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 résumé. 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.

But then the cops showed up.

They burst through the door late one night in December 1997, looking for illegal video poker machines. They found four of them -- nickel machines -- and they busted Ed, charging him with four felony counts of possession of gambling devices.

The arrest made headlines across the state: "Governor's brother hit in video poker raid."

Ed was one of 43 bar owners busted that night. The 42 others agreed to plead guilty and pay a small fine. Ed refused.

"My attorney said, 'Take the deal,' " Ed recalls. "My brother got on the phone and said, 'Take the deal.' I said, 'I'd rather go to prison than take the deal.' "

Ed was mad. Didn't Indian tribes run huge casinos in Wisconsin? Didn't the state sell lottery tickets in every gas station? Didn't churches host bingo games? So why was he facing eight years in prison for four nickel poker machines?

He demanded a trial, and a date was set for December 1998. Meanwhile, Ed persuaded a young lawyer to run against John Matousek, the veteran district attorney who organized the raids. Ed ran the challenger's campaign, and they won in a landslide.

"He pulled together enough people who thought what I did was wrong, and I was bounced out of office," Matousek says. "It wasn't even close."

Matousek was a lame-duck prosecutor when Ed's case came up for trial. The judge summoned 44 prospective jurors and asked them if they could be impartial. One after another, they said they couldn't: They knew Ed and liked him, and they didn't care about his poker machines.

"One guy said, 'Why are you picking on Eddie?' " remembers Steve Hurley, who was Ed's lawyer. "And I looked at the other people there and they were nodding in agreement."

Unable to get 12 jurors, Matousek offered Ed a deal: Pay the police $800 -- the cost of the raid -- and the county would drop all charges.

"I said, 'I'm not paying the cops anything!' " Ed remembers. "And my lawyer said, 'I'll pay them.' So I took the deal."

After that, Ed spent weeks going to the state legislature, buttonholing every member, asking them to support a bill that reduced the penalties for poker machines to a small fine. They passed the bill, Tommy signed it and it became known as "Ed Thompson's law."

Ed announced that he'd joined the Libertarian Party, which opposes laws against gambling and other victimless crimes. In 2000, he decided to run for mayor of Tomah, a part-time job that pays $12,000.

"After the raid, I thought I should get involved," he says. "I figured if I won, I'd be mayor, and if I lost, I'd go back to tending bar."

He won, beating a two-term incumbent in a landslide.

Last year, inspired by Jesse Ventura's 1998 third-party victory in neighboring Minnesota, Ed decided to run for governor in the 2002 election. His first step was to travel to Minnesota to get Ventura's blessing.

"At first he kind of shook his head," Ed recalls, "and then he said, 'Run and win,' and he threw his big arm around me. They put that picture in the paper and that sort of started it."

Memory Lane, With Potholes

Ed takes a swig from a 20-ounce Diet Pepsi and talks about Tommy. "He's my brother. I always voted for him, but I disagreed with him on some things."

Like what?

"Everything."

He laughs. Then he gets serious. "The war on drugs. The war on crime. He kept building more and more prisons, and I used to ask him, 'How much time did you spend in prison? What do you know about it?' He said, 'I can read reports.' "

Ed spent five years working as a guard and a cook in a federal prison, and he's got a blue-collar contempt for people who get their knowledge from reports. He's sitting in the back seat of his campaign van. His son Josh is driving. Josh is 22, the youngest of Ed's four kids, a senior at the University of Wisconsin, now serving as Ed's campaign manager.

It's a Sunday morning. They're heading back from Janesville, where Ed served as the celebrity judge at boxing matches last night. He won that honor because the guy promoting the fights used to spar with Ed 20 years ago, when Ed boxed in Toughman bouts for a couple hundred bucks a fight. In his Toughman days, Ed says, he knocked three guys out and was beaten only once -- the loss coming on a night when he made the mistake of boxing after sucking down six beers.

Josh heads into Elroy, the tiny farm town where Ed and Tommy grew up, where Josh lived until he was 7, when his parents divorced.

"This is Elroy," Ed says, staring out at a snowy field dotted with cows. "Population about 1,500."

Politicians love to show off their small-town roots, but Ed does it a bit differently than most.

"There's the hotel I used to stay at when I got kicked out of home," he says.

Why did you get kicked out of the house, Ed?

"I'm not saying," he says, smiling.

He points out a place called Trailside Ice Cream Parlor. He used to own a bar in that building, he says. It was called Mr. Ed's. A moment later, he points to a bar called the Dog House. He used to own that bar, he says. Back then, it was called Mr. Ed's.

"All my bars were named Mr. Ed's," he explains, "and all my dogs were named Ace."

Josh keeps driving and Ed keeps telling stories. This is supposed to be a nostalgic tour, but the things Ed sees remind him of tragedies. There's the spot where a kid was run over by a car. And the place where a man died in an industrial accident. And a bridge where one of Ed's friends, stumbling home drunk, fell and drowned in a foot-deep creek.

"Man," he says with a sigh, "it's a rough, rough, rough life."

At one point, Josh stops the van outside a house built on the site of the little grocery store that Ed's father ran for decades. In his memoir, "Power to the People," Tommy wrote lyrically about the valuable lessons he learned working in the store for 25 cents an hour. Ed has different memories.

"I went into business with my dad in that dirty, rotten grocery store," he says, staring at the place. "I hated the store when I was a kid, and I hated it worse as an adult."

Oh, Brother

Talking to a reporter about his brother, Tommy Thompson sounds about as chipper and bubbly as a man summoned to a tax audit.

So, Mr. Secretary, what's Ed like?

"He's a wonderful guy," Tommy says in a monotone. "He's funny. He's passionate. He's a good businessman. He's hardworking. And I love him."

Would he make a good governor? "I think my brother could do anything he sets his mind to. He's that kind of individual."

Does that mean you'll vote for him? "I never tell anybody how I vote, not even my wife."

Will you endorse him? "I haven't endorsed anybody."

But last month, you appeared at a $1,000-a-plate fundraising dinner for your successor, Gov. Scott McCallum. Wasn't that an endorsement? "I'll let you speculate on that," he says. "I haven't endorsed anybody."

Ed says that you told him not to run because he'd get hurt. What did you mean by that?

"What I meant," Tommy explains, "is that I don't think a third-party candidate has a chance. He's going to work hard and spend a lot of time and money and he's not going to win and that will be hurtful to him."

Is there an element of sibling rivalry in all this?

"I don't think so," Tommy says. "But I don't know. Maybe he thinks so."

Speaking His Piece

"I'm a different person than Tommy," Ed says. "He's a Republican. He believes in politicians. He really thinks George W. Bush is a fantastic guy. Can you believe that? That's proof right there that I'm the smartest."

Ed bursts out laughing. He's sitting in the Tee Pee, eating a steak and shooting the breeze. He's full of opinions, and he expresses them in the blunt style of a barroom debater.

For instance, he's against the war on drugs: "We ought to make it legal and tax the hell out of it."

And he's not too thrilled with the war in Afghanistan, either: "I don't know how you stop terrorism by bombing farmers. How many do we have to kill before we're even? There's got to be a better way."

Ed generally agrees with the Libertarian Party's opposition to 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."

Note: Wisconsin Bartender Hopes to Fill His Brother's Shoes. Sort Of.

Newshawk: Nicholas Thimmesch II - http://www.norml.org/
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Peter Carlson, Washington Post Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page C01
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact: letterstoed@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com

PRESS RELEASE: 80 PERCENT OF WISCONSINITES FAVOR MARIJUANA TO TREAT SERIOUSLY ILL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 12, 2002 10:00 AM CDT

80 PERCENT OF WISCONSINITES FAVOR MARIJUANA TO TREAT SERIOUSLY ILL

Madison - A statewide poll will be released today showing an overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites, over 80%, support legislation legalizing medical marijuana in the state. The polling was done by Chamberlain Research Consultants as part of their quarterly Wisconsin Trends survey, and commissioned by the group, "Is My Medicine Legal YET?" IMMLY -- http://www.immly.org -- and other Wisconsin medical marijuana advocates. The poll found strong support in all regions of the state for passage of a bill like the one now before the legislature, AB 715, introduced in January and sponsored by State Assembly Reps. Frank Boyle, Mark Pocan, Rick Skindrud and 7 others.

The poll found that overall, 80.3 percent of Wisconsin residents said they "support the Wisconsin State Legislature passing a law to allow seriously ill or terminally ill patients to use marijuana for medical purposes if supported by their physician," compared to only 16 percent opposing, and 3.7 percent choosing don't know/no opinion. The poll's margin of error is +/-3.97%.

IMMLY Founder Jacki Rickert, a longtime Wisconsin activist whose Mondovi home was raided and searched by police two years ago March 13-14, sees the results as a mandate to lawmakers to pass a medical marijuana bill, "The people have spoken. What can be more noble and humane than enforcing the will of the people? These numbers show voters understand there are real people with valid needs for Rx Cannabis and they expect legislators to help patients in need, rather than causing more pain and fear by continuing to do nothing".

Gary Storck, IMMLY's director of communications said. "Across the state, in every single region, people expressed very strong support. These results say that giving patients legal access to medical marijuana is an issue that is not liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, or only popular in Madison, as some politicos have suggested. They send a strong message that Wisconsinites see medical marijuana as a matter of compassion and public health, not criminal justice or partisan politics."

Others agree, including the Wisconsin Nurses Association, which is already on record as supporting patient access to medicinal marijuana. WNA Executive Director Gina Dennik-Champion, RN states, "WNA is hopeful that the results of this poll will spur legislators to rethink their position on patient access to medical marijuana. Given the statewide support for access to medical marijuana, there is no reason why legislation should not be passed by the Wisconsin Legislature quickly."

Racine resident Don Lyons, who found marijuana helpful to treat a painful and debilitating back problem, but was then fired after 24 years of exemplary employment for failing a drug test said, "These results are awesome! I was thrilled. Maybe hard-working dedicated individuals like myself won't lose their job for the use of medical marijuana. It's a shame that those 80% of Wisconsinites weren't also asked if hard working individuals like myself should lose their jobs for using marijuana to relieve pain."

More detailed information on the poll can be found at: http://www.immly.org/poll.htm -- including poll data in PDF format that can be downloaded.

For more information contact Gary Storck, 608.241.8922/608.217.4136, Jacki Rickert at 715.926.4950. Gina Dennik-Champion can be reached at WNA 608.221.0383 or 800-362-3959. Don Lyons can be reached at 262.637.1232.

"Is My Medicine Legal Yet?" Contact: immly@immly.org

Related Articles & Web Sites:

Is My Medicine Legal Yet?
http://www.immly.org/

Drug Policy Forum of Wisconsin
http://www.drugsense.org/dpfwi/

Medical Marijuana Information Links
http://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htm

Medical Marijuana Bill Deserves Real Consideration
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11821.shtml

Wisconsin Should Take Lead In Marijuana Research
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11768.shtml

Home    Comment    Email    Register    Recent Comments    Help

Keep up the good work!

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Tomorrow should see some better articles.

• IMMLY Poll Page

http://www.channel3000.com/news/898328/detail.html

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- 30 -

• Is My Medicine Legal YET?

p.s. You can read a number of press clippings about Jacki and her efforts at http://www.mapinc.org/people/Jacki+Rickert

• IMMLY

This sounds a bit like the governing class ('representatives') will be doing us a favour by allowing sick people legal pain relief.

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• http://www.immly.org/poll.htm

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