There have been two videos already this week that should be devastating to the struggling Senate campaign of former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson. And it's only Tuesday!
Did everyone see the Bill Moyers special on the American Legislative Exchange Council, The United States of ALEC, that he came to Daily Kos a couple of times to tell us about?
If you haven't seen it, find an hour at some point and fire up the computer. The full show is well worth seeing, as Moyers takes apart bit by bit the "vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge."
Much of Moyers' focus is on Wisconsin, where the ALEC agenda has been front and center in the administration of Scott Walker -- and where anti-ALEC champions like Mark Pocan and the Center for Media and Democracy have been hard at work exposing ALEC.
Right in the middle of the broadcast, though, the show took aim at part of Wisconsin's past that has designs on being Wisconsin's future: former ALEC member and enthusiastic backer Tommy Thompson.
This clip features audio of Thompson speaking at an ALEC conference in 2002 on his relationship with ALEC. Here's the money quote (as it were):
Myself, I always loved to go to these meetings because I always found new ideas. And then I'd take 'em back to Wisconsin, disguise 'em a little bit, and declare that that's mine.
Nationwide exposure. I'm wondering when that one will show up in an ad? (Or has it already?)
And then just a couple of days later, today to be precise, another old Tommy quote showed up in a hard-hitting ad. Video and transcript beyond the jump...
Exactly a week and a half, it took, for a Tommy video taken in June to leap from a couple of little-known diarists at Daily Kos (JamieG from MD, AnnieJo, brinmat) to a major attack ad in the Wisconsin campaign for US Senate.
In the video footage of Tommy Thompson at an Oconomowoc Tea Party meeting last spring, he bragged that he would:
change Medicare and Medicaid like I did welfare -- and who better than me, who's already finished one of the entitlement programs, to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare? Let's block-grant what the state has, and allow the states to determine what's going to go into Medicaid. And Medicare, let's wait until everyone that's right now under 55 reaches 55 by age [sic] 2020, and give them a choice whether they want to purchase health insurance with a subsidy from the federal government, or stay on Medicare. I'm here to tell you, when you look at the situation nobody's going to accept it, because Medicare's going broke by the year 2022.
A new 30-second TV spot by Majority PAC, that started running in Wisconsin today, takes the bolded bits of that clip and hits Thompson hard. The ad is called "Who Better Than Me?"
Voiceover: If you want to know what Tommy Thompson is going to do to Wisconsin’s families— just ask him.
Thompson: “Who better than me….to do away with Medicaid and Medicare?”
Voiceover: And if that’s not bad enough, he plans to cut taxes for those billion dollar corporations he’s working for in DC—and stick middle class families with the bill. So who said Thompson’s going to get rid of Medicare? Thompson did.
Thompson: “Who better than me….to do away with Medicaid and Medicare?”
Voiceover: And who better than us, to stop him.
Now, when Tommy says "do away with Medicaid and Medicare," he's clearly talking about the Ryan plan: block granting Medicaid, voucherizing Medicare. (ALEC fingerprints
can be found here too! So this is not just Tommy. This is Ryan, and his running mate, and the entire House GOP that voted with Ryan's budget proposal.
I hadn't heard of Majority PAC before, but they're not hiding their existence or agenda. They want to hold the Senate Democratic majority, and are fighting hard in multiple races to do so. I was particularly impressed with the fact sheet that appears on their web site in support of their "Who Better Than Me?" ad. For both the "do away with Medicaid and Medicare" part, and the tax cuts for billion-dollar corporate buddies of his, there are multiple cited sources to back the assertion. It's a thing of beauty, against which PolitiFact should rage in vain (instead of their lame retweeting of their ridiculous twisted half-true slam, which originated when Tammy Baldwin first quoted Tommy on this at Netroots Nation this year!)
And the week is yet young. We'll see what the upcoming Marquette poll has to say about the Tommy/Tammy race on Wednesday -- their last one looked very fine indeed.
Who better than us, to stop Tommy Thompson and his ALEC profitizer agenda, with our support of Tammy Baldwin for US Senate!