Wall’s Turn to Wear the Tommy-Sized Millstone

Back in early October 2009, before Terrance Wall officially announced that he was running for U.S. Senate, I said that he should talk to Tim Michels before he jumps in the race. At the time, talk was that the national GOP big-wigs were courting him and no doubt promising him the moon and the stars. They did the same thing to Tim Michels and left him high and dry to spend a ton of his own money. Apparently Wall was moved by the national courting and eventually jumped in the race. But now, only a few months later, there are rumblings that some of those same national GOPers are quickly looking for alternatives.

Practically on cue, the old Republican millstone Tommy Thompson has begun his seductive dance with the media. Only a matter of months ago the majority of questions for Tommy were about him trumping Walker Neumann or waging a bruising fight in Elroy. Now Tommy has taken his seduction to the national media and Politico has reported that he is "not saying no" to running for U.S. Senate. It is only a matter of time before the state media feels neglected by Tommy's national flirtation and starts beckoning him to come hither for endless headlines.

As Xoff has already pointed out, apparently Tommy's rusty reading of Massachusetts tea leaves tells him that voters are so angry that they want a rich Washington, DC lobbyist to run for the US Senate in Wisconsin.

If his endless flirtation ever does end, I hope that Tommy will be a little more forthcoming in revealing his financial situation since leaving the Bush administration. During his doomed presidential run, who can forget him having to request multiple extensions in filing his financial disclosure statement? He finally did fulfill the requirement but only after pulling the plug on his candidacy. That filing in 2007 reported him feeding at a special interest trough to the tune of $4.6 million in annual income for 2006. Like any other major DC lobbyist, I'm sure that Tommy has been grabbing every corporate dime that he could find since that time. I would certainly be interested in looking at how much more he has made from special interests in the last couple years. I wonder how those gory details would play with a public that has not had a good look at the newer and richer Tommy.

Whether Tommy Thompson decides to stop seducing the media this time or not, the big loser is Terrance Wall. He apparently put his faith in national GOP leaders that appear to be second guessing him behind closed doors. He has stumbled and bumbled his way out of the gate badly enough that even right wing talkers are giving harsh assessments of his candidacy. Questions abound over his tax issues, business dealings, and even his pretend pumpkin patch. All of this bad news and now Wall must take his turn at wearing the Tommy-sized millstone around his neck.

UPDATE: More bad news for Wall. Conservative blogger David Blaska is not exactly a fan (nor is he a fan of Westlake). Things are apparently so bad, that one right-wing shock jock is trying to convince the other one to become a candidate.