Status: Withdrawn
Entered Race: April 1, 2007
Withdrew: August 11, 2007
From 1987 to 2001, Thompson served as the 42nd Governor of Wisconsin, having been elected to an unprecedented four terms.
Thompson's initiatives during his 13 years as governor of Wisconsin were his Wisconsin Works welfare reform and school choice programs. In 1990, Thompson pushed for the creation of the United States's first parental school-choice program, allowing low-income Milwaukee families to send children to the private or public school of their choice at taxpayer expense. He also created the BadgerCare program, designed to provide health coverage to those families whose employers don't provide health insurance but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Through the federal waiver program, Thompson helped replicate this program in several states when he became Secretary of Health and Human Services.
From 1998 to 1999, he served as president of the CSG and, with the organization's chairman, Senator Kenneth McClintock, the nonvoting member from Puerto Rico, led a top-level delegation to the People's Republic of China. Thompson left office when he was appointed by President George W. Bush as HHS Secretary.
He has now dropped out of the race.