Craig Gilbert Asks Those Tommy Thompson/US Senate-Run Questions

The Journal Sentinel's Washington, DC bureau chief tries to make sense of the latest Tommy Thompson tease at a candidacy.

You ask me and I say the ugly reaction to Tommy's possible interest in running from increasingly fringy party activists speaks volumes more about the GOP than it does about Tommy himself.

Either way, I can't imagine Tommy really going through with a run for Herb Kohl's Senate seat, and part of me truly feels sorry for the guy, as his need for the spotlight - - even at 70, even after a long career in state and federal service - - is so compelling that he'd put himself in the way of nasty criticism from people in his own party in Wisconsin.

People who used to love him, and some, no doubt, who owe their careers and successes to him, but who now would diss him at the party's convention.

Politics is not beanbag, as they say - - and I've been hard at times on him - - but Tommy was a better friend to Milwaukee than Scott Walker will ever be on his best day.

So Tommy knows how the game is played and understands loyalty can be ephemeral in politics - - but if I were advising Tommy, I'd tell him to tell his turncoat critics to buzz off, then go have a nice steak dinner.