Pubdate: Tue, 12 Mar 2002
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: C01
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Peter Carlson

The Candidate On Tap

Wisconsin Bartender Hopes To Fill His Brother's Shoes. Sort Of.

TOMAH, Wis. - This looks like the perfect crowd for Ed Thompson's campaign 
- -- guys with bushy bib-length beards, guys with scraggly billy goat 
goatees, guys with tattoos and black leather vests and a large woman in a 
T-shirt that reads, "I Love My Country, It's My Government I Fear."

The motel conference room is packed with about 100 members of ABATE -- A 
Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments -- an organization of bikers 
opposed to helmet laws. And Thompson, Wisconsin's most famous bartender, 
wants their support in his campaign for governor.

"The bars are with me," he says. "I need ABATE. I need the bikers. I need 
the people that love freedom, that love to be free, that need to shake 
loose the tyranny that holds us in bondage."

Ed says he's for tax cuts and gun rights and medical marijuana. He says 
he's a "common man," not a "career politician" -- like his brother, Tommy.

Tommy G. Thompson, 60, was governor of Wisconsin for 14 years before he 
went to Washington in 2001 to become George W. Bush's secretary of health 
and human services. Allan Edward "Ed" Thompson has a different kind of 
resume. Now 57, he's been a boxer, a bartender, a butcher, a laborer, a 
snowplow driver, a real estate salesman, a prison guard, a professional 
poker player. Ed's had a few run-ins with the law, too. That's why Tommy 
used to joke that his little brother was Wisconsin's answer to Billy 
Carter, a comment that still irks Ed.

Tommy started running for office even before he graduated from law school, 
but Ed never gave a hoot about politics until he got busted in 1997.

"I'm probably the most apolitical person that ever lived," he told the 
bikers. "I never wanted to be in politics. I had nothing to do with it. And 
then the state raided my tavern."

Turning the Tables Ah, the Great Tomah Tavern Raid! It's like something out 
of a Frank Capra movie -- a classic American tale of the lone man who 
refused to knuckle under, who fought the authorities and beat them, thanks 
to the love of his small-town neighbors. The raid made Ed a folk hero and 
launched his political career.

The story begins in the early '90s, when Ed was divorced, depressed and 
broke, living alone with his dog and contemplating suicide. He pulled 
himself together, borrowed some money and bought the Tee Pee, an old bar in 
Tomah, a town of 8,400 whose municipal motto is "Gateway to Cranberry Country."

The Tee Pee was a wreck. The pipes in the ceiling had burst, flooding the 
floor. Ed moved in, fixed the place up, renamed it Mr. Ed's Tee Pee. He 
tended bar and flipped burgers. As business picked up, he hired a cook, 
then some waitresses.

Back on his feet by Thanksgiving of 1994, Ed decided to give thanks by 
cooking a free turkey dinner for anybody who wanted one. He served about 
400 dinners that day. Within a few years, Ed was serving nearly 1,000 free 
Thanksgiving dinners at the Tee Pee and -- with the help of scores of his 
neighbors -- distributing hundreds of meals to shut-ins and people at old 
folks' homes.

In 1997, Ed was doing well enough to buy the building next to the Tee Pee 
and expand his dining room. He'd stopped smoking and drinking. And he'd 
fallen in love with one of his waitresses, who is 20 years younger than Ed 
and whose name happens to be Tina Turner. Things were looking up.

government programs. But he dissents from its anti-welfare stance, and he's 
skeptical about his brother's nationally famous program to reduce the 
state's welfare rolls.

"Now there's more people on skid row than ever," he says. "I worry about 
that. I don't know how they can survive. Some of them just can't work, 
they're mentally incapable. . . . We gotta do something. We can't let our 
people starve. We can't let 'em be cold. I been cold and I been hungry. 
It's not fun. I don't want to see any of my human brothers cold or hungry."

As Ed talks, people keep stopping by to say hello. It's a Friday night and 
the Tee Pee is packed with local families, many of them eating the $8.95 
fish-and-chicken buffet special. The waitresses are wearing "Ed Thompson 
for Governor" shirts and buttons. So are many of the customers.

Ed finishes his steak, sips his coffee and tells stories. He talks about 
his most famous arrest -- the video poker raid -- and also about his second 
most famous arrest, which is a weird tale of friendship, fighting, 
hamburger and a creative use of duct tape.

It happened in 1998. Ed got into an argument about hamburger meat with Dave 
"Daisy" Peth, the Tomah butcher who supplies the Tee Pee. Ed and Daisy are 
friends, but they started fighting, and during the brawl, Ed was stabbed in 
the gut.

Bleeding, Ed walked back to the Tee Pee and tried to sew up his wound with 
thread. That didn't work so he wrapped his torso in duct tape. Meanwhile, 
Daisy's wife, who works at the Tee Pee, called the cops. When they arrived, 
Ed lied to protect Daisy, telling police that the blood on his shirt was 
from a fall.

Later, when the cops learned the truth, they charged Ed with obstructing an 
officer. He pleaded no contest and paid a fine. He and Daisy remain good 
friends.

"It worked out perfect," Ed says.

By now, the Tee Pee's dinnertime is over and a guy with a bushy beard and 
cowboy hat is singing a country song with the aid of a karaoke machine. Ed 
gets up and wanders around the bar, shaking men's hands and kissing women's 
cheeks.

Daisy sits at a table nearby, drinking with a few friends. The man who 
fought Ed is eager to praise him.

"What Eddie is doing is bringing honesty to government, bringing government 
back to the people!" Daisy declaims passionately. "He's our last chance to 
get honesty in government!"

But didn't you once have a fight with Ed? he is asked.

"A fight?!" says the guy sitting next to Daisy. "He stabbed Ed!"

"That's irrelevant!" Daisy protests. "What happened is irrelevant! He's my 
best friend! He's the only person who's got truth! . . . Jesse Ventura did 
it in Minnesota and Eddie can do it in Wisconsin!"

Weighing the Odds Can he do it? Can Ed actually win?

"It could happen, but it's a long shot," says John Sharpless, a history 
professor at the University of Wisconsin and an unsuccessful Republican 
candidate for Congress in 2000.

"Nothing is impossible," says Bud Johnson, the former Tomah mayor defeated 
by Ed. "Look what happened in Minnesota with Ventura."

"I think he has a very good chance," says Steve Hurley, the prominent 
Madison lawyer who defended Ed in the video poker case. "People in 
Wisconsin are terribly angry."

The voters have a lot to be angry about. The state budget is $1.1 billion 
in the red and McCallum -- the Republican who took office when Tommy 
Thompson went to Washington -- has proposed ending state aid to cities and 
towns. Meanwhile, the state legislature is embroiled in a scandal over 
illegal campaign activities by aides to the leaders of both parties, and 
reporters and political operatives are speculating about upcoming indictments.

Already, there are rumblings of revolt. In Milwaukee County, after top pols 
voted to give themselves million-dollar pensions, voters organized a recall 
campaign that caused the county executive to resign. In Door County, a 
recall campaign recently unseated 15 county board members. Two years ago, a 
recall election drove 12 Kewaunee County supervisors out of office.

"People are fed up with politicians," Hurley says, "and they may be looking 
for someone from a different mold. Ed fits that bill. He speaks plainly in 
a way that appeals to people, and he has a name that is instantly 
recognizable."

Sharpless estimates Ed's chances at about 15 percent. But if there are 
indictments in the legislature and more budget troubles, he says, "that 
jumps to a 35 to 40 percent chance."

Ed likes to compare himself to Ventura -- a small-town mayor who won the 
governorship on a third-party ticket. But others dismiss that analogy.

"Jesse Ventura has a certain je ne sais quoi. Ed Thompson does not," says 
Dave Begel, campaign manager for Gary George, one of four Democrats running 
for governor. "For anybody to suggest he's a factor in the race -- it's crazy."

Another Democratic campaign manager, Susan Goodwin, also pooh-poohs Ed's 
chances. His support, she says, consists of "hunters, tavern owners, guys 
who hang out in taverns and disaffected guys who say, 'Ah, he's the only 
one who talks sense.' "

That last category, says Ed, should be enough to put him over the top. "I 
don't see how I can lose," he says.

School of Hard Knocks "Most of my friends in Tomah are schoolteachers," Ed 
tells a room full of schoolteachers. "I was just up there talking to the 
eighth grade yesterday."

Yesterday? But today is a Monday.

"No," Ed corrects himself. "It was Friday."

He's struggling. He's stammering. He's squirming in the new black suit he 
bought so he could look respectable.

He's in a Milwaukee suburb, sitting at a table with the four Democratic 
candidates for governor, facing 200 teachers' union activists who want 
detailed answers to four specific policy questions. The Democrats, all 
veteran pols, answer every question as if they'd been discussing these 
issues for their entire adult lives, which they have. But Ed's new at this. 
He has been many things in his eventful life but never a policy wonk.

"The answer is just common sense," he says, in response to the question on 
how he'd end the state's billion-dollar budget deficit.

Later, he comes out in favor of school vouchers -- which the teachers' 
union detests -- with a long, confusing analogy: "Can you imagine if the 
government owned all the grocery stores in Wisconsin? You'd have to fill 
out a form to buy tomatoes. Shredded wheat would be the only cereal . . . "

When it's over, he shuffles to the campaign van, looking glum.

"Boy, can they talk," he says. "I don't think I'll ever be able to talk 
like that."

As a friend from Tomah drives the van to the highway for the long ride 
home, Ed sits in the darkness of the back seat, silent.

Finally, he speaks. "This is like training for a fight," he says. "You get 
knocked down, but you gotta keep sparring. It's not even the first round yet."

He falls silent for another long moment, then he perks up. "Goddamn! I 
wanna beat those guys sooo freakin' bad!"

He sighs. "I'll get better," he says softly. "I promise."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth