If former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson was thinking seriously about running for Senate against Russ Feingold, I don’t think he would be signing on as an adviser to a hedge fund.

A reader asked about Thompson the other day and my sense is, if you’re a big-name Republican who hasn’t signed on for a race yet, you’re probably not going to jump in. It’s not like the signs of a Republican wave appeared overnight. If a big-name Republican is thinking and thinking and thinking some more about running, it suggests he or she doesn’t really want to run — Thompson, Giuliani, Pataki, etc.

Obviously, there are exceptions, but if a guy doesn’t want to run, there’s not much point in spending a lot of time and energy trying to persuade him to make a bid that his heart just isn’t in . . .