11/20/2006
So Why Is Tommy Doing It?
A reader who shall remain nameless forwarded a creative theory about Governor Thompson’s forming a Presidential exploratory committee. He/she theorized:
“When the Green and Gard campaigns ended, without the reward of full time employment, a bunch of professional staff/campaign persons were released into the wild. These folks don't get a paycheck unless they have a candidate to sell. I wonder if there are any familiar faces on Tommy's staff? There are probably enough Tommy loyals around to fund some operations for a year or so, until a national campaign begins operations in WI. Selling it to Tommy was probably the easy part.”
Hmmm.
He/she mentioned that “A more creative person than I could make a decent novel or one heckuva funny movie about this. But who would play the candidate? Hey, that’s the book's title: ‘Play the Candidate.’”
- So, that’s, of course, reason number one why Tommy’s testing the waters. He just absolutely loves campaigning, loves being in the thick of things.
Why else might Tommy be running?
- He's 65 years old (just yesterday!) and doesn’t have anything else to do.
Oh, but he does! Traveling in Africa now in connection with one of his many business ventures, Tommy is a director with Picis (Massachusetts), C.R. Bard (New Jersey), VeriChip Corp. (Florida – Tommy has one of their chips in his arm), Voyager Pharmaceuticals Corp. (North Carolina), Pure Bioscience (California), AGA Medical Corp. (Minnesota), Centene (St. Louis), Medco Health Solutions (New Jersey – won’t start until December), the start-up Armada Media Corp.(Wisconsin), the commission on No Child Left Behind (D.C.), and the National Coalition on Health Care (D.C.).
Whew. Tommy also serves in an advisory capacity to Alfacell Corp (New Jersey), Catalina Marketing Corp. (Florida), MDVIP Inc. (Florida).
All of that doesn’t include his role as president of Logistics Health Inc. (La Crosse), partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP (D.C.) and independent chairman of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
Ok, why else?
- There's the V.P. job out there, for sure.
- He wants to familiarize the nation with the Wisconsin vernacular.
- He wants to further build name recognition.
- His ego needs stroking.
- He really wants to make a difference.
- It’s a job he can do and not have to take orders from anyone.
- And last but not least, because “Thompson is one of the nation’s leading advocates for the health and welfare of all Americans.”
Well, of course.
COMMENTS
Ms. Egelhoff, your skepticism of TGT’s presidential aspirations is fair, though your critique is just a bit unkind. A presidential run is a dream for him and the only race befitting his present political stature. His odds are as long as a Plutonian day, but this is America, where we encourage people to chase their dreams. Time to live up to those words and encourage TGT rather than second guess. I hope he gets a speechwriter and advisory team that can help guide him beyond Wisconsin. But he needs to be himself. Honesty and candor are in short supply in politics and TGT’s best hope in a presidential run. Run, Tommy, run!
ts fisch (Mon Nov 20 07:41:30 2006)
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