Wisconsin Democrats United Behind Tammy Baldwin While The State GOP Erupts In Full-Scale War Between 3 Crackpots

Last Wednesday we looked at how the Tea Party has set out to destroy the political careers of mainstream conservatives Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). But they aren't the only relatively mainstream Republican conservatives the Tea Party has declared war on. While every faction of the Wisconsin Democratic Party has rallied behind progressive Rep. Tammy Baldwin, the far right of that state's GOP is excited about stopping the state's former governor, Tommy Thompson, with either of two far right extremists, Mark Neumann or Jeff Fitzgerald. This looks like it could get really ugly. The Club for Growth is leading the charge against Thompson. Along with Jim DeMint, they're firmly behind Mark Neumann (the original Paul Ryan). Fitzgerald, the widely loathed Assembly Speaker, says both Thompson and Neumann are DC insiders.

Fitzgerald is also the candidate who is the closest to Gov. Scott Walker, having helped to pass Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union legislation, in the midst of an environment of massive protests and the beginnings of the recall campaign. By contrast, Thompson has been largely out of the state’s political scene-- and Neumann ran against Walker in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, in an attempted comeback after his own narrow loss in the 1998 Senate race against Democratic incumbent Russ Feingold.

The primary is also a long way off-- all the way in August 2012. Although it is obviously early, polling of the primary has shown Thompson ahead, but with a plurality rather a majority, over a divided opposition-- suggesting that he could be vulnerable.

Thompson has had a long and successful career in Wisconsin politics, but has not been on a ballot since 1998. He was first elected to the state Assembly in 1966, eventually becoming the Republican minority leader. He was elected governor in 1986, then re-elected in 1990, 1994 and 1998, before joining President George W. Bush’s cabinet in 2001. He left the cabinet after the 2004 election, and briefly sought the Republican nomination for president in 2007, only to withdraw after a poor showing in the Ames Straw Poll.

Thompson was long courted by the GOP to run for Senate in various cycles, but never made the jump-- he came very close in 2010, but ultimately backed away.

And now that he’s in, the Club For Growth has him right on their target list, attacking him as a moderate or even liberal Republican. Indeed, even before Thompson got in, the Club was already on TV attacking him:



“Club members and economic and fiscal conservatives are strongly behind Mark Neumann in this race. Mark Neumann was one of the strongest, most pro-growth members of Congress when he served. And the Club is going to make sure that he has the resources he needs to be the Republican nominee,” Club spokesman Barney Keller told TPM.

“And we intend to aggressively educate voters on Tommy Thompson's record of supporting Obamacare, and of massively raising spending and taxes when he was governor. And we think the more Republican voters know about Tommy Thompson’s record, the less likely they’ll be to support him.”

Keller also made clear that the Club will go full bore in taking on Thompson: “By the end of this primary, not a single Republican voter won’t know that Tommy Thompson supported Obamacare, and supported massive tax and spending increases. And anything Tommy Thompson says is just a distraction from his failed record of supporting higher taxes and spending.”

The Club’s “Obamacare” attack on Thompson is based on a series of positive statements that Thompson made about the topic of health care reform in 2009-- most notably, a pair of joint statements that Thompson and former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt released in October and November 2009-- the latter just as the Senate was about to vote on beginning formal debate on the bill-- offering some qualified praise to the Senate health care bill, and calling for a bipartisan consensus on the issue. The earlier statement in October also said: “Failure to reach an agreement on health reform this year is not an acceptable option.”

However, Thompson was not solidly on Obama’s side, either. In October 2009, he appeared on Fox News with Neil Cavuto, saying he was not for passing the bill in its current form, and he criticized Democrats for using his image in an ad attacking Republicans for not backing the proposal. He also harshly criticized the law right after its final passage.

Looking back on the controversies in June 2011, as he was gearing up to run, Thompson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “There’s no question I worked to get a bipartisan bill. I think we needed health care reform,” said Thompson in the interview. “I worked on that. I was sad that in the end, they skewed left to a place I couldn’t support.”

Neumann does have a connection to the Club-- their executive vice president Chuck Pike is a former Neumann chief of staff. However, Keller denied that this connection played a role in the group’s endorsement: “No. I think that anybody who looks at Mark Neumann’s record in Congress would see that he is far and away-- he was one of the people that was standing up against Republican spending from the beginning.”

When asked for response to Keller’s comments about Thompson, the Thompson campaign gave TPM this statement from campaign consultant Darrin Schmitz:

It’s no secret that Mark Neumann’s former employees now work at the Club and are directing the attacks against Tommy Thompson. Neumann infuriated Republican voters and conservative activists with the smear campaign he ran against Governor Scott Walker. A slash and burn campaign run by Neumann’s DC surrogates against Tommy Thompson will backfire on him.

Conservative bloggers in Wisconsin went so far as to write the Club to point out Neumann’s lack of character and the shameful campaign he ran against Scott Walker.

Thompson’s record of 91 tax cuts, eliminating the inheritance and gift taxes, and cutting the income tax rate three times is powerful. His welfare and school choice reforms were models for the nation and conservative victories, and Republican voters know he created jobs and Wisconsin flourished under his leadership. Thompson’s strong record and good will with the base won’t disappear because of lies from Mark Neumann and his DC attack dogs.

In contrast, former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold wrote to supporters that he's --

proud to throw my support to a candidate who will keep the fight for progress, the middle class and equality alive in the U.S. Senate: our good friend, Tammy Baldwin... I know Tammy has the values, the vision, and the guts to be a force for the middle class in the U.S. Senate. We stood together against going to war in Iraq. And nearly 10 years before the financial collapse, we fought the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. These commonsense rules of the road prevented Wall Street and the big banks from making risky investments, and the end of those safeguards led to our economic crisis. Tammy has always put what is right for working and middle class Wisconsin families ahead of powerful special interests in Washington... Tammy is a true progressive champion, one of the strongest fighters for working families our state has ever produced and a hero to those of us who believe in breaking barriers and eliminating injustice in our society. I was proud to call her a colleague as we fought together in Washington for Wisconsin families-- and I’ll be proud to call her my Senator.

Feingold has been helping Tammy raise money to fight off the attacks of whichever of the Republican misfits emerges from their intra-party war. Blue America is also trying to help Tammy raise money. If you can, please consider a contribution. There are only three people running for the Senate who have passed Blue America's smell test so far this year: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tammy.