Timing is everything, in politics as in life — as important in judging when to exit a political raise as in determining when to enter one.

Know when to fold ‘em…In American politics, as in poker, it’s best for players to set personal limits for themselves. Stay in a game way too long and well over your limit and you could lose your house. Stay too long in an ill-advised political race and you could lose something much worse – your credibility.
Long-shot 2008 GOP presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson, former Governor of Wisconsin and former Secretary of Health and Human Services in the current Bush Administration, set such a personal limit for himself this week. Thompson told reporters that if he did not place in the top two positions in the Iowa GOP straw poll on August 11, he would drop out of the race.
This makes much sense. As a former mid-West governor, the conservative Thompson should find fertile ground among the Iowa GOP faithful to make the case for his candidacy. The thinking is, if they won’t buy his arguments, why would anyone else, come the New Hampshire and the Iowa caucuses next January. And that’s good political thinking.
While the Iowa straw poll is not scientific, it is, nonetheless, a political junkie’s dream. Because this will be the first real big event of the 2008 race, the national political press will converge on Iowa and candidates will be spending all sorts of campaign cash to try and cram the voting process with their supporters.
Thompson points out that the straw poll served a similar purpose back in August of 1999. Poor showings by former Bush I Administration Vice President Dan Quayle, commentator Pat Buchanan, and then-former Bush Cabinet officials Elizabeth Dole and Lamar Alexander, forced all four out of the race, quickly tidying up the GOP field that year for the two most serious and well-funded frontrunners, Texas Gov. George Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
The Thompson decision should be of interest to a number of other presidential hopefuls this year. Being a dark horse with little money and even less media attention just won’t do it this time around. And while the second tier of candidates wait for the stars to align just right and create the perfect opening for them to score a point in the national press, and continue to hope for traction, the realities of our wall-to-wall media age make those opportunities so much more rare these days. One need only consider how the terrible news out of Virginia Tech dominated all news outlets and news cycles for days. Even the 2008 front-runners couldn’t get any traction that week.

2008 Senate race early outlook. As of today, there are many more safe U.S. Senate contests lining up for 2008 than potential races of opportunity for either party. Given the continued dismal outlook for the GOP across the country and the fact that 21 GOP Senate seats are up for reelection next year versus just 12 Democratic seats, one would expect lots of GOP trouble spots. But so far it’s a short list.
Things look bleak for the GOP’s prospects of holding on to the open Colorado seat of retiring Sen. Wayne Allard. Two other big Democratic targets are likely to be the seats of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Norm Coleman in Minnesota. But the other 18 GOP seats are pretty safe today.
On the Democratic side, the party really has only one worry – Sen. Mary Landrieu’s reelection fight in Louisiana. But she’s not that vulnerable and the party is much more worried about the open gubernatorial seat there, which could very well change hands.

Political Observations of the Week:
“I’m systematically running for sheriff in Iowa in 99 counties.”
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, 2008 GOP presidential nomination, on the realities of campaigning in Iowa.

“It’s like watching a rerun and remembering what you didn’t like about the show in the first place.”
Anonymous veteran Democratic campaign strategist, on why New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating fell in the latest Gallup poll.

This Date in American Political History:

1971 – U.S. Supreme Court upholds busing to achieve racial desegregation.
1983 – President Ronald Reagan signs $165 billion bail-out of the Social Security system.

John J. Kohut is an independent political analyst in Washington, D.C. He has been writing about national politics for the past decade, including stints as an editor at the Cook Political Report and as senior editor at the Rothenberg Political Report.