No Runny Eggs

JSOnline’s DayWatch – Mike Huebsch is the new Assembly Speaker and Jeff Fitzgerald is the new majority leader.

Will have more thoughts later.

Josh Schroeder makes the case for Dean Kaufert for Assembly Speaker. Owen’s made the case against (previously linked).

It sure looks like conservatism and Republicanism are dead in Wisconsin either way. Damn.

Owen confirms that Mike Huebsch will be the next Assembly speaker.

I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like the choice; Huebsch was one of those that sought to ram corn-a-hole down our throats. On the other hand, he didn’t appear in my tax rogues gallery, so there might be some hope yet.

Revisions/extensions (3:05 pm/3:15 pm 11/10/2006) – JSOnline’s DayWatch reports that Dean Kaufert has tossed his hat in the ring. Dunno about his leadership style, but he avoided both the corn-a-hole ram and the tax rogues gallery. The ONLY things he did right were to avoid those two bellweather votes. Owen has the details on how Kaufert has been anything but conservative. I should’ve known better than to trust anything from the Fox Valley.

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.

Owen reports that Dale Schultz is out, Scott Fitzgerald is in as state Senate Minority “Leader”.

Do note the continued use of quotes. They’re there for 2 reasons:

– With the Senate Dems united and in the majority, there won’t be any bills coming out of the Legislature that Doyle will be vetoing. Ergo, the only power left to the minority leader, the ability to hold his or her caucus together enough to prevent the override, is rendered obselete.

– Fitzgerald sticks his finger in the wind before taking a stand on any issue. That is not a sign of a leader.

Bonus coverage – Dennis York says that Mike Huebsch (R-a place without talk radio) will be the next Speaker of the Assembly, where the Pubbies have a 5-seat margin. Don’t look for him to be nearly as effective in thwarting Jim Doyle and the Senate Dems as Chuck Chvala was in thwarting Tommy Thompson and Assembly Pubbies.

According to the top-of-the-hour newscast, Kathleen Falk will not concede until at least the official canvas is completed, and then likely will pursue a recount strategy. Why am I not surprised? Is it because Craps needs her to refuse state cooperation into the federal investigation into him? Is it because Craps doesn’t really think that his running mate, Babs Lawton, is ready for prime time should he go down? In any case, the AG’s race isn’t over for at least another 20 days (November 27th, the last day that Falk can request a recount).