Maybe not. It just might be telling us something about the guy. For instance... does anyone here know when the old-fashioned, traditional announcement time used to be? I mean... before this announce-two-years-in-advance thing started? Maybe Thompson is just a traditional kind of guy, and isn't sweating his chances, unlike all of us paranoids here...:-)
The campaigns for the President used to not involve the people. State conventions would nominate candidates and national conventions would make the final selection. There were no primaries or popular campaigning. Primaries are a fairly recent phenomenon.
And after they became common they were spread out all over the calender for six months. Remember RFK getting shot after the California primary in June of 68. Now primary season is going to be over in March.