Wisconsin Gov.Tommy G. Thompson is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, a campaign official said last night, according to the Associated Press.

His campaign released a statement saying he is leaving the campaign trail several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Mr. Thompson told one of its reporters he was withdrawing.

The campaign statement said Mr. Thompson intends to take some time off before returning to the private sector and his nonprofit work.

It said the 65-year-old says he’s comforted by the fact that he thinks he made a difference for people during his campaign.

He finished sixth among 11 candidates in this weekend’s GOP straw poll in Iowa. He had said before the Iowa event that he would drop out of the race unless he finished first or second.

The statement didn’t say whether he would endorse another candidate.

The veteran of four successful campaigns for governor of Wisconsin had a good track record of winning elections.

He quit during his fourth term as governor to serve as President Bush’s secretary of health and human services from 2001 to the end of 2004.

He was first elected in 1966 at age 24 to the Wisconsin Legislature, not long after he graduated from the University of Wisconsin. Twenty years later, he won his first term as governor, and earned a national reputation for policies that moved many Wisconsin families from welfare to work.

Savaging Savage

A city official is urging San Francisco to condemn Michael Savage for what he calls “hatred and racism” because of the talk-radio host’s stance against illegal aliens.

Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval introduced a resolution last week condemning the “defamatory language used by radio personality Michael Savage against immigrants,” after the nationally syndicated host criticized a group of students at the University of California’s Berkeley campus who were staging a hunger strike to protest U.S. immigration policy.

The city’s Board of Supervisors had previously passed a resolution praising the Berkeley protesters ”for their dedication to improving the lives of the immigrant community in America.”

“I would say, let them fast until they starve to death, then that solves the problem,” Mr. Savage said on the July 5 broadcast of his “Savage Nation” program, which is heard locally on WTNT-570 AM in Washington.

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