THOMPSON TOUTS IMAGE AS POLITICAL OUTSIDER

Candidate Criticizes Some Of Brother's Ideas

Ed Thompson believes change can only come to the scandal- and
deficit-plagued state Capitol if voters choose a man with a familiar name
but an unfamiliar party as their next governor.

"All over Wisconsin, people are so sick of what's going on," said Thompson,
who is running for governor on the Libertarian ticket. "They're sick of the
caucus scandal, they're sick of what's going on in Milwaukee, Door County,
all of it. I know they want a change."

Thompson, who has been mayor of Tomah for two years, acknowledges he owes
his name recognition to his brother, former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.
However, "the recognition doesn't mean I'm of the same cloth" as the
ex-governor, Thompson said Wednesday during an interview with
Leader-Telegram editors.

Thompson openly questions the success of some of his brother's best-known
efforts, like welfare reform. He said the state should check the status of
the poor who no longer are receiving public assistance.

"Getting people off the welfare lines and giving them a job at McDonald's
doesn't seem to me that great of an accomplishment," he said.

Former welfare recipients should have access to jobs that will allow them
to support their families, he said.

The major party "Republicrats," as Thompson calls them, can't be trusted to
clean up problems like the legislative caucus scandal, in which state
employees allegedly worked on political campaigns on state time.

"I believe I'm the only one who can," Thompson said. "Obviously they can't.
They've been fighting with each other. The gridlock down there is
unbelievable."

Rather than cut shared revenue to municipalities to fill the state's $1.1
billion deficit as Gov. Scott McCallum has proposed, Thompson said the
state should rein in its own spending. For example, he labeled the state's
68,000-strong workforce "an army" and scoffed at the state's fleet of 30
airplanes.

"What are they gonna do, attack Illinois?" he quipped.

Thompson also criticized the state's spending on prisons, which he said has
grown 655 percent in the past 20 years.

Thompson said he believes non-violent criminals shouldn't be locked up with
violent offenders. The state should look at more programs that allow
convicts to serve sentences wearing electronic monitoring devices rather
than sitting in jail, he said.

Thompson said he'd like to see marijuana legalized for medical purposes and
called the decades-long "War on Drugs" a "dismal failure."

Thompson, the owner of Mr. Ed's Tee Pee Supper Club in Tomah, first took an
interest in politics when police raided his business in 1997 and took away
his video gambling machines. Thompson was angered that bar owners with
nickel poker machines were branded as criminals when, because of the state
lottery, "every filling station and grocery store is a bookie joint for the
state."

A meeting with Jesse Ventura, who ran an improbable but successful bid to
become Minnesota's governor in 1998, also motivated Thompson.

Thompson declares that there's "no doubt in my mind" that he'll be elected
governor in November. Like Ventura, Thompson said he expects support from
"the common man, the person who hasn't voted in a long time."

"If you want what's going on, then keep what they have and I'll go back and
run the Tee Pee," he said. "But if you want a change, I'll be a change."