Yard signs will have to come down

The circus has finally left town and the sign in my neighborhood for Thompson will have to come down. Former Governor Tommy Thompson finally announced that he will not run for governor again.

I saw a comment to a blog post that said this whole thing was orchestrated to give Republican Rep. Mark Green a boost in the polls over Governor Jim Doyle by having Thompson come out with a strong endorsement of Green in the end. If that was the plan, it didn't work so well. As Xoff points out today, Thompson's toying with the media on a run for governor led to a lot of questioning over whether or not Green can win and Thompson doesn't care enough about the team to produce a media event that will help Green enough to undo the damage Thompson caused during the last week or two.

But one of the most ridiculous things out of all of this has got to be this little section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story:

In a statement, Green said Thompson would serve as his honorary campaign chairman, adding that exactly 20 years ago Thompson "took on the Madison establishment and special interests" in his first campaign for governor.

Green vowed to do the same...

Oh I suppose you could say Thomspon took on the special interests, but he took them on to demand that they fund only his campaign and they give at new, higher levels. And the idea that Green is somehow an outsider that is going to be some leader on campaign financing and ethics reform is so funny that when I read it, I nearly dumped my coffee because I was laughing so hard.

Green voted change the rules to help indicted Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX) keep his post as leader in the House of Representatives and had Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who is about to be indicted, come to Wisconsin for a fundraiser. And after all of the scandal that is swirling around in DC, did Green make a big push to have major reform in our DC? No, he voted for a bunch of sham rules that only stay in effect until everyone is safely through election season. Then it's back to the trips paid for by lobbyists.

And has any journalist ever written the words "Rep. Mark Green" and "campaign finance reform leader" in the same sentence? I don't recall anything like that during his days in Madison or DC.

So without the big media tour for Green with Thompson, it appears Green will have to run on his own record in his quest to be governor. This is bad for Green because his record is horrible, but good for Green because Thompson would probably forget to even introduce him at numerous stops of a media tour.