December
2006
Sorry Tommy — The Presidential Boat has Sailed
It boggles the mind that former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson thinks he has a chance to become President. He didn't even have a chance to beat Herb Kohl — why would he think he could win the big office?
Want proof?
Look at what Tommy has been doing for the last few years. First, he didn't get the position he wanted in the George W Bush administration. He wanted to be the Secretary of Transportation and ended up as the Secretary of Health and Human Services — not that it's a position to be taken lightly. If HHS were a department that the Bush administration cared much about, Thompson would have been much higher profile than he was.
So he left.
If you look at what he's done since leaving the Bush administration it's really been quite pitiful. He said he was considering a run against Herb Kohl and he milked every bit of media attention he could out of that one. Finally he said he wouldn't run. Then he hinted that he might run for his old position as Governor but alas, he skipped out on that one too. Then he drew attention to himself with more idle speculation and since it was in the middle of Congressman Mark Green's attempt to win the Governorship from Jim Doyle, Republicans finally started to mutter out loud that pitiful little Tommy Thompson was just looking for attention but then he was doing it at the expense of Green who was struggling to get some free publicity for his floundering campaign.
How pitiful.
Once there was a time when Tommy Thompson would sneeze and the media would trip over themselves to get a scoop on the story. Now he has to threaten to run to get any attention.
'He's the best Governor we've ever had' said former Assembly Majority Leader (now convicted felon) Scott Jensen (R-Waukesha). But the media has finally figured out that the massive deficit that Thompson left continued to haunt his successor — Scott McCallum and even today continues to act as a weight for Governor Jim Doyle. It's the fiscal recklessness, the orgy of borrowing and spending, that came to an end when Thompson left office and all that is left is the hangover.
Oh, but Tommy wants attention.
Poor little Tommy.
Poor, poor, little Tommy.
It seems odd that someone who has the legacy of reckless spending while the Governor of a mid-sized midwestern state could have any chance of winning the GOP nomination. He didn't leave the state better than he found it. But can Tommy truly believe he has a chance? All of the handwriting is on the wall and none of it is good for him.
Share
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
Tommy’s chances are about the same as Feingold’s (even before he ‘officially’ took his name out of the race).
I like both their chances to be Midwesterners, Wisconsities, who have a lot to say and could/would change the course of the 2008 presidential race. Our perspective (the Wisconsin view) is needed nationally in the worst way. Both Thompson and Feingold would deliver that, in their own ways.
Tommy’s too smart to like a guy like Mark Green, btw.
Feingold actually had a chance at the nomination. Tommy has none. McCain has all but sewn up the nomination.
JD,
Your comment about Tommy being “too smart” was interesting. I’ll give this to Tommy — he knows how to surround himself with hard hitting people and some excellent hatchet men. In the book of politicking, Tommy deserves a chapter but when it comes to the book on policymaking, he barely gets a footnote.
I Agree, Feingold had a much better chance at the Democratic Nomination then Thompson did at the Republican Nomination. Feingold has more integrity and consistently is able to defend and stand by his record. Thompson would be more of the same and too much like our current failing President; a legacy that raised taxes on the poor and cutting taxes for the rich and leaving behind large deficits for someone else to deal with.
I do think Tommy is smart, politically, but his policies — W-2, the privatization of foster care, short-sighted taxation — have done a fair amount of damage to Milwaukee and the state. He is quite an independent though, and fairly moderate socially [not a supporter of the death penalty or of attacking womens' reproductive freedoms]. Mark Green, a wind-up toy Republican, is not Tommy’s kind of guy, despite his appreciation of Green’s lack of independence when Green was in the Legislature.
Tommy’s big problem in Washington was in getting the Bush White House to focus on anything but war. His frustration in this, and his view that it’s a global policy disaster, is a perspective that Republicans could use in their presidential primary.
McCain just might make every other candidate, Republican or Democrat, an afterthought.