Friday, May 12, 2006
He's Baaack?
by Tom Bozzo
Oh, there will be ever so much more about his return, assuming he decides that he can forego whatever load of undertaxed income he's making in his particular segment of the administration-association-consulting revolving door. A few quick points, and one bone to pick with the WPR journamalism.
Update: Tommy is not back after all, reports the Wisconsin State Journal; Mark Green is ahapless dork the best candidate for governor, ever! (Seriously, he is a hapless dork.)
At first, I thought the WPR report on Tommy Thompson's possible return to Wisconsin politics (text not on the Web yet, but see here later) was just the tail end of a really bad dream. But then I woke up some more, and it was real! Aaaahughh!
Oh, there will be ever so much more about his return, assuming he decides that he can forego whatever load of undertaxed income he's making in his particular segment of the administration-association-consulting revolving door. A few quick points, and one bone to pick with the WPR journamalism.
- It's almost hard to remember now, with others now cleaning up the messes left by the "leading" "lights," but Thompson's don't-tax-and-spend Republicanism was the ascendant form of governance in the upper Midwest — even to the point of being hailed as a national model. That last part is kinda true, and look at the finances of the states in question, and of the federal government for how well it worked out. Remember Scott McCallum wasn't smart or active enough to screw up the state in his brief interregnum.
- Let's also not forget about the brilliant policy choices we got from Thompsonism. We all may appreciate the services of the Tommy G. Thompson Memorial Bathrooms along I-94, but that's chicken feed relative to his responsibility for creating the state's outsized prison-industrial complex at the expense of, oh, higher education funding.
- "Moderates" inclined to support Thompson on the basis of the halcyon nineties should remember that with gerrymandering having installed the Cheesehead Taliban in the state legislature and a Republican governor not inclined to veto dumb legislation, our days of making fun of the South Carolina sex toy ban from up here may be numbered.
- BTW, great job on the anthrax incident, Tommy!
- Last but not least, that trashing of the Wisconsin progressive government idea? Endemic corruption on the Square beyond the occasional rotten potato at Farmer's Market? Happened in no small measure thanks to the emphasis on power politics under Thompson. Just saying.
Update: Tommy is not back after all, reports the Wisconsin State Journal; Mark Green is a
