In Wisconsin, Two Senate Candidates Shift Their Positions Nearly three years ago, former Gov. Tommy Thompson and Representative Tammy Baldwin teamed up on a public service announcement showing parents how to sign up for the state's innovative BadgerCare program. It had been created during Mr. Thompson's administration as a way to provide health insurance to far more uninsured adults and children than were covered by Medicaid. Now the two are increasingly bitter opponents in the Wisconsin Senate race, and one of the biggest issues that divides them is coverage for the uninsured. Ms. Baldwin, the Democrat, supports President Obama's health care reform. Mr. Thompson calls it a "budget-busting government takeover." At Thursday night's debate in Wausau, he repeated the standard Republican falsehood that Ms. Baldwin and other Democrats had "stolen" $716 billion from Medicare "to fund Obamacare." Mr. Thompson's long, sad slide from a forward-looking Republican policy maker on health care to a member of the right-wing choir is familiar to anyone who has watched Mitt Romney's parallel path. In some ways, however, Mr. Thompson's fall has been even steeper. Mr. Romney may have been acting out of political expediency in creating the universal health care system in Massachusetts - it is never easy to determine his actual principles. But Mr. Thompson seemed to believe in using government to extend health coverage, both as governor and later as secretary of health and human services. In 2008, he said he wasn't opposed to a mandate requiring people to obtain health insurance, though he preferred a tax-credit system. In 2010, he was invited to a White House meeting on health care reform where administration officials say he supported it and offered advice. But he would never have made it through the Republican primary by breaking with current party orthodoxy. Now, though he is campaigning in a deeply divided swing state, Mr. Thompson supports Paul Ryan's government-shrinking budgets and Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union bills. His son, Jason Thompson, 38, had to apologize after twice asserting that voters have an opportunity to send President Obama "back to Chicago - or Kenya." And the former governor had to apologize last month when one of his senior aides sent a message mocking Ms. Baldwin, who is openly gay, for dancing at a gay pride rally. Ms. Baldwin, though not a compelling debater or speaker, has moved beyond her base in Madison to pull slightly ahead of Mr. Thompson, largely on her full-throated support for Mr. Obama's agenda on taxes and health care and her negative ads portraying Mr. Thompson as a tool of the moneyed class. As one of the most liberal members of Congress, Ms. Baldwin has also had to pull back from earlier positions, particularly her regrettable opposition to sanctions on Iran, which she now supports. That inevitably produced an over-the-top outburst from Mr. Thompson, who said it proved she was "anti-Israel" and "anti-Jewish." He later had to clarify that, too, saying he only meant she was anti-Israel, itself a baseless charge. On Friday, she campaigned here in the northern city of Rhinelander, using a favorite slogan, "Whose side are you on?" - a variation of an old union tune. That question, though, is increasingly tough to answer in a state that refuses to fit the conventional paradigms. "I voted for Scott Walker," said Joyce Gibson, who works in Danner's Shoe Store , where Ms. Baldwin visited Friday. But I'm supporting Tammy and Obama. I didn't like what the unions did to the state, but I think the Democrats are better for the middle class.