Selected short-takes from selected races (edited 6:20 pm 9/13/2006):
- Attorney General – It will be JB Van Hollen (60%-40% over Paul Bucher thanks to a second mortgage, the Clarke Effect, and the outstate-vs-SE-Wis factor) versus Kathleen Falk (53%-47% over incumbent Peg Lautenschlager despite losing Dane County by roughly 10 points). Dennis York notes that it is now open season on Jim “Craps” Doyle at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Keg best hurry to fill her license because the race is now between Craps’ handpicked candidate and somebody who saw nothing wrong with Craps in his 5 years as US Attorney for the part of Wisconsin that includes his residence.
- US Senate (D) – There are 51,000 pothead non-basketball-fan moonbats in Wisconsin.
- 8th Congressional – There’s going to be a LOT of money tossed at John Gard (who waxed Terri McCormich 68%-32% in the Pubbie primary) and Deaniac Steve Kagen (who got a plurality in a 3-way ‘Rat race). I do note that the Pubbie primary drew about 3,600 more voters (56,400 to 52,800), which would suggest a 51.6%-48.4% margin in favor of Gard in November.
- 7th Senate (D) – No wonder why the ‘Rats drew the district the way they did, connecting Oak Creek to UWM via the Jones Island Sewage Plant (irony not intended by the ‘Rats, I’m sure), and why the ‘Rats oppose any efforts to either enforce existing vote-fraud laws or make them tougher – 3,208 out of 12,194 participants wanted a ‘Rat who votes twice like a ‘Rat despite the fact that said ‘Rat (Donovan Riley) withdrew from the race and faces disqualification from further consideration for public office if he’s convicted on charges he voted twice like a ‘Rat. What’s worse is that a solid number of those that voted for incumbent Jeff Plale did so because they crossed over to the ‘Rat primary as part of the Clarke Effect. I shudder to think what would have happened if Scott Walker had stayed in the governor’s race and Clarke had not decided to run as a “‘Rat”.
- Milwaukee County Sheriff (D) – David Clarke can rest easy after his 2nd party-raiding gamble. Because Milwaukee County conservatives were pretty much happy with either Van Hollen or Bucher, and because Walker pulled out of the governor’s race, enough of them raided the ‘Rat primary to cause the Clarke Effect elsewhere on the ballot and hold off union toadie and multiple-time-loser Vince Bobot (I remembered his disastrous mayoral run; I didn’t know he also got aced out of a Milwaukee aldermanic run until last night’s Drinking Right).
- Milwaukee County DA (D) – Without access to Milwaukee County-only numbers in the AG’s race, I can only speculate this is the reason why Falk won – the 20,000 (35%) that voted for Larraine McNamara-McGraw, the candidate that made E. Michael McCan’t look like a marauding prosecutor and ideological soulmate to Falk. Again, I shudder to think what this would have been without the Clarke Effect, not that I think that John Chisholm will be much better than Mac-Mac or any better than the guy who hand-picked him as his successor, E. Michael McCan’t.
Update (6:20 pm 9/13/2006) – Brian Fraley dug up the county-by-county results, and Katty’s victory in Milwaukee County was only a shade over 8,000. Keg carried Dane County by 10,000.
- 23rd Assembly (R) – Name recognition is almost everything; ex-WTMJ weatherman Jim Ott doubled up John Wirth
- 29th Assembly (R) – The reason why I said “almost”; John Murtha took 61% in a 3-way race. Guess the voters didn’t confuse this Murtha with the traitor from Pennsylvania.
- 97th Assembly (R) – Career pols usually beat career activists, and this was no different. Bill Kramer beat Chris Lufter 55%-45%.
- 98th Assembly (R) – Career pol part 2 – Ex-Sensenbrenner aide Rich Zipperer took 55% in a 3-way race.
- Connecticut Senate primary (“R”) – The “R”NC, “R”SCC, and President Bush decided to reinforce failure (see Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords-2000 and Arlen “Scottish Law” Specter-2004) by successfully backing lieberal Linc Chafee Dish over moderately-conservative Steve Laffey. The DNC celebrated as they don’t have to spend any money in Connecticut to get a lieberal, and with an expected Leaping Linc Leap should the Senate approach 50-50, they now only need to gain 4 seats to recreate power-“sharing” and 5 to deliver Majority Leader Dingy Harry Reid.
If I ignored your race, I apologize. I can only follow so many races.
