Justin's Political Corner

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, now running for the state’s open Senate seat, has an awful lot in common with Mitt Romney: He was for Obamacare before he was against it. 

Thompson’s campaign, of course, immediately rebutted: “Thompson has always opposed Obamacare […]” Always, anyway, since after about last June, when he wrote an editorial at Huffington Post urging governors to set up exchanges under Obamacare because it is a “tremendous opportunity to use marketplace choice and allow insurance companies to compete in their respective states.” TP also notes that he’s criticized the Medicare cuts Paul Ryan included in his budget, while praising how Obamacare reformed Medicare payments, and how he tried to convince Republicans not to go down the futile repeal path. Like that’d work.

All that’s history, though. Now Thompson is running for the Senate, and has to be as much of a right-wing whack-job as the state’s other senator, millionaire tea partier Ron Johnson, and of course the Wisconsin guy at the top of the ticket, Paul Ryan. The guy with enough health care policy chops to have served as secretary of Health and Human Services (even if it was under Bush) has tossed all that aside, and is now on the repeal bandwagon. Because he’s a Republican.

h/t: Joan McCarter at Daily Kos