No Runny Eggs

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that House Appropriatons Committee chair David Obey (D-Wausau) will not be running for re-election this year. I’ll refer you to Kevin Binversie for the learned explanation of what’s next, but I do have a couple thoughts of my own:

• Even in a district where, outside Obey, Democrats and liberals have averaged double-digit wins over the last 5 years, with only Justices Michael Gableman and Annette Ziegler breaking through the stranglehold, and perhaps especially in a district where the elderly incumbent hasn’t campaigned in a very long time, a credible multi-prong campaign (this from Sean Duffy) can be very effective. Kevin relayed a story about how this cycle was the first time Obey felt the need to put up a campaign website, and somewhere in my stack of stuff is a story of how the Wausaw Democratic Party office didn’t have any Obey signs on display.

  While Obey had almost $1.4 million cash on hand at the end of the first quarter and Duffy only had $339,000 cash on hand at the end of the first quarter, individual donations for the first quarter were far closer, with Obey having a $253,000-$210,000 advantage. Obey did have a massive $187,000-$9,300 advantage in party/PAC money for the quarter.

• A huge part of that pressure came from my friends at Americans for Prosperity, especially the Wisconsin chapter, and the members of the Wausau Tea Party. They’ve been targeting Obey for years for his pork-spending ways, going all the way back to 2006.
• That gaping opening has to put a crimp in what appears to be the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s plans to have no meaningful primaries this year and attempt to take over the Republican Party’s primaries (which would tend to benefit the likes of Tom Barrett as the sole Dem gubernatorial nominee, and those Republicans, or “Republicans” as the case may be, that wouldn’t otherwise have much of a chance to make it to November and give the Dem opponents greater hope – Mark Neumann, Dick Leinenkugel and Dan Mielke). The legislators (the Poltiico story, which is the first link above, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is the second link above, and Kevin all mention Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker; Politico also lists several other legislators, some of whom declined in the Journal Sentinel story) are the headliners, but as Kevin points out, they’ve got a “taxing” issue. They also have a visibility issue – a state senator is a virtual unknown to 3/4ths of the district while an assembly member is a virtual unknown to 11/12ths of the district.

  Kevin suggests that a mayor/village president would get in, but they would have an even bigger visibility and monetary disadvantage.

  It is likely that there will be a multi-person primary. The Republicans need only pick up 4 of 99 seats in the Assembly and/or 2 of 17 seats in the Senate to get a majority, and both Republican candidates for governor continue to lead the presumptive Democrat nominee. Even if the Democrats ultimately lose control of the House of Representatives, a tripling of salary and some propsect of being relevant is likely going to get more than one person to bail on the Legislature. Further, Sen. Julie Lassa, as well as any mayor/village president (or nonpartisan county official) won’t have to choose which office to run for.

  Everybody involved has a relatively-short deadline to decide – the filing deadline is July 13.

• The Journal Sentinel brought a blast from the past. Obey completed graduate work in Soviet politics at UW, but rather than collect the master’s degree, he decided to put that knowledge to work. I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find that out.

While the road appears to be clear for Duffy, who not only has some money and national support (notably from Sarah Palin and the House Conservatives Fund), but also significant in-district support (including the district caucus endorsement), there are still a pair of hurdles. The first is Dan Mielke, who got crushed by Obey in 2008 after running unopposed in the primary, and is back for more. Somehow I doubt the rank-and-file is going to go for Mielke in September given the general lack of support, and the likelyhood of a Democratic primary would tend to prevent Operation Chaos.

The second is the aforementioned Democrat tilt of the district. The Cook Report’s D+3 rating actually understates how dominant the Democrats have been. The Government Accountability Board doesn’t have Congressional district-level results prior to the fall 2004 elections (except for the 2000 fall election), but they do have them for the succeeding elections. The recent results (outside the typical Obey whitewashings):

– 2000 Presidential (prior to redistricting) – Gore +1.40 (compared to Gore +0.22 statewide)
– 2000 Senate (prior to redistricting) – Kohl +35.98 (Kohl +24.51 statewide)
– 2004 Presidential – Kerry +0.86 (Kerry +0.38 statewide)
– 2004 Senate – Feingold +14.35 (Feingold +11.24 statewide)
– 2006 Governor – Doyle +12.35 (Doyle +7.39 statewide)
– 2006 Attorney General – Falk +2.60 (Van Hollen +0.42 statewide)
– 2006 Senate – Kohl +41.93 (Kohl +37.85 statewide)
– 2008 Presidential – Obama +13.19 (Obama +13.91 statewide)

In the five recent contested district-wide non-partisan races (3 state Supreme Court races and 2 state superintendent races), only Justices Annette Ziegler (who did significantly worse than she did statewide) and Michael Gableman (who outperformed his statewide numbers because he is from the district and was facing an appointed Justice from Milwaukee who already lost one Supreme Court race) broke through the liberal stranglehold, with 19-26 point advantages for the liberal candidates in the other 3 races.

That said, recent semi-leaked internal polls reportely had Obey in serious trouble against Duffy. Given the entirety of the potential legislative challengers have similar pork-related problems to Obey, I don’t see a “fresh Dem face” doing any better against Duffy.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of non-WI07 items. First, Obey looked and sounded quite worn out. That is not unexpected for a 71-year-old who finally fulfilled a lifelong dream to put the US on the road to CubaCare by hook and by crook. On the other hand, Politico noted that, as late as Tuesday, his campaign staff was hiring.

Second, he is a close confidant of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Even if the Democrats maintained control of the House come January, it is “not exactly” a given she would continue as Speaker. If she were ousted, allies of hers would likely suffer. I don’t think Obey would take kindly to being either the ranking member on Appropriations or worse, just a member.

Revisions/extensions (10:20 pm 5/5/2010) – With another tip of the hat to Kevin, the Cook Political Report moved the seat from Likely Democratic to Toss-Up.

Also, there’s something I missed in the Journal Sentinel story that Kevin picked up – we might get a third Republican in the race, Rep. Jerry Petrowski (R-Marathon). However, as Kevin notes, if Decker jumps in the House race, Petrowski may well try for Decker’s Senate seat if he’s in the mood for bucking for a promotion.

R&E part 2 (12:16 am 5/6/2010) – Yes, I’m up way too late. However, my man in the know in the Capitol, Lance Burri, has a few words on what it would mean for the two Senate Dems who would be giving up their seat for a shot at the House. He says that, if Decker runs, he knows the Senate Dems are in for a whupping and that he’d be out of the leadership. If Pat Kreitlow runs, he knows he’d be a casualty. Bonus item on Kreitlow – I didn’t know he was considered one of the more vulnerable Dems (I thought that honor went to Jim Sullivan, John Lehman and Kathleen Vinehout), and do remember it takes only 2 of those to fall for the Republicans to take back the Senate.