No Runny Eggs

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson is the Republican Party of Wisconsin-endorsed candidate. There’s a few items that have happened since then.

Rasmussen Reports took a poll of 500 likely voters, and found that Russ Feingold (D-WI) holds a mere 46%-44% lead over Johnson. Feingold continues to have a 6-point lead over Terrence Wall (47%-41% this month, compared to 49%-43% in April), and a 9-point lead over Dave Westlake (47%-38% this month, compared to 49%-38% in April).

Meanwhile, George Will is singing the praises of Johnson. Will praised Johnson’s choice of reading material (“Atlas Shrugged”), and noted that, unlike John Galt, Johnson chose to run.

WisPolitics is reporting that the Senate campaign of Terrence Wall, in the wake of losing the RPW endorsement race to Johnson, is imploding. They are reporting that his campaign manager, Ryan Murray, is out, that his honorary campaign co-chairs, Jim Klauser (Tommy Thompson’s Secretary of Administration) and Mary Buestrin (the RPW national committewoman), will be endorsing Johnson (Buestrin is obligated to do so as a party official), and that his departure from the race is “imminent”.

For his part, Westlake told WISN-AM’s Jay Weber this morning he’s in it until the end.

Revisions/extensions (3:12 pm 5/27/2010) – Here’s the official statement from the Wall campaign:

With great reluctance, I am withdrawing my candidacy from the United States Senate race against Russ Feingold. Since we began this journey last October, I have been so grateful for the support of Wisconsinites hungry for real fiscal conservatism and change in their government. And no matter how much I want to stay in and fight, I feel the honorable thing to do is exit.

When I started this effort, I had two goals: First, to turn this country around before it’s too late, and second, to prove that Russ Feingold could be defeated. We did show that we could win this race and we did so running an honest, clean campaign.

Last October, the polls showed us down double-digits and few had heard my name outside of Dane County. Recent polling now shows that we have closed within the margin of error.

As I traveled across this great State, county-to-county, city-to-city and handshake-to-handshake, I realized that the vast number of people I’ve met believe that we need people just like us to bring structural change to Washington.

The Republican Party has an opportunity in this environment to bring in new and out-of-the-box candidates who have made the grassroots effort and done the hard work that is necessary to beat Russ Feingold.

I will continue to fight for fundamental change, such as those solutions I present in my Patriots’ Bill of Rights. I urge you to go to www.patriotsbillofrights.org and sign the Patriots’ Bill of Rights. Just as our politicians try to govern us, so now we must govern them.

I cannot begin to express my sincere gratitude for all of the people I’ve met on the trail who have supported me, from those who have volunteered on my campaign and provided financial support, to the thousands of honest, hardworking Americans that I’ve met as I traveled the state over the last seven months.

I’ll continue to be involved in getting our country turned around, but it’s time for me to take a step back and take a hard look at how we move our country and the Republican Party forward.