Rock musician Ted Nugent will rally for Tommy Thompson

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Controversial rock star Ted Nugent will hold a rally for U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson on Thursday in Racine County.

The musical event will be held in Sturtevant just 19 days before Thompson squares off against three other Republicans in a primary for the Senate seat to be given up by the retiring Herb Kohl.

Nugent made waves in April in a speech to the National Rifle Association. He was called to meet with the Secret Service after he called President Obama’s administration “evil” and “America-hating.”

Nugent urged voters to “chop their heads off in November.”

Nugent endorsed Thompson in March, saying he favored the former governor’s pro-gun policies dating back to the mid-90s.

Thompson, Eric Hovde, Mark Neumann and Jeff Fitzgerald are running in the Aug.t 14 Senate primary. The winner will go up against Democrat Tammy Baldwin in November.

Hovde on the defensive

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde is defending his Wisconsin credentials and his lack of a voting record.

Former Governor Tommy Thompson raised the issue of Hovde’s voting last week. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said the banker and hedge fund manager registered in Washington, D.C., in 2004 and voted in just two of 11 elections until this year.

He was reported to have voted in the 2004 and ’08 November presidential contests.

Hovde told the Journal Sentinel he has spent much of his life in an airplane while building homeless shelters around the world. He said it’s discouraging for conservatives to vote in the District of Columbia because “your only choice is a liberal Democrat and a liberal Democrat.”

Hovde has voted in every election since buying a house near Madison late last year.

Thompson, who leads second-place Hovde in the polls, said last week that Hovde’s first vote in a U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin would be for himself.

“He wants to buy the race … and I don’t think the people are going to buy it,” the former Wisconsin governor said of Hovde.

Thompson was referring to the $4 million Hovde spent on TV ads this year to get himself known. Spokesmen for Republican hopeful Mark Neumann and Democrat Tammy Baldwin also criticized Hovde on the same issues.

Hovde denied being a carpetbagger, saying he’s a third-generation Wisconsinite. He said he went to Madison East high, graduated from the University of Wisconsin and has returned to the state often. He said he couldn’t believe his years in Washington were an issue in the Republican Senate primary, which takes place in just 22 days.

Tags: news, wisconsin, politics