Campaign 2002  

On the Road With Ed Thompson

by Tim Slagle

A trip across Wisconsin with a guy who owns a bar . . . sounds like a dream come true.

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On Sept. 18, I drove up to Wisconsin and spent a couple of days traveling with the Ed Thompson campaign. I know Wisconsin better than a lot of people. I earn my living doing stand-up comedy, and there is a whole lot of comedy work between Lake Michigan and the St. Croix river. I've spent a lot of time in the Cheesehead State's bowling alleys, hotel lounges, and supper clubs.

Ed is Wisconsin. His friendly demeanor is infectious. He is a natural bartender, always making sure your drink is full, and keeping you busy listening to his great stories. When he tells you that he knows that he can win, you can't help but believe him.

Who doesn't love a Wisconsin supper club? Big thick steaks and fried fish are standard fare. Mr. Ed's Tee Pee Supper Club in the small town of Tomah is a living relic from half a century ago. An old theater marquee was converted into the sign for the place in 1950. Under its light, a buxom Indian maiden in a short buckskin skirt has been stirring a cast-iron pot over a campfire since long before political correctness was a gleam in some killjoy's eye.

I get into Tomah at around 1:00 a.m. Media director Josh Morby tells me that the "War Wagon" will be leaving the Tee Pee at around 7 in the morning and if I want any sleep I'd better get it now.

I pull up around 7:05. The War Wagon is a big old 1982 Fleetwood Pace Arrow RV, with threadbare dusty rose upholstery. Its rusty sides are freshly painted with a yellow and black "Ed Thompson for Governor" sign. There is a SpongeBob SquarePants air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. The Wagon got a brand-new engine up in Ashland two weeks back, and this is its maiden voyage on the new engine.

I meet Darryl Pokela, who will be driving, and Larry Powell, who is handling the scheduling. It's going to be a day full of phone interviews, press conferences, and a run across southern Wisconsin, with stops at a few towns that want to build casinos, but have been denied a license from the state. It should be a local issue, says Ed. If a town wants to vote against a casino, that's fine — but if they want one, then why does Madison have the right to tell them they can't?

Ed has been campaigning twelve hours a day, seven days a week for the past year and a half. His face is recognized all over the state, and around every bend in the road you will see Ed Thompson signs in people's yards. He still gets a kick out of seeing every one, and it's a big event in the War Wagon whenever one is spotted. Of course, when anyone sees an opposition sign, it's time to make a crack, but fortunately that rarely happens. It is a sure bet that Ed Thompson clearly owns one demographic: "voters most likely to put a sign on their front lawns."

First stop is at a McDonalds in Mauston. Here we pick up Ed's old boxing coach Jim and campaign volunteers, Rose and Leona. None of them is under 60, and they're the kind of good-earth, small-town people you're always comfortable around — people you expect to stand behind in a buffet line, but never think you'd meet in a Libertarian campaign.

With a gravelly voice and white brush cut, Jim looks and sounds exactly like you'd expect a boxing manager to sound. Ed introduces me as being from Liberty magazine. "No kidding," Jim says, "Liberty magazine! Boy, I didn't know they still published that. I should show you, I've got a copy of Liberty from way back in 1932. It only cost five cents back then, how much you charging for it now?"

I tried to explain to him that the Liberty magazine he's talking about went out of business in the '50s, and that I'm along to report for a completely different magazine, a political magazine that's only been around for 15 years.

"No, it's the same magazine," he explains. "It just got started printing again, cause that magazine is over 80 years old." I found it easier just to agree with him.

Leona gets on board with her lunch in a bait bucket. She had gall bladder surgery in 1995, and she pulls out a letter-to-the-editor that just got published in the Juneau County newspaper. She shows me the little bottle of brandy she keeps in her purse for emergencies. "Heart condition, you know."

Rose is 67-years-old and works the late shift in a nursing home. She has been up all night. She loves to can and has put up almost 150 jars of vegetables already this summer. She slips in the back of the RV for a power nap.

All three of them are really excited to be on a road trip in the War Wagon.

Our next stop is at the gas station for a fill up. The War Wagon's main gas tank is rusted out and needs to be replaced so we're running on the auxiliary tank. It only holds 20 gallons, so we have to fill it up every hundred miles or so. I recommend that any candidate travel like this, because the constant stops are great opportunities to get out and shake a few hands. Ed tries to meet everybody at every stop.

Back in the Wagon, we all have a fresh cup of gas station coffee, and Ed sits next to me and starts talking. He tells me the now-famous video poker story. On the night of Dec. 15, 1997 four cops raided the Tee Pee Supper Club. An undercover policewoman had come into the club and put $10 into one of the machines back in July. A little while later, she went to the bar and asked for a $5 payout on the machine. That was enough to raid the place. The police went through the entire club, seizing all the cash on hand and all the video poker machines. Thanks to Christmas parties that evening, it had been a very busy night for the club, and the police snatched $4,000 from the restaurant till and $1,800 from the bar. It was part of a publicity stunt: in all, the police busted 43 taverns and seized 115 machines that night. The prosecutor offered Ed a deal: pay a fine and forfeit the cash they'd seized, and he'd be free to go about his business. Ed was determined to fight the law that he felt was unjust. "If the state can hold a lottery, then they're admitting that there is nothing wrong with gambling. I'm trying to make a living here. I was ready to go to prison if I had to."

This was not an idle statement. Ed spent several years working in a prison, and knows all too well what goes on in there. His platform calls for separating violent from nonviolent criminals. He believes in the legalization of victimless crimes, like drugs, and thinks the state would be better served by allowing nonviolent offenders the option of wearing a bracelet, and remaining under house arrest.

Ed went to trial facing the prospect of eight years and $4,000 in fines. The first juror interviewed for the trial said, "I support Ed, and there's no way I will ever find him guilty." The other 58 jurors saw that the first one was dismissed, and repeated his performance. A few hours later there were only seven left, not enough to seat a jury. The judge was furious. He ordered the cops to go into town and round up anyone they could find. Meanwhile, the prosecuting attorney was ready to cut a deal. He would settle for an $800 fine.

Ed said he wouldn't give them a dime. Ed's attorney said, "Well, then I'll pay the damn fine."

"After billing me $10,000 it was the least he could do," Ed says.

The state had to return the money it seized, though it sold Ed's machines and the other 111 it seized that night at auction to a Texas man for about $5,000. Ed mentions that they could have made ten times that amount if they had just sold them back to the taverns they took them from.

Ed campaigned for a law to allow tavern owners to have video poker machines, and to lower the fines for a machine that pays out. The law was passed and now the Tee Pee has five video machines, one more than was seized on that night in 1997.

"Do your machines pay out?" I ask.

"Of course they do," he says, "of course they do."

The cops had aroused a sleeping bear. Ed never was interested in politics until that point. He suddenly realized that perhaps the government does not hold the best interests of the public in its heart, and was determined to fight bad government.

Ed believes that the whole raid was staged by a Democrat attorney general as a way to embarrass Ed's brother Tommy Thompson, then the Republican governor of Wisconsin. Now his brother is the secretary of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration and the attorney general is the Democrat's candidate for governor.

We leave the press conference in Kenosha, and there are huge black clouds on the horizon. It starts raining pretty hard. "Boy, she's coming!" says Larry. We get into a pretty heavy storm and the Wagon starts leaking in three places. The air conditioner is also broken, so the humidity is almost unbearable. The windows get so fogged we can't see out, and we get a little lost. Meanwhile, Ed is on the phone with the Wisconsin Christian News.

We get turned around and try to make a Y-turn in someone's driveway. As he was backing into the highway, Darryl remembers that he was going to fix the sideview mirror. It's flat against the window now, and completely useless. We barely miss getting creamed by a delivery truck that locks up its brakes.

After the conference we go to lunch at the home of Dr. Mike and his wife Angela. Dr. Mike has an interesting take on child support. He has told his wife's ex-husband, who has fallen on hard times, that he no longer has to pay child support if he can't afford it. Dr. Mike can certainly take care of all the kids. The state of Wisconsin, however, will not allow the doctor or his wife to refuse the support. He thinks that since the state holds all support checks for two weeks there may be a huge account on which they collect interest. Meanwhile, the deadbeat dad is such a popular villain for the government that there probably isn't a chance that they will ever reform the policy. After dinner he says grace, and asks God to bless Ed and the campaign. Ed is genuinely humbled. Someone suggests blessing the War Wagon, as it might help.

The next conference is at a local job center in Janesville. It is one of those government facilities that usually pop up in a town where there is high unemployment. It never really helps, but it gives local residents the feeling that the government cares and is working on the problem. This center is just a couple years old, and it was built in a recently closed Kmart. "Boy, you're going to be able to build a lot more of these pretty soon," I muttered to myself.

Inside were a lot of young single mothers wandering around and a couple kids surfing the net in the room labeled "High Wage Technological Training Center." A couple of Ed's friends see him and tell him that nobody knows anything about a press conference today. We start gathering in the waiting area while Larry and Darryl go and try to straighten things out. A couple minutes later the room reservationist comes out and apologizes for the mix-up. "That's fine," says Ed, who has already introduced himself to Cathy of the Janesville Gazette, "We'll just do the conference here."

"No, that wouldn't be good," explains the reservationist, "this is too public." That doesn't sound right to me — an event like this is supposed to be public. She sequesters us all in room H. "This one is going to be free all day," she says.

Ed explains to the group that he would let any city that wants a casino to have one. "How do you know when you have too many?" asks Cathy.

"How do you know when there's too much of anything?" Ed responds. "You let the market decide. If there's too many, they won't be able to make enough money, so they'll have to close a few. This place here, used to be a Kmart. There were too many, now it's closed." Cathy, obviously educated at a liberal arts college, has never considered an idea like that before. I'm happy to hear economics 101 being taught in such a simple, over-the-fence approach.

A male job center employee comes into the room, and asks for Ed's attention for a moment. Ed obliges, and comes back a minute later. He wraps up the conversation, then explains that we're going to have to leave as, contrary to what the reservationist says, there's another event scheduled for the room.

On the way out, Ed is approached by Brandi and her mother. Brandi is a 20-ish blonde with a pierced eyebrow and blue contacts. She tells Ed that she's so depressed that she can't keep a job, and the state of Wisconsin refuses to classify depression as a disability, so she is being denied important funds and services. She asks Ed to help. Ed opens his arms and gives her a really big hug, which was all he has to offer. It's probably a lot of what the girl needs, I think to myself. Maybe she needs a spanking, too, I think, and her mother could use a stern lecture about spoiling adult children. But I'm just an observer on this trip.

"What happened to the conference?" I asked Ed.

"We were tossed."

"What?"

"This is a public facility, and you can't hold political rallies in public buildings."

That doesn't sound right; I think they just don't like his politics. I can't believe how calmly he's taking this. I go over to a bulletin board, and pull down a sign that urges single mothers to vote for Democrats and take it to the front desk. "I understand you're not to use this facility for political purposes, so I did you the favor of removing this for you." They glare at me as I leave.

Later, Ed confides in me, "That was funny what you did. You know I still can't believe they did that to me. First thing I'm gonna do when I'm the governor is defund that damn job center."

Rose tells me a story about fishing in Alaska. She and some friends went fishing for sockeye in the Russian River. They had to use flies, which was a little foreign to a Wisconsin group used to using live bait, so they weren't having much luck. Rose got bored so she went back to the cabin to bake some bread. Well, she baked a couple loaves, and some Danish pastries, and pretty soon some guys from Washington state were at the door with a stringer of really nice salmon. "Tell you what," they said, give us a loaf of bread and we'll give you three salmon filets." Deal.

When the rest of the fishing party came home that night with their one fish, they were astounded to see the beautiful fillets frying up in the pan. "I told them they were using the wrong bait," she laughs.

* * *

The picnic pavilion in Shullsburg is filled to capacity when we get there, and there are four reporters. It's a beautiful September evening, the trees are just getting a whisper of fall color and the Shullsburg Miners are out on the football field just down the hill practicing for the big game this weekend. The coach's whistle is clear in the cool night air. Ed is on fire; he absorbs the energy from the crowd and gives it back. They love him. It's a happy ride home. I notice that the sideview mirror is now completely missing.

I stay at the Tee Pee way too late that night, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and trying to get one of the video poker machines to pay out. The next morning, I drag myself back at around 10 a.m. Ed greets me with a ham and cheese croissant. "You just missed Jim," he says. "He brought that 1932 issue of Liberty magazine to show you."

We're taking Ed's minivan today, since there's only four of us and it's just a media run down to Madison. The word is that Ed's brother has decided to endorse Scott McCallum, the Republican candidate. Tommy won't endorse Ed, because Ed is not a Republican. "So why aren't you a Republican?" I ask.

"Because I'm a libertarian. I can't be something I'm not. I've been a libertarian my entire life."

"Are you 100% libertarian?"

"I don't even know what that means."

"Well, a lot of libertarians expect every libertarian to pretty much agree on everything. I know that's impossible, but we all seem to be pretty close on a lot of major issues."

"You know," Ed starts, "I got to sit down and talk with Jesse Ventura when he came to see me. He says to me, 'So, you're a libertarian?'

"I said, 'Yah,'

"He said, 'You know, I'm a libertarian too.'

"I said, 'Well then why don't you tell people that you're a libertarian?'

"He said, 'Because the libertarians told me I'm not one.'"

Ed's son Josh is driving today. Adam Dick is coaching Ed as we drive. Adam abandoned a successful legal career to work on Ed's campaign. He left New York City on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 with the smoke from the Twin Towers in the rearview mirror of the Ryder Truck. I cannot imagine how difficult that first week was. He lost friends in the Towers.

We're not halfway to Madison before the phone starts ringing. It's Charlie Sykes from Milwaukee. Ed has a great chat about how it's wrong that the Wisconsin Broadcasting Association is excluding him from the debates. He met their criteria, so they added more. It's a story heard time and again: established parties don't like the competition, and media outlets don't want to give third parties a shot. Charlie promises to include Ed in any debates held on his radio show. We find out later that after Ed hung up, Charlie warned his listeners that voting for Ed was wasting your vote. Same old story.

Every interviewer wants to ask the same question today, "How do you feel about your brother endorsing Scott McCallum?"

Ed plays it really smooth. "He's under pressure from the party and the White House to do this. It just goes to show the trouble with being a career politician. Look at the power these parties have over career politicians."

We're walking across the University of Wisconsin campus, and all the kids are waving to Ed like he's an old friend. "See all those yellow posters stuck way up on the tower there?" he says. "Those are mine!"

"How do you like knowing that your supporters are vandals?" I ask.

"I love it!"

We go into the student paper, the Daily Cardinal, for an interview with its editor in chief. The kids really like Ed, and I don't think it's just because he wants to lower the drinking age to 18 and legalize pot. They're hearing ideas they've never heard before. A lot of kids wander in, and are nodding their heads in agreement. The editor asks, "Did you ever get the engine on the War Wagon fixed?" Everyone laughs.

The last TV interview for the day is WKOW for the evening news. Once again, the question about Ed's brother is asked. Ed finishes the question, but when we leave he is visibly shaken. He rips off his suit coat and takes a shadow punch at a tree branch. I can see that his four years of "Toughman" boxing and Jim's coaching left him quite capable of self-defense.

"Why the hell would anyone ever want to be in public life?" he asks.

I could see that he had just been playing a good cover all day. In his heart, he was hoping that his brother would surprise everyone and endorse him at the last minute. We get in the van. "You know what? For the first time since I started doing this, I feel like I'm losing. I wanted to work from the grass roots up. I've been working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. If I fail, it can't be done.

"I really believed that if I worked as hard as I could, that I could win. This is the first time that I'm thinking that maybe we're not going to. How can you? They stack the deck against you."

Back at the Tee Pee the weekly fish fry is going on. Ed introduces me to all the regulars. Rose comes in and buys me a beer. "I've got some good news for you. Leona and I decided that tomorrow we're both going to send our $25 in and we're joining the Libertarian Party. How about that? I bet we'll be the oldest new members they ever got."

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