I don’t think so, but there is an interesting take on this from former Milwaukee Sentinel political reporter Ken Lamke (H/T – Charlie). Let’s take Lamke’s arguments one at a time:
Either Mark Green, this year’s losing GOP gubernatorial candidate, or Scott Walker would have benefitted from winning a contested GOP primary.
Voters give a primary winner a real boost for the general election — as opposed to the boost obtained from merely running ahead in a poll, for example. Winning an election is real.
In addition, a primary in the out party prevents the incumbent, in this case Doyle, from going negative against his opponent until after the primary, simply because he doesn’t know who’s going to win the primary. Either Green or Walker would have been spared five months of negative Doyle TV ads had there been a primary.
Ring-a-ding-ding. With an active primary, we would’ve been spared the summer of Doyle smearing Green with absolutely no response. On the other hand, this fight would have caused the winner’s campaign funds to be completely drained, and that post-primary boost would have been completely evaporated with the inability to counter Doyle’s post-primary campaign. See the attorney general’s race; Kathleen Falk ran out of money temporarily after knocking off Peg Lautenschlager, which let JB Van Hollen successfully define heras a no-prosecute anti-business suit-filer. Despite hitching her wagon to Doyle’s and running a November Slime Surprise, she was one of the few Dems that lost.
I believe Walker would have beaten Green in a GOP primary. Walker himself ill (sic) believes it. He dropped out only because he thought he wouldn’t have enough money after the primary to beat Doyle.
If I remember the conversations at Drinking Right with Walker correctly (feel free to correct me, Scott), Walker thought that the fight would leave the winner, whether it be himself or Green, with no money left to beat Doyle.
But look at Walker’s advantages over Green as a general election candidate:
- Walker would have held down Doyle’s 62 percent margin in Democratic Milwaukee County, which Walker has carried twice as county executive. Walker might even have beaten Doyle in Milwaukee County.
Walker might have shaved 1-2 points (roughly 3,000-6,500), but no more because there is so much straight-ticket voting. Remember, county executive is a non-partisan position, while governor is a partisan one. That is why David Clarke, who does not belong to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, ran as a Dem.
- Walker’s anti-tax message would have been more effective than Green’s. Walker has never proposed a tax increase in six county budgets.
Taxes as an issue flat-out failed on Tuesday. I’ve already outlined how it failed.
- Walker would have been immune from the Doyle attacks tying Congressman Green to the mess in Washington.
Those attacks were predicated on getting the State Elections Board to reverse 30 years of policy. I am certain that Doyle would have found some way to slime Walker, likely using the Legislature Caucus scandal against Walker.
- And Walker would have done much better than Green among the anti-gay marriage amendment voters. About 280,000 people voted for both the anti-gay marriage amendment AND at the same time voted for Doyle, who opposed the amendment. The socially conservative Walker, the son of a preacher, would have allied himself with the anti-gay marriage amendment to a much greater degree than Green did. Many of those anti-gay marriage/Doyle voters — socially conservative Democrats — would have backed Walker. They have in Milwaukee County.
Again, the backing of Walker has been in non-partisan elections. Like county executive, and more-importantly, unlike the governor’s race, the DOMA amendment was not affected in the least by straight-ticket voting. I doubt that much more than 50,000 of those bifurcated voters would have gone over to Walker, not nearly enough to overcome Doyle’s margin of victory.
It also ignored the fact that there are two “Republican” parties in Wisconsin; the southeast Wisconsin party made up primarily of conservatives and the “Republican” Party of Wisconsin made up primarily of outstate liberals. The latter has a visceral hatred for conservatives, especially SE Wisconsin conservatives, that is arguably greater than their hatred of the Democrats. While Green suffered heavily among the outstaters because of his chasing of the SE Wisconsin vote, Walker would have fared worse. That would have wiped out the gains Walker got from Milwaukee and DOMA.
Bonus – Answer to Charlie’s question – the Republicans did not pick up a single Democrat seat in the governor’s mansions, the Senate or the House, incumbent or otherwise. The closest they got was in Georgia’s 12th Congressional, but the Pubbie fell several hundred votes short.
