Fred Thompson has 70,000 donors, and is expected to come in with about $8 million in his first campaign finance report.

Expect someone to point out that by comparison Barack Obama’s campaign e-mailed supporters a week ago to report he had 75,000 new donors in the third quarter, which ends Sunday.

But, as I never tire of pointing out, Obama’s total includes everybody who bought a $4.50 Obama08 key chain and every other campaign knickknack. To the best of my knowledge, no other campaign is counting cap/key chain/button purchases as campaign contributions.