Another RINO scalp taken by the Tea Party:

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson has slipped to No. 2 in the four-way Republican Senate primary, according to a new poll.

Self-financing businessman Eric Hovde has taken the lead with 31 percent, Thompson has 29 percent, former Rep. Mark Neumann notches 15 percent and state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald has 9 percent, according to the survey from Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling.

And why might that be?

Attacks on Thompson have taken their toll over the last 4 months. His net favorability has declined 21 points since we last polled the primary in February, from +49 at 66/17 to +28 at 56/28. There’s an increasing sense that Thompson is not conservative enough- only 34% of voters say they want him to be the nominee, while 50% say they would prefer someone ‘more conservative.’

And why might they think that?

In June, Thompson penned an editorial for the Huffington Post urging Republican governors to adopt the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges, just months before he praised the law’s payment reform provisions. “The Affordable Care Act gives great discretion to the CMS Administrator to experiment with alternative payment systems. CMS has created an ‘innovation center’ and is looking for ideas,” Thompson wrote on April 20, 2011. In fact, he even tried to dissuade Republicans from repealing the measure [...]

Yeah, now he’s recanted and called for repeal, but it’s clear enough what happened here. Thompson didn’t run against Russ Feingold in 2010, probably figured he was done with politics, so he went ahead and voiced support for a series of reforms that were uncontroversial among Republicans until they became controversial because the controversy would help them politically. As both a non-wingnut and a former HHS Secretary, he would be both intimately familiar with the screwed-up state of health care in America and might want to support measures to fix it. Then the other Wisconsin seat opened up, so Thompson quickly backtracked and condemned the ACA, because that’s what you do, and there weren’t any prominent Republicans in the mix. Only he didn’t understand the dynamics of his own party as it exists in 2012. Having ever supported any health care reform means you lose. Doesn’t matter if the other candidates aren’t credible. The GOP base nominated a woman who inveighed against jerking off and witchcraft over a surefire moderate winner. They’ll have no compunction about taking down a pragmatic conservative.

Anyway, looking it at perfectly neutrally, I can’t blame Wisconsin Republicans, since there’s no reason why Republicans shouldn’t nominate someone else. Thompson is 70 and would never be able to build up any seniority in the Senate–the only way to accumulate power in the body, really–and the other candidates poll as well in the general election as he does. The Democrat would be able to tie him to the Bush Administration in which he served, and take him to task for healthcare flip-flops. Politicians generally tend not to have a sense of when to quit, but this really takes the cake.