Back to the Failure: Thompson is running… sort of… pt.XXV

Tommy Thompson is back… again. Sort of.

That Tommy Thompson filed papers to fundraise for a potential U.S. Sentate run is sure to excite nobody except perhaps those who have for the past 8 years written ad nauseum about the perpetual prospect of a Tommy run.

But what should be written about Tommy is not every new development in the decades-long “will he or won’t he” story, but rather his actual record as a public official and positions he has taken as a public figure. Here are three points to get you started:

1. As U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, Tommy oversaw the $8 trillion unfunded mandate — Medicare Part D — that many said was just a giveaway to insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

2. As governor, Tommy more than doubled the size of state government, which included increasing the Department of Corrections budget from $186 million to a billion dollars.

3. According to the current President of the United States Barack Obama AND to the conservative group Club for Growth, Tommy supported the new health care law.

As others have pointed out, Tommy is going to find it difficult to find friends within his own conservative base, as many in his party have moved from the moderate right to the extreme far right.