“These people all live in fear of them,” Schwarz said. “I don’t have any respect whatsoever for any member who fears the Club for Growth, but quite frankly, that list is pretty long.”

 

Each time a statewide election rolls around in Wisconsin, former Gov. Tommy Thompson’s name surfaces. And each time, Thompson — who was in the GOP presidential race for just more than four months in the middle of 2007 — refuses to rule himself in or out until, finally, he announces he won’t run.

 

This time is different.

 

Barring a last-minute change of heart, Thompson, a four-term Republican governor who served as secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush, is about to enter the state’s 2012 Senate race.

 

But while Thompson would seem to be a formidable contender, a closer look suggests he won’t have an easy time winning the GOP nomination against a well-funded primary opponent.

 

A new Club for Growth poll shows how much of a challenge Thompson will face.

 

The club has already made it clear it doesn’t like Thompson (though it has no preferred alternative at the moment), so the fact that its survey raises questions about his ability to win his party’s nomination isn’t surprising. But dismissing the group’s poll would be a serious mistake.

 

The survey was conducted by Jon Lerner of Basswood Research, who conducts much of the Club for Growth’s polling. Lerner is highly regarded by political insiders, many of whom have found his surveys to be accurate and his analysis devoid of ideology or wishful thinking.

 

The July 26-27 survey of 500 respondents “with a history of voting in GOP primary elections” found Thompson with good name recognition (his “hard” name identification was 86 percent, meaning those respondents not only knew his name but had an opinion about him) and a “favorable” rating of 68 percent.

 

Only 18 percent of respondents had an “unfavorable” view of the former governor, giving him an impressive favorable-to-unfavorable ratio of just less than 4-to-1.

 

But Thompson’s favorable rating is uncomfortably “soft,” at least compared with two current GOP statewide officeholders tested in the survey. While Thompson’s “very favorable” poll number was a mere 26 percent, recently elected GOP Sen. Ron Johnson’s was a much stronger 46 percent and Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s was a stunning 61 percent.

 

It isn’t surprising that Thompson’s favorable rating would be soft, even among Republicans, because he left the state’s top elected office almost 10 years ago. But it is noteworthy that open-ended responses to the question of which issues or actions respondents associated with Thompson produced few positive responses. (Among those who responded, more than a third could identify nothing, while 13 percent could only say he is a former governor.)

 

When matched in a hypothetical race against former Rep. Mark Neumann, who hasn’t announced his candidacy but is widely mentioned as a potential candidate, Thompson had a very narrow and uncomfortable advantage of 40 percent to 34 percent. Neumann, of course, ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1998 and unsuccessfully for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010.

 

While Thompson’s favorable name identification was 68 percent, Neumann’s was just 37 percent. Yet Thompson could get to only 40 percent in the ballot test.

 

The Club for Growth poll also included a series of “message testing” questions, sometimes called “push questions” (which have absolutely nothing in common with “push polls,” which are not polls at all). The questions provided information about the former governor and asked after each one whether respondents would be more or less likely to support him.

 

The questions included various bits of information about Thompson’s past support for higher taxes and kind words for “Obamacare.”

 

A second ballot test conducted after the “push questions” showed Thompson’s support had collapsed, with the former governor now trailing Neumann 40 percent to 22 percent.

 

Push questions in early surveys are of limited value, of course, because they present only one side of the story and focus respondents on just a few issues that might or might not be the crucial issues or factors that determine an election’s outcome.

 

In this case, however, the results reinforce the conclusion that Thompson’s support is shallow and raise questions about the former governor’s ability to survive a seriously contested primary.

 

Wisconsin Republicans know Thompson’s name and have a positive impression of him. But they really don’t know why, and when presented with negative information about him — information that isn’t far-fetched and that can be documented — they turn on him quickly.

 

One veteran GOP operative who is not yet involved in the race but has considerable experience in the Badger State told me that Thompson can be nominated only if “nobody who can put two nickels together runs against him.”

 

“Even Republican donors who supported Tommy in the past and might support him again are unenthusiastic about him running for the Senate next year,” the operative said. “He is yesterday’s news, and his comments on Obamacare will kill him. Plus, he’s a pre-Internet candidate. He’ll tell groups whatever they want to hear, even if their views are diametrically opposed. You can’t do that these days.”

 

Not surprisingly, supporters of Thompson disagree. They argue that while some national conservative groups have it in for Thompson, the former governor has plenty of support among state conservative and tea party groups.

 

One longtime Thompson ally portrayed the former governor as a tax-cutting, job-creating, veto-wielding cutter of spending, citing a litany of specific examples that the campaign could use to remind primary voters of his record.

 

“We aren’t naive here,” the Thompson ally said. “We know things have changed politically, and we welcome a debate challenging his conservative principles.”

 

But as a four-term governor, Thompson had to deal with the political realities of the day, and opponents surely will focus on some of the compromises and statements he made along the way. His chances of winning a primary would improve if the conservative vote is fractured among a number of hopefuls.

No matter who wins the GOP primary, Republicans are upbeat about their prospects.

 

Some are already speculating that former Sen. Russ Feingold (D) will opt to challenge Walker in a 2012 recall election rather than try to return to the Senate, leaving the Democratic Senate nomination to Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who would be the clear favorite in the primary absent Feingold.

 

Baldwin, who represents a south-central Wisconsin district that includes the very liberal city of Madison, is almost certain to run for Senate. Her record is liberal, though her understated style and message of “fighting for the middle class” should have some appeal throughout the state.

 

Last week’s recall elections in the state proved that Republicans were as energized to support Walker as Democrats were to fire him. All indications are that 2012 will be a close, hard-fought election in the Badger State. And that will make each party’s Senate nomination valuable.

 

Can Tommy Thompson win the GOP Senate nomination in Wisconsin next year?

 

One Wisconsin Republican observer put it this way: “It would be an ugly and difficult primary, but I think Thompson would still win it.”

 

Others are far more skeptical. They argue that he can be nominated only if everything were to break just right for him. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that Thompson faces a tough climb in a political environment that looks far from ideal for him.

 

 

 

In their famous 1981 commercial, Fram sold their ubiquitous oil filter with a simple, but true catch phrase. The ad featured two auto mechanics who advised drivers to buy the Fram oil filter from them — or face the massive cost of an engine rebuild somewhere down the line. “The choice is yours,” said one attendant. “You can pay me now, or pay me later.”

 

Paying later is always more expensive and more painful.

 

The same is true of America’s economy. We’ve stretched our economic engine to the breaking point by piling on mountains of new government spending and debt. During the debate over the nation’s debt ceiling, most ratings agencies have noted that they may downgrade our country’s AAA bond rating — not necessarily if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, but because the debt itself is too large and our ability to pay is too small.

 

In short, the ratings agencies want what we want: responsible behavior, which includes spending cuts now, enforceable spending caps, and a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. We’ve called it “Cut, Cap, and Balance.” It’s the only plan offered that solves America’s fiscal mess.

 

That’s why groups like the Club for Growth and others oppose the Boehner debt reduction plan, the Reid debt reduction plan, the McConnell debt reduction plan (has there been an Obama debt reduction plan?), and any other plan that does not include those basic tenets. Even newspapers like the Wall Street Journal that support the Boehner plan point out that “It’s true that the Boehner plan doesn’t solve the long-term debt problem.”

 

So if we pass the Boehner plan, are we really in a better place than today? We haven’t solved our debt crisis and it becomes even harder to solve in the future and it is likely that America’s bond rating will still be downgraded. Why should members of Congress support something that doesn’t tackle the debt problem and only makes it more expensive to solve in the future? The answer is that they shouldn’t: They should demand Cut, Cap, and Balance.

 

The debt is our problem, not the debt limit. The consequences of not aggressively attacking it now are severe. Devalued Treasuries. Skyrocketing interest rates on small business loans. Homeownership becomes impossibility for the middle class. If we do not come up with a serious plan to tackle our debt problem in the long term, we risk catastrophic consequences for America’s future.

 

Thus, we are at the Fram Oil filter moment. Either we can do Cut, Cap, and Balance now, or we can do it later – at which time it will be much more painful and expensive.

 

We know the debt ceiling has to be raised, but actually solving the long term debt problem should be the only basis of any legislation that does so.

 

 

Breaking today...

The poll was conducted by the Republican polling firm Basswood Research, on July 23-24, 2011.  The sample contained 500 likely Republican primary voters, with a margin of error of +/-4.4%.

 

 

If the Republican Primary election for U.S. Senator was held today, and the candidates were Richard Lugar and Richard Mourdock, for whom would you vote?

 

Mourdock 34%

Lugar 32%

Undecided 34%

 

Would you say the following statement is true or untrue? “Richard Lugar has done some good things for Indiana, but after thirty-five years in Washington, it’s time for a change.”

 

True 69%

Untrue 19%

Don’t know/Refused 12%

 

To date, Club for Growth PAC has not made any endorsement in the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Indiana.