The Candidate On Tap

Wisconsin Bartender Hopes To Fill His Brother's Shoes. Sort Of.

TOMAH, Wis. - This looks like the perfect crowd for Ed Thompson's campaign
- -- guys with bushy bib-length beards, guys with scraggly billy goat
goatees, guys with tattoos and black leather vests and a large woman in a
T-shirt that reads, "I Love My Country, It's My Government I Fear."

The motel conference room is packed with about 100 members of ABATE -- A
Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments -- an organization of bikers
opposed to helmet laws. And Thompson, Wisconsin's most famous bartender,
wants their support in his campaign for governor.

"The bars are with me," he says. "I need ABATE. I need the bikers. I need
the people that love freedom, that love to be free, that need to shake
loose the tyranny that holds us in bondage."

Ed says he's for tax cuts and gun rights and medical marijuana. He says
he's a "common man," not a "career politician" -- like his brother, Tommy.

Tommy G. Thompson, 60, was governor of Wisconsin for 14 years before he
went to Washington in 2001 to become George W. Bush's secretary of health
and human services. Allan Edward "Ed" Thompson has a different kind of
resume. Now 57, he's been a boxer, a bartender, a butcher, a laborer, a
snowplow driver, a real estate salesman, a prison guard, a professional
poker player. Ed's had a few run-ins with the law, too. That's why Tommy
used to joke that his little brother was Wisconsin's answer to Billy
Carter, a comment that still irks Ed.

Tommy started running for office even before he graduated from law school,
but Ed never gave a hoot about politics until he got busted in 1997.

"I'm probably the most apolitical person that ever lived," he told the
bikers. "I never wanted to be in politics. I had nothing to do with it. And
then the state raided my tavern."

Turning the Tables Ah, the Great Tomah Tavern Raid! It's like something out
of a Frank Capra movie -- a classic American tale of the lone man who
refused to knuckle under, who fought the authorities and beat them, thanks
to the love of his small-town neighbors. The raid made Ed a folk hero and
launched his political career.

The story begins in the early '90s, when Ed was divorced, depressed and
broke, living alone with his dog and contemplating suicide. He pulled
himself together, borrowed some money and bought the Tee Pee, an old bar in
Tomah, a town of 8,400 whose municipal motto is "Gateway to Cranberry Country."

The Tee Pee was a wreck. The pipes in the ceiling had burst, flooding the
floor. Ed moved in, fixed the place up, renamed it Mr. Ed's Tee Pee. He
tended bar and flipped burgers. As business picked up, he hired a cook,
then some waitresses.

Back on his feet by Thanksgiving of 1994, Ed decided to give thanks by
cooking a free turkey dinner for anybody who wanted one. He served about
400 dinners that day. Within a few years, Ed was serving nearly 1,000 free
Thanksgiving dinners at the Tee Pee and -- with the help of scores of his
neighbors -- distributing hundreds of meals to shut-ins and people at old
folks' homes.

In 1997, Ed was doing well enough to buy the building next to the Tee Pee
and expand his dining room. He'd stopped smoking and drinking. And he'd
fallen in love with one of his waitresses, who is 20 years younger than Ed
and whose name happens to be Tina Turner. Things were looking up.

government programs. But he dissents from its anti-welfare stance, and he's
skeptical about his brother's nationally famous program to reduce the
state's welfare rolls.

"Now there's more people on skid row than ever," he says. "I worry about
that. I don't know how they can survive. Some of them just can't work,
they're mentally incapable. . . . We gotta do something. We can't let our
people starve. We can't let 'em be cold. I been cold and I been hungry.
It's not fun. I don't want to see any of my human brothers cold or hungry."

As Ed talks, people keep stopping by to say hello. It's a Friday night and
the Tee Pee is packed with local families, many of them eating the $8.95
fish-and-chicken buffet special. The waitresses are wearing "Ed Thompson
for Governor" shirts and buttons. So are many of the customers.

Ed finishes his steak, sips his coffee and tells stories. He talks about
his most famous arrest -- the video poker raid -- and also about his second
most famous arrest, which is a weird tale of friendship, fighting,
hamburger and a creative use of duct tape.

It happened in 1998. Ed got into an argument about hamburger meat with Dave
"Daisy" Peth, the Tomah butcher who supplies the Tee Pee. Ed and Daisy are
friends, but they started fighting, and during the brawl, Ed was stabbed in
the gut.

Bleeding, Ed walked back to the Tee Pee and tried to sew up his wound with
thread. That didn't work so he wrapped his torso in duct tape. Meanwhile,
Daisy's wife, who works at the Tee Pee, called the cops. When they arrived,
Ed lied to protect Daisy, telling police that the blood on his shirt was
from a fall.

Later, when the cops learned the truth, they charged Ed with obstructing an
officer. He pleaded no contest and paid a fine. He and Daisy remain good
friends.

"It worked out perfect," Ed says.

By now, the Tee Pee's dinnertime is over and a guy with a bushy beard and
cowboy hat is singing a country song with the aid of a karaoke machine. Ed
gets up and wanders around the bar, shaking men's hands and kissing women's
cheeks.

Daisy sits at a table nearby, drinking with a few friends. The man who
fought Ed is eager to praise him.

"What Eddie is doing is bringing honesty to government, bringing government
back to the people!" Daisy declaims passionately. "He's our last chance to
get honesty in government!"

But didn't you once have a fight with Ed? he is asked.

"A fight?!" says the guy sitting next to Daisy. "He stabbed Ed!"

"That's irrelevant!" Daisy protests. "What happened is irrelevant! He's my
best friend! He's the only person who's got truth! . . . Jesse Ventura did
it in Minnesota and Eddie can do it in Wisconsin!"

Weighing the Odds Can he do it? Can Ed actually win?

"It could happen, but it's a long shot," says John Sharpless, a history
professor at the University of Wisconsin and an unsuccessful Republican
candidate for Congress in 2000.

"Nothing is impossible," says Bud Johnson, the former Tomah mayor defeated
by Ed. "Look what happened in Minnesota with Ventura."

"I think he has a very good chance," says Steve Hurley, the prominent
Madison lawyer who defended Ed in the video poker case. "People in
Wisconsin are terribly angry."

The voters have a lot to be angry about. The state budget is $1.1 billion
in the red and McCallum -- the Republican who took office when Tommy
Thompson went to Washington -- has proposed ending state aid to cities and
towns. Meanwhile, the state legislature is embroiled in a scandal over
illegal campaign activities by aides to the leaders of both parties, and
reporters and political operatives are speculating about upcoming indictments.

Already, there are rumblings of revolt. In Milwaukee County, after top pols
voted to give themselves million-dollar pensions, voters organized a recall
campaign that caused the county executive to resign. In Door County, a
recall campaign recently unseated 15 county board members. Two years ago, a
recall election drove 12 Kewaunee County supervisors out of office.

"People are fed up with politicians," Hurley says, "and they may be looking
for someone from a different mold. Ed fits that bill. He speaks plainly in
a way that appeals to people, and he has a name that is instantly
recognizable."

Sharpless estimates Ed's chances at about 15 percent. But if there are
indictments in the legislature and more budget troubles, he says, "that
jumps to a 35 to 40 percent chance."

Ed likes to compare himself to Ventura -- a small-town mayor who won the
governorship on a third-party ticket. But others dismiss that analogy.

"Jesse Ventura has a certain je ne sais quoi. Ed Thompson does not," says
Dave Begel, campaign manager for Gary George, one of four Democrats running
for governor. "For anybody to suggest he's a factor in the race -- it's crazy."

Another Democratic campaign manager, Susan Goodwin, also pooh-poohs Ed's
chances. His support, she says, consists of "hunters, tavern owners, guys
who hang out in taverns and disaffected guys who say, 'Ah, he's the only
one who talks sense.' "

That last category, says Ed, should be enough to put him over the top. "I
don't see how I can lose," he says.

School of Hard Knocks "Most of my friends in Tomah are schoolteachers," Ed
tells a room full of schoolteachers. "I was just up there talking to the
eighth grade yesterday."

Yesterday? But today is a Monday.

"No," Ed corrects himself. "It was Friday."

He's struggling. He's stammering. He's squirming in the new black suit he
bought so he could look respectable.

He's in a Milwaukee suburb, sitting at a table with the four Democratic
candidates for governor, facing 200 teachers' union activists who want
detailed answers to four specific policy questions. The Democrats, all
veteran pols, answer every question as if they'd been discussing these
issues for their entire adult lives, which they have. But Ed's new at this.
He has been many things in his eventful life but never a policy wonk.

"The answer is just common sense," he says, in response to the question on
how he'd end the state's billion-dollar budget deficit.

Later, he comes out in favor of school vouchers -- which the teachers'
union detests -- with a long, confusing analogy: "Can you imagine if the
government owned all the grocery stores in Wisconsin? You'd have to fill
out a form to buy tomatoes. Shredded wheat would be the only cereal . . . "

When it's over, he shuffles to the campaign van, looking glum.

"Boy, can they talk," he says. "I don't think I'll ever be able to talk
like that."

As a friend from Tomah drives the van to the highway for the long ride
home, Ed sits in the darkness of the back seat, silent.

Finally, he speaks. "This is like training for a fight," he says. "You get
knocked down, but you gotta keep sparring. It's not even the first round yet."

He falls silent for another long moment, then he perks up. "Goddamn! I
wanna beat those guys sooo freakin' bad!"

He sighs. "I'll get better," he says softly. "I promise."