Convinced he’s on the verge of announcing his Senate candidacy, Democrats are preparing a full-throttle assault on former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, centered on the millions of dollars he made in the private sector.
While the former four-term governor has not yet publicly signaled his intentions — and many in both parties remain skeptical — Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold’s campaign is operating as if Thompson will announce a run for office in the coming weeks.
“We take them at their word,” said John Kraus, Feingold’s senior strategist. “Based on everything we know and has been reported, he is likely to run, and this is a race that we are ready for and a debate we are looking forward to having,” he said.
Former Thompson campaign manager Bill McCoshen raised the prospects of a campaign in early March, telling POLITICO that if meetings with close aides and clients went well, Thompson was expected to set up an exploratory committee by month’s end.
Thompson’s official spokesman at his Washington-based law firm again pushed back at any assumption that the former Health and Human Services secretary had come to a decision. “He hasn’t even made up his mind,” said Jason Denby of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. “I think he is right in the middle right now, trying to decide.”
Yet that hasn’t deterred Feingold from launching pre-emptive strikes at Thompson, reminding him of the smash-mouth campaign he can expect.
At recent events in Madison and Milwaukee, Feingold has singled out Thompson by name, seizing on his ties to Washington lobbyists and the high-powered clients he’s represented.
“So you might ask, ‘Well, why are these people in Washington asking Tommy Thompson to run?’ Because he’s their friend. Because he does what they want. That’s why they’re asking him to run,” Feingold said.
“I’ve spent years and years taking on the special interests. And Tommy Thompson spent years taking them on as clients. That’s the difference between the two of us. That’s the difference for Wisconsin as we go forward for this election,” Feingold went on, laying out a general election argument six months before the September primary.
Thompson’s work as a partner at Akin Gump — where he works with about two dozen clients, mostly on health care policy and regulation — is at the core of the Democratic case. While he is not by law required to disclose his specific roster of clients, the Feingold campaign is pressuring Thompson for more transparency as he considers a bid.
Thompson’s work on a number of health and pharmaceutical boards is also bound for rigorous scrutiny. He is part-owner and board member of VeriChip Corp., which makes microchips that can be implanted in humans and serves as president of Logistics Health Inc., a company that helped evaluate people who claimed injuries from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
“Who is he talking to as part of this process? What is the standard whereby which he would stay on with some and leave others to run? If he’s serious about a campaign this year, as someone who is a D.C. insider with corporate ties, then he should let people know who they are,” said Kraus.
The Democratic strategy against Thompson appears strikingly similar to the withering attacks that were unloaded on former Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Coats in February, shortly after he announced his interest in retiring Sen. Evan Bayh’s seat. Like Coats, Thompson is being portrayed as an ultrainsider corporate lobbyist who made millions off many of the issues on which he would soon be expected to cast votes.
Word that Thompson would headline a May 12 Wisconsin Republican Party fundraiser in Washington at the powerhouse GOP lobbying firm Barbour, Griffith & Rogers only fueled the Democratic narrative.
“The first thing Tommy Thompson does is headline a fundraiser at a Washington, D.C., lobbying shop? It’s not surprising. Where else would a D.C. insider kick off his campaign?” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate blasted in a statement.
Asked for a response to that characterization, Denby pointed out: “He’s a businessman. He’s not even a registered lobbyist. He doesn’t lobby.”
Feingold’s campaign is also beginning to needle Thompson about his early support for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, a potentially devastating position in a Republican primary, where real estate entrepreneur Terrence Wall and businessman Dave Westlake have already been campaigning for months.
“There’s a person who was for the Senate bill before he was against it. His name’s Tommy Thompson,” Feingold said last weekend.
Even when Feingold’s campaign presses the former governor’s two announced opponents to stake out their positions on an issue like earmarks, an elbow is thrown at Thompson for good measure.
“There has been no mention by Wall or Westlake in the media or on their website indicating where they stand on the issue of wasteful pork-barrel spending,” Feingold’s campaign said in a recent press release. “According to a recent editorial by the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Wisconsin’s structural deficit has its roots in the Thompson administration. As Wisconsin governor, Thompson expanded the size of government and left the state with budget deficits we are still dealing with.”
On Monday, Feingold took another swipe at Thompson — this time on agricultural policy.
“Wall and Thompson have both supported unfair trade deals in the past like NAFTA. Feingold opposed those bad trade deals, and they hurt Wisconsin farmers, families and businesses,” the release read.
Denby said that while Thompson continues to weigh his options, he is not interested in responding to the grenades being tossed in his direction.
“He respects Sen. Feingold, and he doesn’t want to get into a partisan battle. He’s really just trying to talk it through with his family,” said Denby.
Thompson might have gotten some more subtle encouragement from a new poll released Monday by the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute that showed him holding a 12-percentage-point advantage over Feingold. Democrats dismissed its findings, but other independent polling has found that Thompson would immediately be competitive if he entered the campaign.
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