This last September, former Wisconsin governor and current Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson chose to support McCallum for governor over the former governor’s brother, Ed Thompson, and the democratic nominee Jim Doyle. In a letter to “The Lawrentian’s” editor that was justified by an editorial in the opinion section of Madison’s left-leaning “Capital Times,” Forrest Weber questioned the genuineness of Thompson’s support. After sifting through the distorted facts, and after embracing common political sense, it becomes apparent that Thompson supports Gov. Scott McCallum in 2002.
Weber sees in the Secretary’s donation to Ed Thompson’s campaign an implied endorsement. Certainly Tommy Thompson feels sympathetic to his own brother’s cause. That said, the former governor has always been a man of principle, and Ed and Tommy’s principles are very dissimilar. One of the reasons Thompson was chosen as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services was his forward-thinking health care policies. BadgerCare made Wisconsin’s insurance policies for low income families a model for the rest of the nation. As a local restaurant owner and mayor of the small town Tomah, WI, Ed Thompson has minimal experience with health care. His lack of experience should help the voter to understand why privatization is the mayor’s solution to Wisconsin’s health care crisis. Certainly Tommy Thompson, a leader in health care reform, could not support a candidate with such limited health care experience.
Support for the Jim Doyle would be out of the question for Thompson. Doyle’s characteristically soft stance on crime stands in stark contrast with Thompson’s support of victim’s rights and truth-in-sentencing. Only Gov. Scott McCallum helped to develop and drive the policies of the Thompson administration that have reinvigorated Wisconsin’s once dismal economy and have brought Wisconsin down on the list of the highest taxed states.
Tommy Thompson supports McCallum for Governor
