The 2012 presidential campaign is coming to Fort Wayne this afternoon.

Before you get too excited, you won’t get an opportunity to see any Baracks or Newts or Mitts, and you won’t be able to wonder how much the candidate paid for that suit he’s wearing.

No, on the presidential level, Fort Wayne is still a backwater option at this stage of the game. Iowa and New Hampshire and other places with caucuses and early primaries are attracting the big guns right now.

So we’ll have to settle for John Davis, a guy from Colorado.

It happens during every presidential campaign. Candidates come out of the woodwork and start making their way around the country or to spots with the largest number of reporters, trying to attract some attention.

Some of the candidates are clearly running joke campaigns. For example, Pat Paulson, a comedian who first ran for president in the 1960s, is still running, even though he’s been dead for 14 years.

So far, it’s unclear how many people officially have their hats in the ring, though a simple Internet search under the phrase “for president” produces a pack of people – and one hamster – running for the nation’s top office.

The John Davis from Colorado is touring the country in a motor home, spending two weeks on the road before heading home to spend a week with his grandchildren and then heading out again.

His goal, according to his website, is to visit every county in the country. So far, he’s seen about 1,500, including several area counties just last week. Today, he’s back in Indiana, planning to stop at the Village at Coventry about 12:30 p.m. as he hits a few more area counties on the way back home to see the grandkids once again.

Davis is a fundamentally conservative high school graduate who has run his own building supply company since shortly after he got out of high school. His campaign slogan is “Fix America” and his symbol is a huge red, white and blue monkey wrench with stars. In his campaign photos he wears a flannel shirt and vest and props the huge wrench over his shoulder.

I wonder a lot about this guy Davis. I wonder what the turnout is for his campaign stops. When Hillary Clinton showed up here in 2008 – an hour late, by the way – hundreds of people packed the parking lot, waited in the cold to see her and jammed a little eatery.

Somehow I don’t see that happening for Davis. His little campaign stops are timed to take place in a different town about every 50 minutes, so he won’t have a lot of time to do much talking before he has to head out for Columbia City and Huntington and then Wabash.

I sent Davis an email, hoping he would call and talk to me for a couple of minutes. I wonder about his campaign, about how many people stop to listen to him at his various stops, about how much his motor home cost and how he’s paying for driving all around the country.

Running for president must be tiring, even for the candidates that no one knows.

Davis didn’t call, though.

No harm done. I’m not going to ridicule him or laugh at him, which is the most common response. This is America. He can campaign his own way.