Well, 24 hours have passed since the primaries have ended (at least when I started typing this), and Wisconsin Republicans and conservatives seem to be avoiding the Hell that has broken loose over the Delaware Senate results that has pitted former friend against former friend after a background-challenged conservative beat a voting-record-challenged Democrat-In-All-But-Affiliation backed by the DC/Delaware Establishment. With the county-level results available from the AP (via JSOnline), a proper analysis can actually be made. Of course, there isn’t a pro handy when I need one, so I’m going to have to do it myself.
Governor race
Whether one likes it or not, southeast Wisconsin is the heart of the GOP. The 5-county Milwaukee metro area (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee and Racine Counties) provided 38% of all the votes in the primary and both of the major candidates in the race. The extended 11-county Milwaukee media market (which also includes Kenosha, Walworth, Jefferson, Dodge, Fond du Lac and Sheboygan Counties) provided over 51% of all the votes in the primary. Scott Walker took over 75% of the vote in the Milwaukee metro area and almost 72% of the vote in the Milwaukee media market, earning almost as many votes in just those 11 counties as Neumann earned statewide.
The lesson of the day is that those who can credibly fuse the Tea Party Movement grassroots and the GOP grassroots will have no problem with the anti-incumbent mood out there.
There is an interesting dynamic in the county-by-county map compiled by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – one can tell what counties are in what media markets by which candidate won which county. I have but ancedotal evidence, but in media markets where there was parity betwen Walker and Neumann, Walker carried the day, while in media markets where Neumann dominated the airwaves, he carried the day. The other dynamic is that the four counties where the hometown candidates tied themselves to Walker (Waukesha with Rebecca Kleefisch, Dane with Brett Davis, Douglas with Dave Ross and Ashland with Sean Duffy), Walker carried the day.
The bad news for the Democrats is that because they chose the mayor of Milwaukee, they can’t take advantage of the built-in anti-Milwaukee bias outstate.
Lieutenant governor
The ease with which Rebecca Kleefisch won the primary is possibly the most-surprising development out of Wisconsin yesterday. The “Establishment” was rather solidly behind Brett Davis, despite his failure to get the party endorsement (or even a majority in the endorsement vote). Dave Ross was postioned as the outstate candidate, and after finishing second in the endorsement vote, had been winning straw poll after straw poll. Kleefisch redoubled her efforts over the last few months, connected with the actual voters, and used the Southeast Wisconsin Factor to run away with the nomination.
On the Democrat side, they chose geographical balance over skin-tone balance. Honestly, I can’t blame them because there is one thing more reviled in outstate Wisconsin than a Milwaukee Republican – a Milwaukee Democrat, and a ticket with two Miwaukee Democrats is a recipe for disaster even in a year that is favorable to Democrats, which this year is definitely not.
Senate race
Honestly, there is very little to say about Ron Johnson’s 75-point drubbing of Dave Westlake. A couple million dollars and a conservative message delivered in mass media crushes a few dozen ten-thousand dollars and the same message delivered to a few dozen people at a time in a Republican primary every day of the week and twice on Tuesdays. It does, however, lead into this….
Operation Revenge Chaos
We on the right learned the lesson in 2008 when the Rush Limbaugh-led Operation Chaos failed to derail the Barack Obama campaign late in the primary season. Now, the left has learned that it just doesn’t work. In fact, given Walker’s 20-point and Johnson’s 75-point wins, I wonder if it was merely bluster on the part of the left half of the Cheddarsphere, or if they really are that ineffective outside a single state Senate district (more on that in a bit).
State treasurer race
What is it about the last 2 cycles that has attracted the crazies to the race? First, we got a part-time Boston Store clerk who rode the Democrat tide to oust Jack Voight; now we got a male ex-Kelly Girl failing to oust Dawn Marie Sass in the Democrat primary, and a goof who wants to ride the notoriety of benig the last treasurer ever into a career as a politician winning the Republican primary. Where is my Facepalmolive?
The Congressional races
The set-up for potential-to-likely flips to the GOP is now complete, with Dan Kapanke winning in the 3rd, Sean Duffy winning in the 7th, and Reid Ribble winning in the 8th. Ben Froland has a message for the bitter-enders that supported Terri McCormick in the 8th (who notably refused to endorse Ribble last night) that also applies to the bitter-enders that supported Dan Mielke in the 7th – “The bottom line is: If you don’t vote for the perceived lesser of two evils, the greater of two evils will always win and the result is greater evil. Period.”
I wish Chad Lee in the 2nd and Dan Sebring in the 4th all the luck in the world. They don’t have a chance in two of the safest Democrat districts in the country, but it still is necessary to hammer the stone; one never knows when it will crack like it did in the 7th.
Milwaukee County Democrat Party Purification
The one bright spot for the lefties is that they easily claimed the scalp of state Senator Jeff Plale as Chris Larson won by 22 points. Those who were paying attention should have known this was coming since 2006, when a “Democrat who (would) vote like a Democrat” who was forced to withdraw from the race a couple weeks from the election because he, well, voted twice like a Democrat got 26% of the vote. I don’t know if they really wanted to do it this cycle, because if there ever was an election where a non-Democrat could win in the 7th Senate District, this is the one. That is still a pipe dream, but on January 1, 2010, a non-Democrat holding the Senate seat occupied by Ted Kennedy and Dave Obey being scared into retirement were as much pipe dreams.
As successful as they were at purging Plale, they were equally unsuccessful at purging Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. It will be very interesting to see the ward-by-ward results for the entire county (if they ever become available, that is) to see how and where they failed to pull that off.
