RINO Helping DINO

Remember when former GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson was gearing up for what turned out to be a failed 2012 bid for the US Senate, and the far-right Club for Growth tried to knock him out early in 2011 with an ad containing this text?

"Tommy Thompson raised taxes as Governor, supported ObamaCare, and now he wants to run for the United States Senate? April Fool's was weeks ago. Wisconsin Republicans should recruit a pro-growth conservative to run, not recall some big-government pro-tax Republican whose time has come and gone."  

Wisconsin's true conservatives, fed by talk radio, loved them some Mark Neumann even more as that race took shape:

[Tommy had been] something of a consensus figure. These days, the GOP is being driven by the Tea Party, and the Right wants red meat. I don't know if Tommy can fake it, or should even try.  

We'll see if his strong suit - - name recognition - - can carry him past talk radio hosts who now call him a RINO (Republican In Name Only), and the Club for Growth's gun-slinging, and party activists who will see him as tea too weak.

Well, all must be forgiven now, since Tommy is encouraging Republicans to cross-over in tomorrow's primary to help save their party's not-so-well camouflaged anchor Milwaukee County elected official, the Democrat-in-name-only Sheriff David Clarke.