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Former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson Explores Run for President
America must come together and get to work solving problems, building country
For Immediate Release
Thursday, January 4, 2007
MADISON, Wis. – Former Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said today he is exploring a run for President because we need to start building America again with common sense solutions for the common problems facing American families.
The son of a small-town grocer, Thompson said his unifying brand of common sense conservatism and strong track record of accomplishment is what America needs as it faces unprecedented challenges domestically and abroad. America must rely on its ingenuity to develop innovative initiatives that address its challenges and a unified determination to get the job done, he said.
“Let’s bring America together again. And together, let’s start solving the tough problems and creating greater opportunity,” Thompson said. “Americans are tired of the cynicism and divisiveness that too often stymies progress. We need to get back to work solving their problems and building on the great hopes they have for their families and their country.
“Despite some real challenges, America still enjoys the highest quality of life. There is nowhere in the world where a newborn child will be afforded more opportunity and freedom than the United States of America. We need to rise up to meet the great expectations we have always held for our future generations.”
Thompson's exploratory committee's Web site is http://www.tommy2008.com
Thompson would bring to the GOP presidential primary a proven track record of innovation and accomplishment that is unrivaled by other potential candidates. Thompson’s reform programs on welfare, education, health care, crime and the environment have come to serve as national models of success. As HHS Secretary, he worked to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. And his global work on medical diplomacy, HIV/AIDS, trade, bioterrorism and health crises have made a positive mark on the international stage.
“This campaign needs to be about ideas. It needs to be about solving some of the toughest problems America has faced in generations,” Thompson said. “More importantly, it needs to be about how we’re going to come together as a nation to get things done. My entire career, I’ve brought people together to tackle some of society’s toughest issues with innovative programs that made a lasting difference in people’s lives.”
Thompson said he will be spending a great deal of time in Iowa over the coming months talking about his ideas for America. Thompson, who grew up roughly 80 miles from the Iowa border in Elroy, Wis., has already visited Iowa often since Labor Day and is building a strong campaign structure in a state he frequented often as Governor.
Steve Grubbs, a highly respected former Iowa State Representative and Iowa Republican Party Chairman, has joined the Thompson Exploratory Committee as senior advisor. Grubbs previously served as GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole’s Iowa Caucus Chairman in 1996 and senior advisor to candidate Steve Forbes, who finished second in the Iowa Caucus in 2000 behind President Bush. Brian Dumas, who works with Grubbs at Victory Enterprises, also has joined the Thompson team. Thompson also will be visiting with residents of New Hampshire in coming months and is building an exploratory organization there as well.
Thompson said his ideas for the future will focus on the pocketbook issues affecting the everyday lives of Americans: health care, energy and education. The rising costs of health care, fuel and school are threatening the economic health of families and the nation. He also will forward ideas on Iraq, defense and foreign policy in coming months.
“Washington is talking quite a bit right now about a new way forward in Iraq. And, indeed, that is needed,” Thompson said. “But just as importantly, we need a new way forward in America. It’s time for Washington to get back to work addressing the challenges Americans face in their everyday lives – pocketbook issues that have been put aside for too long by political posturing.”
On health care
Thompson wants to build an affordable and accessible health care system centered on preventive medicine rather than curative, based on the belief that it would cost less to prevent illness than to cure illness – not to mention it is better for the patient’s health. Information technology needs to be integrated into the health care system to reduce costs and medical errors, ultimately making the system more safe and efficient as well as cost-effective for employers and individuals. Thompson began pursuing these initiatives as HHS Secretary.
Thompson also wants to explore ideas to require Americans to have health insurance, which would ultimately reduce health costs while increasing health coverage. He believes innovative programs like the BadgerCare program he created in Wisconsin, which allowed low-income working families to buy into the state health insurance system, can be a basis for developing a health care requirement or a market-based health coverage system for all Americans.
On energy
Thompson believes America must become independent in its energy needs, breaking reliance on foreign and often unstable governments for oil. Thompson wants more meaningful investments in ethanol and other alternative energy sources, providing greater incentives for industry to shift to these sources. America also must aggressively take on global warming – a goal that can be accomplished in a manner that doesn’t provide false choices between environmental stewardship and economic progress. American industry and environmental interests must come together in the common interest of restoring global health.
On education
Thompson is co-chairman of the Committee on No Child Left Behind, which will be forwarding recommendations for taking the next step with President Bush’s hallmark program. Thompson believes schools and students must be held to high standards and encourages competition between schools, as well as choice of schools for all families, in order to push both schools and students to higher achievement levels. Thompson also wants to work with states on new ideas to make college more affordable as well as elevate the importance of technical college as a meaningful option for students.
On Iraq
Thompson said it is time for the Iraqi people to step up and claim their country if they truly want to live as one Iraq – or the United States should support a course that divides Iraq into separate nations or states.
Thompson said the United States needs to look at the lessons from the former Yugoslavia, which was ultimately divided into separate nations after a bloody civil war and a greater peace was achieved between warring ethnic and religious groups.
“Common sense – and history – says that you can’t force people who hate each other to live together. It’s a recipe for violence, genocide and ruthless dictatorships – and ultimately a breeding ground for more terrorism,” Thompson said. “So the Iraqis need to step up and choose to live as one nation, or we need to look at dividing Iraq. We need to start taking meaningful, measurable steps to bring resolution to Iraq and greater stability to that region. We must move off the status quo.”
On foreign policy
Thompson said America must lead by bringing the world together to address global challenges, and it must do so by reaching out to other nations to achieve common goals. Thompson would position America as a proactive and innovative leader in global affairs impacting America and its allies. An example of one novel way to reach out would be expanding American medical diplomacy throughout the world – a concept Thompson developed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. America could use its medical expertise and resources to bring better health care and modern medicines to needy nations across the globe. This effort in humanity and compassion is just one way to begin winning the hearts of foreign nations and their people.
On defense
Thompson believes America must rebuild its military – creating the capacity to dominate any war or conflict it must enter as well as the capability to execute a multiple-front war. Thompson said the current military is stretched too thin.
To achieve success on each of these issues, America must draw upon the ideals and principles that founded this nation and led it through its toughest times.
“America is the great idea – an idea of our forefathers. Now we must bring our best ideas to bear in order to build America for a new century,” Thompson said. “And we must do so in the manner our forefathers wanted: Together. One nation. Under God. Indivisible.”
SOURCE Thompson Presidential Exploratory Committee
Text of Tommy G. Thompson's Campaign Kickoff Speech
Text of Tommy G. Thompson's Campaign Kickoff Speech (Prepared for Delivery)
Clive, Iowa
April 4, 2007
Thank you to my good friend Governor Brandstad. I miss the good-old days when we were governors of Iowa and Wisconsin, helping our states become shining stars in the Midwest.
Bill Dix, my state chairman; Charlotte Mohr, my honorary state chair; Ron Corbett, a senior advisor to the campaign; and Republican Party Chairman Ray Hoffman – thank you all for joining me here today and welcoming me to the bountiful state of Iowa.
Before I begin, I’d like to introduce you my family to you – my wife Sue Ann, my daughters Kelli and Tommi, and my son Jason. You’ve been with me for each of my campaigns, and I’m deeply grateful that you all are here once again as we embark on this new journey. You all have given me so much – and I’m not just talking about our five grandchildren.
It’s great to be an American, and isn’t it great to be a Republican!
Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no better place in the world to live than the United States of America. We know that very well living here in America’s breadbasket – the great Midwest, which feeds our nation and the world.
And it is here, in the Midwest, where the American Dream takes special hold – an ideal planted by our forefathers, nurtured by our parents and set free in us as adults.
It was another Midwestern, who grew up in a neighboring state just east of here, who came along in troubled times and reminded us about the power of the American Dream to lift our nation to a new era of prosperity and peace. Ronald Reagan said, "The cynics may call it corny, but this way of life we all cherish is best summed up in three simple words: The American Dream."
Of the American Dream, President Reagan said: "The dreams of people may be different, but everyone wants their dreams to come true. … Everybody wants to do something in one’s life that will give him or her pride and a sense of accomplishment. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that, the freedom to reach out and make our dreams come true."
President Reagan had great expectations for America because he had such great expectations for the American people. He believed we were capable of anything. So do I – and so must America once again.
So it is with the greatest expectations for the future of our nation, that I officially announce today my candidacy for President of the United States of America.
It’s a long way for this boy from Elroy to the grand white home on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. But it’s a journey that only a child in America can dream of making one day. And it’s a dream that could only come true in this land of opportunity.
Yes, America is facing tough times…uncertain times. But it is time for American to come together, roll up our sleeves and get to work addressing the problems of our time. And roll up your sleeves is what I’m asking you to do with me today.
Solving problems with innovation and determination is what we do best.
Throughout my career as governor of Wisconsin and later as US Secretary of health and human services, we have taken on society’s toughest challenges and moved beyond them to a better, stronger place.
· We ended welfare and replaced it with the hope and opportunity of a job.
· We moved our children to the head of the class, making sure low-income, inner city parents could choose the best school so their children could receive the best education possible.
· Together, we cut taxes, investing in entrepreneurs and workers to build better jobs and more secure futures. I’m not afraid to veto when spending and taxes get out of line. I cut taxes by $16.4 billion in taxes and vetoed $287 million in spending, making sure that government lived within the same means our families must. … That’s why I will ask Congress to give me the line-item veto, to cut earmarks and wasteful pork barrel spending.
· In Wisconsin, we proved to a nation that economic prosperity and environmental stewardship were not an either-or proposition – we built a healthy economy and a healthy environment.
· We saw the promise of ethanol and renewable energy far before it was fashionable.
· And we made affordable health care accessible to working families and their children through innovation and efficiency.
· And in Washington, after 10 years of failed attempts, we finally added prescription drug coverage to Medicare – and we made it affordable by introducing private-sector competition to the government-run system.
It’s been a remarkable success.
From Madison to Washington, this is the record of a reliable conservative; one who puts principles into practice.
It is a record driven by our shared Midwestern work ethic -- we don’t just talk about solving problems, we get the job done in these parts. This is why I have been in Iowa the past four months, talking to you about specific ways we can address the issues of most concern to you, to your fellow Americans, and to the future of this great nation.
And I’m going to keep talking specifics. Keep offering ideas. I want to ignite and fuel a national debate on the best ways to get America back on track.
Everywhere I go, the first question people ask is: "What are you going to do about Iraq?"
We must give the Iraqi people a stake in their nation and stability in their future. Look, the problems in Iraq go back centuries. We’re not going to miraculously change such deep-seeded animosities and hatred. We must stop trying to force people who hate each other to live together, and instead focus on giving these diverse cultures their own piece of Iraq and the incentive to live peacefully within a larger nation.
I have a three step plan to create stability in Iraq so our troops can leave sooner rather than later.
1. The Iraqi government should vote on whether they want us there. If they do, we have greater world standing to be there. If not, that certainly sends a strong message upon which we can base our next move.
2. As do here in America, we should work with Iraqi leaders to form governments in 18 self-governing provinces that would operate under a national government. What this will do is give Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds their own pieces of Iraq – their own land and their own say in how it is run.
3. We should encourage the Iraqi government to give every Iraqi a stake in the nation’s rich oil reserves. Oil revenues should be divided in thirds among the national government, the provincial governments and individual Iraq citizens. This will create great incentive for all Iraqis to protect their oil reserves, while ensuring that their federal and provincial governments govern fairly. And it will create wealth amongst all the people, inspiring entrepreneurship and economic growth.
Taken together, these three steps will give Iraqis – both the government and its citizens – an ownership stake in their newly free nation.
Iraq is just one front in the War on Terror, and our enemies plotting in caves will never rest until we win the war. That is why we must recommit ourselves to rebuilding the American military.
Our armed forces must have the capacity to dominate any war or any conflict we must enter – all while having the capability to fight a multi-front war. Our military is simply stretched too thin to protect American interests overseas and at home in these dangerous times.
At the same time, our foreign policy cannot be based solely on military might. We must reach out to the rest of the world, and a good place to start is with medical diplomacy. My initiative would take America’s great doctors and health professionals, along with our medicines and technology, to some of the most distraught places in the world, helping to comfort and nurse the poor to better health. By doing so, we can begin to heal some of the wounds with our global neighbors.
Speaking of wounds, our health care system – while the best in the world – simply is not what it should be. The cost of health care continues to soar – threatening the bottom line and competitiveness of American industry, and leaving too many American families uninsured or underinsured.
We must build a system affordable and accessible for everyone. And we can do this without government-run health care that robs our great nation of its ingenuity in developing new cures and treatments for deadly illnesses.
And we can do it, if only we take some common-sense steps to bring our health care system into the 21st century:
1. Build a system centered on preventive medicine, rather than curative. In this country, we wait until people get sick and then spend billions of dollars to try to make them well again. Why not invest up front in keeping our families healthy in the first place? Improving our families’ health and saving money at the same time is common-sense conservativism at its very core.
2. Use information technology to cut costs, reduce medical errors and create a more efficient health care system. Our doctors use the latest technology to cure your illnesses, but manila folders to keep track what’s wrong with you. We need to bring the administration of medicine into the 21st century, along with the practice of medicine. If we can put all our financial information on a wallet-size card, and have our money at our fingertips anywhere in the world, then we can certainly do the same for our health information. And in doing so, cut the bureaucracy of the health care system in half. Common sense.
3. Third, we must use the private sector and public sector to require health insurance for all. This isn’t a heavy-handed mandate. It is a basic common sense approach to keeping people healthy and reining in health care costs. It makes no sense for a system to force the uninsured to wait until they get really sick or injured and then get treatment in emergency rooms – the most expensive care there is. Especially when we can cover everyone for a fraction of the cost.
4. We must, once and for all, make sure health care and longterm care is affordable. For government, our Medicare and Medicaid systems will soon break federal and state budgets at the same time families across America are grappling with how to pay for longterm care for themselves and for their parents. This isn’t a problem that will go away if we simply ignore it.
On education, we must hold our schools to world-class standards from Kindergarten through college. And we must make sure all our children get a world-class education, regardless of what neighborhood they live in or how much money their parents make. We can make No Child Left Behind stronger, and do so without wavering on its core principles.
On the Environment and Energy, America must become independent in its energy needs and break reliance on foreign oil. We must begin with greater investments in renewable energy, like ethanol, so we can bring these technologies to market faster and more efficiently. And we must come together and deal with our changing climate.
Our economy has bounced back from the difficult days after 9/11, and the tax cuts are a major reason why the economy is strong. That’s why I’m committed to making sure American workers keep more of their hard-earned money. Not only that, money that Washington does take must be spent wisely and responsibly – something that doesn’t always happen in the nation’s capital, even among my fellow Republicans.
You see, Republicans went to Washington and we lost our way. We tried to spend like Democrats, and voters saw through the act. If they want to vote for people who will spend their money, they’ll vote for the professionals – not the amateurs – and that’s what they did in the last election.
Which reminds me: We’re just 11 days away from tax day, when we force taxpayers to hand over even more of their money – and we make them jump through countless hoops to have the privilege of doing so. That is unacceptable. Isn’t it strange that the federal government makes us compute our taxes twice – and pay whichever amount is highest? I propose we add a flat tax to the equation – and let our hardworking families pay whatever amount is least. Our hardworking families should have a choice of what’s best for them, when it comes to paying taxes.
Finally, I would like to wrap up by saying a few words about my children – and how much they inspire me.
A few years ago, my younger daughter Tommi was diagnosed with breast cancer – just like her mother a few years earlier. Even with her cancer in remission, Tommi couldn’t conceive because of the drugs she was taking.
But she was able to save one egg, which she and her husband saved for two years.
Two years later, my older daughter Kelli carried the baby … One egg. One long-shot chance. And today, there is one more child in the world. A miracle. But, as we all know, life truly is a miracle…one that must be treasured, nurtured and protected.
Now, more than ever, our nation’s bedrock culture of life is essential. In a day where young boys and girls are being raised to brutally kill themselves by strapping bombs to themselves and then exploding them to murder hundreds of innocent lives. … Boy, do we need to value life and celebrate our culture of life.
Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no doubt we have an inordinate amount of serious issues facing our nation – the type of issues that will shape generations. I’ve just touched on the biggest; clearly there are more.
America is being challenged. And in the face of great challenges, America must have great expectations.
Together, we must rise to the great expectations we have for ourselves, our children and our future.
How do we do this? Together.
We’re not going to overcome our problems by blaming American first, or by tearing each other apart. We’re going to overcome them as we always have.
By working together, as one nation, under God, with the vision, the passion and the determination to build a better way of life.
It’s time to get to work. And today, I ask you to join me as we build the America of the 21st Century. And with God’s grace and hard work, we will ensure the American Dream that Ronald Reagan renewed for this generation will live on in our children and their children.
Thank you and God Bless America!
TOMMY THOMPSON CAMPAIGN UNVEILS NEW WEB SITE
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin – Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy G. Thompson’s presidential campaign today introduced a renovated campaign Web site, www.tommy2008.com, that will make it easier for voters come together to interact with and support Thompson’s run for the presidency.
Unveiled on the eve of campaign kickoff events in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire, the new “Tommy 2008” site includes social-networking and photo-sharing links, while also helping the campaign build grassroots support by sign with volunteer signup and donor links.
“Governor Thompson will mix time-tested shoe-leather campaigning with 21st century communications tools,” campaign spokesman Tony Jewell said. “We’re providing the opportunity for grassroots Republicans across the country to come together and support a proven Republican leader.”
The new Web site includes a link to Thompson’s Flickr photo-sharing page – www.flickr.com/photos/tommythompson08, as well as his new MySpace page – www.myspace.com/tommythompson08. The MySpace page includes links to his schedule, a blog and opportunities for voters to interact with other supporters.
The Web site, as well as the social-networking sites linked to it, will be adding new interactive features in the coming weeks.
Source: Tommy Thompson For President
Thompson Thanks Supporters, Exits Presidential Race
Madison – Saying he has 'no regrets', Governor Tommy Thompson thanked his supporters Saturday night and officially left the campaign trail.
“I want to thank the people of Iowa who were welcoming and supportive as well as my volunteers and contributors from around the country,” said Thompson. “I have no regrets about running. I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as President, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America.”
Thompson, who was elected to serve four terms as Wisconsin Governor and four years as Secretary of Health and Human Services, began exploring a presidential bid last December. Weeks ago, he told supporters and the news media that if he did not do well in the Iowa Straw Poll, he would step aside and leave others to work for the Republican nomination.
Thompson will return to the private sector as well as his non-profit work after a brief time off.
“I have very much enjoyed my years in public service and I am comforted by the fact that I think I made a difference for people during that time. I hope to continue working to serve others over the next few years,” said Thompson.
SOURCE Thompson for President