Here & Now

U.S. Senate Election Profile

Zac Schultz:

It’s Tommy versus Tammy.

Tammy Baldwin:

And I would have never thought that I’d be able to say that I opened for the president of the United States at Summerfest.

Zac Schultz:

Tammy versus Tommy.

Tommy Thompson:

Wisconsin is on a roll!

Zac Schultz:

Wisconsin voters are on a first-name basis with their candidates for US senate. Republican Tommy Thompson has statewide name ID after spending 14 years as governor. He’s been out of office since 2001, but is still well-known.

Tommy Thompson:

Okay.

Biker:

Hi, Tommy.

Tommy Thompson:

Hi, everybody. How are you?

I run on the name Tommy. And everybody, young, middle age, elderly know me just as Tommy.

Zac Schultz:

Democrat Tammy Baldwin has spent 14 years representing Dane County and south central Wisconsin in congress. Her district trends very Democratic and she’s not been seriously challenged in an election for more than a decade. Why is she giving that up for a chance at the senate?

Tammy Baldwin:

I felt called and moved to make this run because of what’s at stake, and the people of our state, especially hard-working, middle class families need a champion in the US senate.

Zac Schultz:

In August, Thompson won a close, four-way Republican primary. Early polling showed him as a large favorite over Baldwin, but Baldwin has flipped those numbers, largely by redefining Thompson’s image with negative ads.

Announcer:

Thompson cashed in on his connections, making millions from drug companies, oil companies and companies who shift jobs to China. Tommy Thompson is now Tommy, Incorporated. He’s not for you anymore.

Zac Schultz:

Baldwin’s ads try to discredit Thompson's popularity by saying he is no longer the man who was once governor.

Tommy Thompson:

We went to Washington to change Washington. Washington changed us.

Announcer:

Tommy Thompson, he’s not for you anymore.

Zac Schultz:

Baldwin says the ads are working.

Tammy Baldwin:

What may account the most for what we’re seeing right now is Wisconsinites who want somebody who’s fighting for them and not for the big powerful interests.

Tommy Thompson:

And that definitely had an impact on me.

Zac Schultz:

Thompson says the tough primary left his campaign broke.

Tommy Thompson:

I want you to help me win this state.

But we were out of money.

Zac Schultz:

He spent much of the next month out of sight of the public, holding fund-raisers.

Tommy Thompson:

My opponent didn’t have a primary, so she was able to hoard all her money and use it in negative advertising from day one on August 15, the day after the primary. She was on television, you know, misinterpreting, absolutely lying, about my record, but she had the money and we didn’t have the money to correct it.

Zac Schultz:

Now Thompson is back on the air.

Announcer:

Tammy Baldwin and her allies are lying about Tommy Thompson.

Zac Schultz:

He’s attacking Baldwin on health care.

Announcer:

A super liberal, Tammy Baldwin is extreme. Baldwin didn’t just support Obamacare. She wanted to go further.

Tammy Baldwin:

I actually was for a government takeover of medicine.

Announcer:

She was

Zac Schultz:

Thompson’s ads always describe Baldwin as liberal.

Tommy Thompson:

Liberalism connotes huge amounts of spending, huge amounts of taxes. Tammy Baldwin has never meet a spending bill or tax bill she wouldn’t like to raise. And that is liberalism. She is even beyond liberalism. She’s almost to the extent of being socialistic.

Zac Schultz:

Baldwin refuses to say the word liberal, instead naming herself a progressive in the mold of Fighting Bob La Follette.

Tammy Baldwin:

I just think in Wisconsin, we’re so proud of having been the birthplace of the Progressive Movement, that we tend to prefer that term because it has a specific meaning to people in this state.

Tommy Thompson:

Don’t buy a gas mask.

Zac Schultz:

Thompson left Wisconsin in 2001 to join the Bush administration as secretary of Health and Human Service.

Tommy Thompson:

It’s time for me and my family to move on to the next chapter in our life.

Zac Schultz:

It’s his time after that when he entered the private sector that perhaps defines this race. Since that time, Thompson has amassed a personal fortune of $13 million. Baldwin says Thompson cashed in.

Tammy Baldwin:

When he left the administration, he became a partner at a lobbying firm that is working for those very same interests, helping them write rules that favor them, just like he did for the drug companies.

Zac Schultz:

Thompson defends his time working in a Washington, DC law firm.

Tommy Thompson:

I left the federal government at 38 year– 30 years of service. I was broke. I had a little money, but not very much. And I went out in the private sector and worked, and was successful. Now, is that wrong? I don’t think so. I didn’t cash in. Never been a lobbyist, which she says that I am. I’m not.

Zac Schultz:

Baldwin says she will fight the power of the interests she says Thompson represented.

Tammy Baldwin:

I’m a fighter who is unafraid to stand up to the big, powerful interests in Washington, who, frankly, in some cases have rigged the system, have written their own sets of rules.

Zac Schultz:

While Thompson says it’s the combination of his time in government and his experience in the private sector that make him the best fit for the US senate.

Tommy Thompson:

I absolutely went out in the private sector and started businesses. I invested in businesses. And I sold three businesses. And I think that’s the American way.