PLATTEVILLE, Wis. — With only 72 hours left before Election Day, this writer had the exclusive privilege of traveling with Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson for the entirety of a whirlwind bus tour through western Wisconsin.

Starting the day in Madison, as the sun began to creep up, and concluding with his final remarks in La Crosse long after the moon had re-claimed the sky, the former Wisconsin governor made stops in Monroe, Platteville, Lancaster, Prairie du Chien and Viroqua, stumping for President Bush and local Republican candidates, rallying GOP supporters and shaking hands as he paid impromptu visits to a handful of small businesses.

“This is something I always did when I was a candidate for governor: I’d get a group of wonderful friends around me and we’d go barnstorming throughout the communities,” Mr. Thompson explained in an interview aboard the campaign bus. “We’re going up the western/southwestern part of the state, ‘cause that is the area that Bush should have done better [in] four years ago.”

Seemingly proving Tip O’Neill’s famous theory about the localization of politics, Mr. Thompson’s speaking stops took on a formulaic nature full of small town variables. Excepting the day’s first and last appearances, the bus would always find its way to a local business, whether it be Baumgartner’s Cheese Store and Tavern in Monroe, Doolittle’s Pub and Eatery in Lancaster or a manufactured home warehouse in Prairie du Chien.

Once there, a slate of local candidates running for offices ranging from District Attorney to the House of Representatives preceded Mr. Thompson at the podium. The former governor would rise to the microphone (if there was one), make brief remarks about each of the local politicians who spoke before him and then wildly declare, “And isn’t it great to be a Republican?”

Without fail, he sang the praises of Mr. Bush in four parts. Often he would commence with a story about traveling through Wisconsin with the commander in chief earlier in the week and having the first lady remark how beautiful the state is.

This would surely segue into an account of the Bushes visiting a local farmer’s barn where over-eager members of the national press were humiliated as a cow relieved herself on a line of squatting cameramen.

Garnering further snickers from his audiences, Mr. Thompson mocked John Kerry for having to borrow camouflage to go hunting in October and for errantly speaking of the Green Bay Packers’ home field: “How can you trust somebody who calls the greatest football stadium in the world ‘Lambert Field?’”

Finally, the secretary would turn serious, speaking of the videotape of Osama bin Laden just released the previous day, noting that the terrorist “wants to try to influence the election,” saying that such is one endorsement of which Mr. Kerry should not be proud.

The stump would, of course, change slightly from town to town. In some areas he would take credit for having built a local highway as governor that is now working miracles for the area’s economy. In other parts of the state he would speak to Mr. Kerry’s unfortunate record of not supporting the Wisconsin dairy industry and instead voting to move subsidies to New England farmers.

But without fail, every speech would end with Mr. Thompson boisterously proclaiming, “Wisconsin is a state where eagles soar, Harleys roar, Packers score and we give Bush four more!”

Indeed, the former governor seems to know the state of Wisconsin and its people as well as anyone. The sheer charisma he managed to deliver in every handshake was as astounding as the compassion he used to work his way up and down Main Street, posing for photos and listening to people’s problems. Mr. Thompson even stopped in Cabela’s, a famous hunting store, where his Secret Service detail remained surprisingly calm despite knowing that their target of protection was strolling up and down aisles full of enough firepower to bring the militia back into style.

And while it may seem to be below a member of the president’s cabinet to be shaking hands on Main Street, the reality, Mr. Thompson notes, is that “Wisconsin is the epicenter of the presidential election.” With both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry having paid a panoply of visits to this state, touring towns that even Rand McNally would likely have trouble finding, the much-loved former governor seems to be the finest surrogate either side could possibly muster to warm the hearts of Wisconsinites.

And Mr. Thompson truly believes this state has become the center of the political world, commenting, “I think how Wisconsin goes pretty much is going to determine who the next president is.”

But regardless of the election’s outcome, it looks like the state icon will be packing up his belongings in Washington, D.C., and heading home. “The president wants to meet with me as soon as the election is over, and I’m sure he’s going to try to convince me to stay,” Mr. Thompson tells this writer, “but I doubt very much if I will.”

And it’s easy to see why the former governor is hesitant to stay in the president’s cabinet; there is simply no way a loud political city on the east coast could show him the same heartfelt affection as the people who gathered so tightly to greet his bus at its every stop.

Mac VerStandig ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in rhetoric.