Last week Thompson announced that he wouldn’t runfor Russ Feingold’s Senate seat, a job he had never shown any interest inholding. Thompson made his announcement before one of those angry rallies ofright-wing extremists claiming to be modern-day tea party revolutionaries, agroup that really didn’t want Thompson to run for the job anyway.
In fact, a number of tea baggers from around thestate boycotted the Madisonrally specifically because the former Republican governor who doubled statetaxes and government spending during his 14 years in office was going to beallowed to speak.
The non-story was preceded by weeks of media buildupciting meaningless polls claiming Thompson would be a strong candidate for thejob he didn’t want (and that the loudest voices in the Republican Party didn’twant him to run for).
Although Thompson clearly enjoys being mentioned asa candidate for anything, the last job he would want is to be one of 100members in the Senate. You could multiply his loathing by infinity if the jobwere junior senator in the party out of power in a system where leadershipopportunities are based on seniority.
Thompson wants to run things. Although Thompsonserved in the state Assembly in the ’60s and ’70s, he was considered littlemore than a small-time bozo until he was elected governor in 1987.
It was as governor that Thompson came into his ownas someone who could get things done, often in tough negotiations behind closeddoors with a few under-the-table deals on the side.
The only elective office beyond governor thatThompson ever really felt suited his talents was president of the United States.That made him one of an extremely small number of people in this country tobelieve that.
Thompson first attempted to run for president in2000, noting publicly he certainly had accomplished far more as governor thanGeorge W. Bush ever had.
Of course, qualifications of the candidates or eventhe number of actual votes cast had nothing to do with the outcome of thatelection. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court awarded the presidencyto Bush even though nationally he had received 543,895 fewer votes than AlGore.
The unaccomplished former governor of Texas then appointedThompson his secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 2008, Thompsononce again sought the Republican presidential nomination, although hardlyanyone noticed.
Drastic Changes to GOP
Besides the fact that he didn’t want the job, whatmade the idea of Thompson running for the Senate even more unrealistic was howdrastically the Republican Party has changed since Thompson’s glory days.
When Thompson was governor, Democrats thought he wasabout the worst they had ever seen. That was because they had no idea how badRepublicans could get.
The Republican Party has shifted so much further tothe right that Thompson’s governorship now looks suspiciously moderate toscreaming tea partiers.
Thompson consistently opposed efforts bybloodthirsty members of his party to restore the death penalty, which the statehad abolished in 1853. Although Thompson’s so-called welfare reform didn’tprovide nearly enough education and jobs above poverty level for poor women, itincluded far more job training and child-care assistance than in many otherstates.
As Bush’s HHS secretary, Thompson managed to saveUW-Madison’s pioneering stem cell research program under a president opposed tostem cell research.
As chairman of the Amtrak Board of Directors,Thompson even envisioned a high-speed rail system that would connect majorcities throughout the Midwest with Wisconsinas a centerpiece.
As a Republican politician who believes in usinggovernment to get things done, Thompson is totally out of step with tea baggerswho don’t believe government should do anything except cut the taxes ofaffluent, older, white Republicans.
Coincidentally, a survey by The New York Times and CBS News recently documented that those arethe characteristics of a majority of the so-called tea party movement:affluent, older and white.
A government that actually does something for allthe people is “socialist” in the new tea party political dictionary. That iswhy such extremists even angrily opposed government action to head off a secondGreat Depression.
And they certainly object to the government creatingjobs for people who need them or providing affordable health care to everyone.
They’re willing to accept money from governmentprograms that benefit them such as Social Security and Medicare. But they’reperfectly happy Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed dismantling thoseprograms for people in the future.
For his Last Hoo-Ha, Tommy Thompson wasembarrassingly out of place at a tea party rally. It was like watchingEngelbert Humperdinck on stage at a hip-hop club.
