The 2012 national elections season has exhibited some very bitter political polarization in the United States. Commentators’ impressions and studies like the Pew Research Center’s American Values Survey all report this.
Yet in that climate, Wisconsin’s two major party candidates for the U.S. Senate recently proclaimed their abilities to work with members of the other party.
In fact, both former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (Republican) and Second District Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Democrat) told Jewish community audiences that the need to have someone who can do this is one of the main reasons they are running for the seat held by Sen. Herb Kohl (D) since 1989.
“I have ideas, I have bipartisanship, I can bring people together,” Thompson told an audience of about 90 at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center on Oct. 7.
“I’ve done it my whole life,” including during his 14 years as governor (1987-2001), when the Democrats controlled the state legislature for 12 of those years, he said.
“There is too much partisan gamesmanship” in Washington, D.C., Baldwin said for her part at the same location on Oct. 14 to an audience estimated at more than 130.
As an example of her ability to be bipartisan, she described legislation she and Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Eighth District) introduced to help protect Wisconsin’s paper industry from China’s “unfair trade practices.”
The two “Conversations with the Candidates” were sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. Ben Merens, host of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “At Issue” program, served as moderator for both.
The two candidates also expressed common support for Israel as the most important U.S. ally in the Middle East.
“The United States has one clear ally in the Middle East. That country is Israel,” said Thompson.
“Israel is our most important friend and ally in the world, but certainly in the Middle East,” said Baldwin.
Both described long-time relationships with and work involving Israel.
Thompson said he has traveled to Israel four times, and has received several awards from Israeli officials like the late Teddy Kolleck, mayor of Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Thompson also said he was the first U.S. governor to authorize a state government to buy Israel Bonds.
Thompson believes he has special expertise on health care, and he emphasized that during the conversation. He brought that to bear on the Middle East, saying, “I’m a big believer in medical diplomacy.”
Thompson served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001-05. During that time, he served on the board of the World Health Organization and in that capacity tried to set up medical and health exchanges between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Arab countries.
Annual meetings took place with Thompson as the chair. “We had to have two sides, the Arab side and the Israeli side, and I sat right in the middle,” he said. “You know, they wouldn’t shake hands coming in, but they all shook hands and we had a joint picture afterwards, and everybody was talking” because they were interested in “health and welfare for their people.”
“If you give people with good intentions and humanitarian instincts who really want to do what is right, without being bogged down by ideology and years of hatred, we can accomplish great things,” he said. If the United States would use “the power of medical diplomacy,” he continued, “it would be the biggest boon to foreign relations we’ve ever had.”
Baldwin said she first visited Israel as a child. She was raised by her maternal grandparents; and her Jewish grandfather, a biochemist, traveled with her and her grandmother to Israel so he could do some work at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rohovot.
The year was 1968, and although Baldwin was six years old at the time, she said she did learn about Israel’s great antiquity from digging in its soil and finding pottery shards and other objects centuries old; and she acquired “a sense of the security challenges of such a small country with hostile neighbors.”
During her service in the House of Representatives, Baldwin said she voted in support of U.S. military and economic aid to Israel — a total of $35 billion since she first took her seat in 1999 — and in support of the joint U.S.-Israel construction of Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defenses.
Moreover, “I’m very proud of the moment we’re at right now, where there has been upper level strategic cooperation” between U.S. and Israeli militaries and intelligence services, she said.
Both Thompson and Baldwin indicated support for creation of a “non-militarized” Palestinian state next to Israel. Both said they take seriously the effort of the Iranian government to acquire nuclear weapons and regard Iran as a threat to the U.S. as well as Israel.
Thompson advocated “severe sanctions” on Iran, then said, “I would go one step further. I would tell countries that are trading with Iran that you have a choice: If you trade with Iran, you don’t trade with the United States of America…. That is what needs to be done.”
Baldwin cited and appeared to agree with a New York Times opinion article by Graham T. Allison Jr. and Shai Feldman, published Oct. 12, that contended that the U.S. and Israel have “a common understanding” about Israel not mounting an attack on Iran in the near future.
She also referred to a PolitiFact Wisconsin article in the Oct. 14 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that contended that she made “a major reversal of position” on Iran sanctions, becoming tougher after her campaign for the Senate began.
Baldwin said her earlier votes occurred “when I thought there was a chance for overthrow” of the Iranian Islamic government “from within” and “I thought that we should do everything we could to support the pro-democracy and moderate people of Iran.” However, the Iranian regime crushed that effort, and “I have returned to sanctions,” she said.
She also said that President Barack Obama “is correct when he says that all options are on the table… I feel strongly we need to use all the tools available” to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In addition to these issues, Merens asked both candidates questions about the U.S. government budget deficit, poverty, the economy, gun control in the wake of the Aug. 5 shooting attack on the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, taxes, and the U.S. health care system.
Complete video recordings of both events are available on YouTube, Thompson at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3neQqK0JgM and Baldwin at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvwrMKKMvXo.
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