Pubdate: Wed, 27 Feb 2002
Source: Eau Claire Leader-Telegram (WI)
Copyright: 2002 Eau Claire Press
Contact:  http://www.leadertelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/236

THOMPSON TOUTS IMAGE AS POLITICAL OUTSIDER

Candidate Criticizes Some Of Brother's Ideas

Ed Thompson believes change can only come to the scandal- and 
deficit-plagued state Capitol if voters choose a man with a familiar name 
but an unfamiliar party as their next governor.

"All over Wisconsin, people are so sick of what's going on," said Thompson, 
who is running for governor on the Libertarian ticket. "They're sick of the 
caucus scandal, they're sick of what's going on in Milwaukee, Door County, 
all of it.  I know they want a change."

Thompson, who has been mayor of Tomah for two years, acknowledges he owes 
his name recognition to his brother, former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. 
However, "the recognition doesn't mean I'm of the same cloth" as the 
ex-governor, Thompson said Wednesday during an interview with 
Leader-Telegram editors.

Thompson openly questions the success of some of his brother's best-known 
efforts, like welfare reform. He said the state should check the status of 
the poor who no longer are receiving public assistance.

"Getting people off the welfare lines and giving them a job at McDonald's 
doesn't seem to me that great of an accomplishment," he said.

Former welfare recipients should have access to jobs that will allow them 
to support their families, he said.

The major party "Republicrats," as Thompson calls them, can't be trusted to 
clean up problems like the legislative caucus scandal, in which state 
employees allegedly worked on political campaigns on state time.

"I believe I'm the only one who can," Thompson said. "Obviously they can't. 
They've been fighting with each other. The gridlock down there is 
unbelievable."

Rather than cut shared revenue to municipalities to fill the state's $1.1 
billion deficit as Gov. Scott McCallum has proposed, Thompson said the 
state should rein in its own spending. For example, he labeled the state's 
68,000-strong workforce "an army" and scoffed at the state's fleet of 30 
airplanes.

"What are they gonna do, attack Illinois?" he quipped.

Thompson also criticized the state's spending on prisons, which he said has 
grown 655 percent in the past 20 years.

Thompson said he believes non-violent criminals shouldn't be locked up with 
violent offenders. The state should look at more programs that allow 
convicts to serve sentences wearing electronic monitoring devices rather 
than sitting in jail, he said.

Thompson said he'd like to see marijuana legalized for medical purposes and 
called the decades-long "War on Drugs" a "dismal failure."

Thompson, the owner of Mr. Ed's Tee Pee Supper Club in Tomah, first took an 
interest in politics when police raided his business in 1997 and took away 
his video gambling machines. Thompson was angered that bar owners with 
nickel poker machines were branded as criminals when, because of the state 
lottery, "every filling station and grocery store is a bookie joint for the 
state."

A meeting with Jesse Ventura, who ran an improbable but successful bid to 
become Minnesota's governor in 1998, also motivated Thompson.

Thompson declares that there's "no doubt in my mind" that he'll be elected 
governor in November. Like Ventura, Thompson said he expects support from 
"the common man, the person who hasn't voted in a long time."

"If you want what's going on, then keep what they have and I'll go back and 
run the Tee Pee," he said. "But if you want a change, I'll be a change."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens