Since Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) announced that he would be resigning from the Senate after his term ends in 2013, a slew of potential candidates, from Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) to former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), have expressed interest in the seat. This morning, Politico reports that Tommy Thompson, the former two-term Republican Wisconsin Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary under President George W. Bush, is jumping into the race, telling friends and colleagues that he plans to pursue the position.

And while politicos predict that Thompson will enter the race as a front-runner, his moderate positions may give pause to conservative activists in the state:

– SUPPORTED THE INDIVIDUAL HEALTH MANDATE: During a symposium in Orlando in September 2008, Thompson said, “Just like people are required to have car insurance, they could be required to have health insurance.” In 2009, he walked back his support saying, “I’m not opposed to it, I just don’t think it’s the most practical way.” [Miami Herald, 3/23/2010; YouTube, 2/03/2009]

– SAID GOP SHOULDN’T REPEAL HEALTH LAW: “When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to be able to repeal health care because President Obama is not going to sign it,” Thompson said during an appearance on CNBC in 2010. “And they don’t have enough votes to override a veto, so why push a cart uphill when you know it’s not going to be able to get to the top?” [CNBC, 11/02/2010]

– PROMOTES SECTIONS OF HEALTH LAW: “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 just last month. [Huffington Post, 4/20/2011]

– OPPOSES RYAN’S MEDICARE PLAN: “Simply cutting Medicare isn’t the answer by any means. Instead, let’s focus on the most effective fiscal path forward with the least amount of impact on millions of seniors, their families and our broader economy. In other words, reform Medicare, don’t cut it,” Thompson wrote in April. [Huffington Post, 4/20/2011]

– DEVELOPED STATE’S MEDICAID PROGRAM: As governor in the 1990s, Thompson helped develop BadgerCare into one of the country’s most innovative and generous Medicaid program. [NPR, 2/23/2011]

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has dubbed Thompson “the smartest guy on health care,” but despite his moderate streak, he has done little to expand access to health care. During his four year tenure as President Bush’s point man at the HHS, the number of uninsured increased from 41.2 million to 46.6 million, Thompson pushed through a lobbyist-written prescription drug bill, helped misrepresent the legislation’s true cost, proposed a radical restructuring of the Medicaid program, and “improperly altered a report documenting large racial and ethnic disparities in health care.”

At least two Republicans are on record condemning the Medicare reforms in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposal and now former Wisconsin Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is also weighing in against the GOP’s plan to voucherize the program. In an op-ed for the Huffington Post, Thompson writes that while encouraging seniors to have “more skin in the game” should be part of the dialogue, policy makers need to focus on changing the incentives in the system to encourage providers to deliver care more efficiently rather than simply cutting the program:

The good news is that we don’t have to wait to begin to realign physician incentives. 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. I believe the administration should use its discretion to begin to experiment with capitated payment, where one fee is paid for a patient episode of care, regardless of how many procedures are performed. [...] House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is leading an important conversation about how to develop a system that would encourage consumers to put some skin in the game. [...]

Simply cutting Medicare isn’t the answer by any means. Instead, let’s focus on the most effective fiscal path forward with the least amount of impact on millions of seniors, their families and our broader economy. In other words, reform Medicare, don’t cut it.

Ryan has taken a lot of heat for failing to find health care savings from within the health care system and instead slashing the federal contribution to the program and shifting the extra costs onto seniors. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that it’s unclear if Ryan budget would protect the parts of the law that Thompson is trumpeting, those “that would test various patient care models including accountable care organizations,” but Republicans have previously voted to repeal those provisions.

This isn’t the first time Thompson — who Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has dubbed “the smartest guy on health care” — has broken with traditional GOP orthodoxy. In November 2010, Thompson said Republicans shouldn’t repeal the entire Affordable Care Act. “When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to be able to repeal health care because President Obama is not going to sign it,” he said. “[T]he overall health care is going to have take a wait-and-see attitude before all the rules are done and drafted.”

Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) joined outgoing Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) today in calling on Republicans not to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. During an appearance on CNBC this morning, Thompson — who also served as President Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary — insisted that Republicans wouldn’t have enough votes on to override a veto of a repeal bill and suggested that the party should give the law a chance to be implemented:

THOMPSON: When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to be able to repeal health care because President Obama is not going to sign it. And they don’t have enough votes to override a veto, so why push a cart uphill when you know it’s not going to be able to get to the top? [...]

There is no question that people are very frustrated with health care, but I think the problem is, health care is still being written. There is so much that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has got to put together in the rules that most people are just bewildered by the magnitude of health care and how it’s going to play out. And so I think it’s going to be difficult, really to point at any particular thing except the $600, some of the questionable things, cut backs in Medicare Advantage that people are going to be addressing. But the overall health care is going to have take a wait-and-see attitude before all the rules are done and drafted and that’s going to take a lot of months of drafting and hearings and so on, so more of the health care care process is going to be taking place in the administrative side of government rather than in the legislative way.

Watch it:

Thompson also said he believed the economy, not health care reform, was on top of voters’ minds. This sentiment strongly echoes the comments of Gregg and other party elders, like former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, who have cautioned the GOP against over-reaching to appease its Tea Party base if it regains power. (H/T: The Hill’s Mike Lillis)