What's the best way for a third-tier presidential candidate stuck at 1.4 percent in the national polls to get noticed?

Drop out of the race.

According to the Associated Press, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas plans to abandon his presidential bid tomorrow in Topeka. Brownback stalled after finishing behind former Arkansas governor (and fellow social conservative) Mike Huckabee in Iowa's Ames Straw Poll on August 11, then raised just $817,000 between July 1 and Sept. 30 and ended the quarter with a skimpy $95,000 in the vault.

But buck up, Sammy--every cloud has a silver lining.Yours? Americans are finally aware that you are running for president. Or, you know, were.

The buzz is strong. A Google News search shows that the term "Sam Brownback" has appeared in 3, 034 stories published in the two-and-a-half hours since AP's item first hit the wires. That's more than 20 per minute. For comparison, "Sam Brownback" only showed up on Google News 3,959 times all day yesterday, or 2.75 times per minute. A Google Blog search turns up 209 hits for "Sam Brownback" on Oct. 17 versus 212 so far today. An MSNBC anchor just said "Sam Brownback." And I'd tell you about the surge in traffic to Brownback.com if repeated calls to Brownback's press shop weren't going unanswered--presumably because there are more today than ever before.

Hear that, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter? Just imagine what quitting could do for you.