It's not entirely clear why Tommy Thompson is running for senate in Wisconsin. He's
not doing much campaigning; he seems to spend more time
complaining about why he's behind in fundraising than he does actually fundraising. He's just really, really cranky about the whole thing, and that was
very much on display in last night's debate.
Both candidates were on the offensive and interrupted each other, but Thompson often took the more aggressive tone. At one point, he tried cutting Baldwin off.
"You want to interrupt me, Joe Biden, let me finish," said Thompson, producing a groan from the audience.
But
there's more:
He also resorted to snide asides, saying creating jobs was “something you (Baldwin) probably don’t understand.” And he fumbled a riff on a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report about Baldwin’s receipt of campaign donations from a political action committee that opposes Iran sanctions.
Thompson was probably cranky because he likely lost some money that day. Earlier in the day, the Huffington Post
revealed that Thompson currently held as much as $50,000 in stock in companies that do business with Iran. This seriously undercut his attacks on Tammy Baldwin, that she was "soft on Iran" because she received support from the Council for Livable World, an organization that opposes nuclear proliferation and says Iran isn't an immediate threat to the U.S. That makes Baldwin an extreme liberal, says Thompson. Whereas the hard-headed businessman that Thompson is takes an entirely different approach to Iran: personally profiting from it!
As soon as the story was published, Thompson had to sell the stock, which he says he didn't know about previously, though the financial disclosure forms he filed when he entered the race include those companies. Details, details.
Details which make Thompson's attacks on Baldwin over Iran pretty damned empty.
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