No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for the 'Politics – Wisconsin' Category

May 27, 2010

Wisconsin Senate updates

by @ 7:37. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

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.

May 24, 2010

Leinenkugel’s exit less-than-amicable

by @ 7:20. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Jerry Bader found the last interview Dick Leinenkugel did as a candidate, done with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Leinenkugel blamed talk radio for his demise, and claimed the GOP needs to “broaden” the party.

I would say that actions such as endorsing combined reporting (done after he entered the race) and being a key part of the Dirty Talgo Deal did more to torpedo his campaign than simply being the “token opposition party Cabinet member”. Of course, talk radio is what brought those actions out of the memory hole.

May 23, 2010

Post-convention wrap

by @ 20:52. Filed under RPW Convention.

I really wish I would have made Sunday’s session. However, allergies really knocked me flat, so I missed the big surprises of the convention – Dick Leinenkugel dropping out, and Ron Johnson earning both Leinenkugel’s and the party’s endorsements. Let’s see if I can play catch-up as part of the wrap.

Before I get to the main part, I do need to clarify to those not familiar with what an RPW endorsement means. It gives the endorsed candidate access to party money, staff and lists. It does not either make the endorsed candidate’s ballot access easier (much less guaranteed) or make the other candidates’ ballot access harder. All candidates still need to circulate and get the same number of signatures on nomination papers filed with the Government Accountability Board.

  • Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s Friday pitch to the delegates was enough to carry himself to a bare plurality in WisPolitics’ straw poll of 457 of the the attendees for the 2012 Presidential nomination. He received 87 (or 85, depending on where in the write-up one gets one’s numbers from) votes, with former governor Sarah Palin second with 68, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (widely seen nationwide as the Next-In-Line™) third with 65, Newt Gingrich fourth among the “official” candidates with 45, Ron Paul 5th with 32, and Mike Huckabee tied for 6th with 18. Notably, 55 people specifically wrote in Paul Ryan, who was not listed on the ballot, while 31 people wrote in somebody else not on the ballot (which also included Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Mike Pence and Rick Santorum) or otherwise said “other” and 6 declined to vote.
  • There were also two other questions on the abbreviated straw poll – whether the attendees supported the endorsement process, and whether they supported the Tea Party movement. By a vote of 316 yes to 74 no to 58 no preference, they supported the endorsement process. By a 425-20 margin, they support the Tea Party movement. Do keep those results, especially the second, in mind, for a few of the other items.

    Speaking of that second result, it is a recognition that the RPW under Chairman Reince Priebus has made significant strides in regaining its small-government mantle after the Thompson-Graber-Schultz-Gard era.

  • Owen Robinson and Deb Jordahl thoroughly blew apart the street theater the Mark Neumann campaign successfully sold to the LeftStreamMedia. Unlike the LSM, Owen actually interviewed RPW Exective Director Mark Jefferson, who said that the convention hall was limited to credentialed delegates, alternates, guests and media, and that at that point, nobody from the Neumann campaign had complained to the RPW about the situation.

    Jordahl noted three elements that would earn the Twitter #fail hashtag for those who actually pay attention. First, after trying to get a massive protest organized through his “50,000 Facebook friends”, he was only able to get a few dozen to show up, and most of those were from his campaign staff. Second, among those few dozen was at least one credentialed delegate, who as a delegate had full access (and indeed, voting rights in the endorsement process). Third, Neumann himself promptly went back into the hall and voted in the endorsement process.

    I might have noted this before on the blog, but Neumann hadn’t exactly been trying to court either the party regulars or the Tea Party movement crowd in the first 7 months of his campaign. When he finally tried to tie himself to any portion of the Tea Party movement, he chose the national Tea Party Express rather than any of the local groups, such as the Racine, Wausau or Oshkosh Tea Party groups.

  • The lieutenant governor’s vote showed a couple of interesting “insider baseball” elements. First, regional campaigns, such as the one Dave Ross has been conducting, don’t exactly work. Second, running a campaign based as much on one’s gender as anything else is not a winning strategy in the GOP. Third, record does matter, even if one reaches out significantly to the Tea Party movement and has significant “insider cred”. That 2007 vote for the Doyle budget kept Brett Davis from topping 50%.
  • Dick Leinenkugel’s drop-out from the race was only a bit of a surprise because of his previous service as Democrat Governor Jim Doyle’s Secretary of Commerce. I truly wish I had been able to interview him, because his subsequent endorsement of Ron Johnson, which was a huge surprise, certainly appears to invalidate at least part of the conventional wisdom that Leinenkugel was a stealth Democrat candidate.

    Something I had not had the opportunity to mention prior because I didn’t quite complete the background research also breaks part of that conventional wisdom – the only state or federal-level donation I could find from Leinenkugel was a single 2004-cycle donation to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee. Again, keep that in mind.

  • Speaking of surprises, the biggest surprise was the party endorsement of Ron Johnson on the second ballot. Johnson is, outside the Tea Party movement (and even within parts of it), a rather blank slate on specific issues.

    There is a recognition that in a high-cost race, one-on-one campaigning simply isn’t enough. That lesson was driven home in 2004, when the NRSC and a previous RPW leadership took their wads of cash and went home after Tim Michels upset their prefered candidate, Russ Darrow, in the primary. The victim of that was Dave Westlake, who went out of the endorsement race on the first ballot with 15.1% of the vote.

    Repeating one of the themes in the lieutenant governor’s endorsement race, record matters. In this case of political neophytes, it was Terrence Wall’s donation record, littered with donations to various Democrats, from Jim Doyle to Tammy Baldwin, that overwhelmed everything else. It even overwhelmed a closing trend on Russ Feingold in polls. He didn’t get higher than 23.6% of the endorsement vote, and that was on the first of the two ballots.

  • It wouldn’t be a convention without a review of the hospitality suites. Even though the food offering was weak compared to previous conventions, and everybody who had food the first night ran out very quickly, Paul Ryan’s suite (guest-hosted by Jim Sensenbrenner after the Ryans had to leave early in the wake of Jenna’s mother’s passing) did not disappoint. Ron Johnson’s hallway spread the first night probably was pretty impressive, but by the time I got to it, everything was gone.

    The best theme was Ben Collins’ military theme. He had ammo boxes and a pair of shooting games (one electronic, one airsoft gun). The RACC highway signs were pretty nice as well, but the fact they were stuck on a different floor than the main set of suites hurt the attendance.

May 22, 2010

RPW convention – endorsement liveblog – UPDATE – Walker endorsed

by @ 13:42. Filed under RPW Convention.

Since updates might be fast and furious, I’ll be firing up Cover It Live for the endorsement liveblog.

Revisions/extensions (4:22 pm 5/22/2010) – In case you missed the liveblog, Scott Walker was overwhelmingly endorsed by the convention with 91.3% of the vote.

R&E part 2 (6:31 pm 5/22/2010) – Yes, we’re running way late. Round 1 of lieutenant governor endorsement balloting done, and Brett Davis led with 37.40%. Dave Ross (25.20%) Ben Collins (13.85%) also move on to round 2. Rebecca Kleefisch eliminated with 13.75%.

The Senate endorsement votes will be tomorrow.

R&E part 3 (7:42 pm 5/22/2010 – There will be no endorsement in the lieutenant governor’s race. Unofficially, Brett Davis ended the 3rd and final ballot with a bit under 50%, with Dave Ross a bit under 34%.

RPW interview – David King

by @ 11:51. Filed under RPW Convention.

Pastor David King is running for Secretary of State against incumbent Doug LaFollette. He sees a more visible role for secretary of state than it has currently.

Here is the interview.

RPW convention interview – Peter Theron

by @ 11:45. Filed under RPW Convention.

Peter Theron is running in the 2nd Congressional District, currently held by Tammy Baldwin. While this is a very tough seat for Republicans because it includes Madison, Theron pointed out that he outperformed the McCain/Palin ticket when he ran in 2008.

Here is the interview.

RPW convention interview – Dan Kapanke

by @ 10:45. Filed under RPW Convention.

My first interview of the day was with Dan Kapanke, who is taking on Ron Kind in the 3rd Congressional District. The caffeine hadn’t quite made it through my system yet, but since he’s the “forgotten” part of the quite-possible 3-seat switch, here it is.

Quick RPW convention first-day update

by @ 7:47. Filed under RPW Convention.

Sorry for the general lack of updates, but net access was a bit limited last night, and I don’t have a lot of time before I have to take off to the Midw…er, Frontier Airlines Center. First things first, Rep. Paul Ryan and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty spoke at the chairman’s reception last night at the Harley Museum. Audio links are:

Paul Ryan’s comments
Tim Pawlenty’s comments

In case you missed my Twitter feed, last night’s highlight was the hospitality rooms. A sign the convention is crowded – nobody had enough food. I’d have to say the first-night winner was Ben Collins, who had an airsoft gun range set up (the gun was shooting a bit high and right) as part of his military-themed room. Other unique rooms were Scott Walker’s Arizona-themed room (complete with a live band), Mark Neumann’s luau-themed room (yes, he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt), and Dave Ross’ 50s-themed room. Also with rooms last night were Rebecca Kleefisch, Dave Westlake, David King, Terrence Wall (who was serving up cotton candy and sno-cones), and Brett Davis (who, other than Walker, had the most-consistently crowded room). Down on the first floor were several candidates for the 8th Congressional seat, while Ron Johnson set up a spread on the balcony and Dick Leinenkugel was meeting-and-greeting.

In any case, it’s off to today’s main floor session and some interviews.

May 19, 2010

Covering the 2010 RPW State Convention

by @ 14:41. Filed under RPW Convention.

For the third year, I’ll be covering the Republican Party of Wisconsin State Convention. I’ll be joined by a few of my friends:

– Kevin Binversie from Lakeshore Laments
– Owen Robinson from Boots and Sabers
– Kyle Maichle from North Shore Exponent
– Rick Sense from The Inside Scoop
– The gang from the MacIver Institute

If you can’t make it down to Milwaukee for the fun, stick around, visit the friends, and stay tuned for the news from the convention. Of course, if you can make it to Milwaukee, come on down – there’s going to be so many people here that the RPW needed to get the Midw…er, Frontier Airlines Center for Saturday’s portion.

May 17, 2010

McCallum endorses Wall

by @ 11:58. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

In a statement released by the Terrence Wall campaign, former Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum said:

Terrence Wall has balanced budgets for the last 20 years as a small business owner. That’s exactly the kind of experience we need in Washington today. I’m endorsing Terrence because I know he will stand up to the power brokers in Washington – Democrats or Republicans – and fight for a balanced budget that won’t saddle our children with any more debt. As Governor, I wasn’t afraid to propose true spending cuts, and I know Terrence won’t be either.

This ties into a pledge from Wall last week to vote only for a balanced budget.

Normally, an ex-governor’s endorsement would be gigantic news. However, McCallum was a “caretaker” governor who happened to be lieutenant governor when Tommy Thompson left for the Bush administration, and his attempts to put Wisconsin on a track toward budget solvency wasn’t well-received even by his fellow Republicans.

Ron Johnson is in the Senate race

by @ 11:32. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Ron Johnson, president of Pacur Inc., has announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for United States Senate. My initial thoughts are that he is a good person, but that there are now too many people in the primary, especially considering a former Doyle cabinet member who just can’t let go of his liberal views is one of those four.

May 5, 2010

Obey out

by @ 22:01. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

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.

April 29, 2010

Senate horserace update

by @ 15:27. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Well, I can’t exactly call it a horserace yet, unless it’s one to the glue factory, but there are several updates:

  • First, former Doyle Commerce Secretary Dick Leinenkugel launched his spoil…er, campaign, and the initial signs are not exactly encouraging. Even before he got in, Rasmussen had his head-to-head matchup against Russ Feingold as the worst of the three announced challengers at 48% Feingold/37% Leinenkugel/7% somebody else.

    He followed that up with a train-wreck of an opening interview on WTMJ-AM’s Charlie Sykes’ show, in which he defended the dirty Talgo deal, a massive rail network, and a deadly-to-business cap-and-tax scheme. One GOP insider said, “I frankly don’t get it. He has no base; no story to get a base, and no money to put in the race.”

    The latest stake comes from the Sauk County GOP (H/T – Little Miss Sunshine, who completely misread the effect). They have passed a resolution rejecting the Leinenkugel campaign, and plan on putting a similar resolution on the floor of the state convention next month.

  • Speaking of that Rasmussen poll, Terrence Wall is actually starting to close on Feingold now that Tommy Thompson is out of the race. He trailed Feingold 49%/43%/3%. Dave Westlake, on the other hand, continues to lag significantly (49%/38%/4%).
  • Another potential big name has bowed out of running – retiring State Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) bowed out. As Patrick McIlheran recorded, Kanavas told Sykes that it would take $5 million to think about taking on Feingold, which he would have had to begin raising long before now.
  • Speaking of money, Feingold added another $1.3 million in donations the past quarter to bring his warchest to $4.3 million. Meanwhile, Wall raised $103,000 and loaned the campaign $1.2 million the past quarter to put his warchest at just over $1 million (and a total of $1.5 million in debt, and Westlake is essentially out of cash (just under $14,000 raised the past quarter, with $2,288 in cash on hand). As Wall told me on the 15th, the Thompson Wait, and a focus on meeting voters, had a significant effect on that.
  • In a bit of (hopefully) good news with a tip of the hat to Owen, WisPolitics is reporting Oshkosh businessman/Tea Party founder Ron Johnson is getting in the race. As I noted on the 15th, WISN-AM’s Jay Weber mentioned that Johnson was allegedly prepared to put a significant amount of his own money (up to $10 million) into the race.
  • The last challenger for Feingold, Tim Michels, is still undecided about entering the race. Michels got smoked by Feingold in 2004 after getting a major upset in a crowded primary, which included semi-official NRSC candidate/car dealer Russ Darrow and state Senator Bob Welch. After the primary, the NRSC pulled out of Wisconsin.

I have a bad feeling if this remains a 4-5 person primary. There is only one Democrat statewide primary on the horizon (lieutenant governor), and the Dems are busy “deconflicting” that so they can meddle in the Republican primaries. Housekeeping note for those of you from out-of-state – while Wisconsin does not have party registration, a voter cannot vote in more than one party’s primary per election.

April 15, 2010

Thomspon not running for Senate

by @ 15:04. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Tommy Thompson made it official at today’s Madison Tea Party, at the end of a fiery speech in which he tried to make common cause with the roughly 12,000 Tea Partiers. He did not endorse anybody Since I was there, I do have audio of the speech – just click here for it (sorry about the less-than-optimal quality – I was juggling my semi-smart phone, camera and the voice recorder).

After the Tea Party, I did quick interviews with the two announced candidates, Terrence Wall and Dave Westlake (click on the links for the audio). I specifically asked them about the announcement from Thompson as well as their fundraising efforts.

I must also note that while Ron Johnson was one of the speakers, he did not mention one way or the other his possible candidacy.

Revisions/extensions (3:25 pm 4/15/2010) – Fixed the link to the Wall interview. That’s the problem with trying to do things on the laptop with it actually on my lap.

Thompson to endorse Ron Johnson?

by @ 7:29. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

That’s the theory from WISN-AM’s Jay Weber unleashed this morning. For those of you who catch this “live”, Weber is exploring this in depth. For those of you who don’t and have to catch the podcast (which should be up about 8:30), the initial theory came in the first half-hour of the show, with the in-depth explanation in the third hour.

The short version of Weber’s theory – Mark Block, the state director of Americans for Prosperity and the organizer of today’s Madison Tea Party, was Thompson’s campaign manager in 1990. Thompson wouldn’t use his speaking slot at the Tea Party to simply say that he’s not running for Senate, and he wouldn’t use it to endorse former Doyle Commerce Secretary Dick Leinenkugel. He noted that Ron Johnson, president of Pacur and founding member of the Oshkosh Tea Party, is also speaking at the Madison Tea Party, and that Johnson previously said that if Thompson wasn’t in the race, he’d jump in. He also noted that Johnson has told GOP insiders that he’s prepared to put $10 million of his own money in the race. That is important because Sen. Russ Feingold raised another $1.3 million in the first quarter with $4.26 million in the bank, and his wealthier announced challenger, Terrence Wall, put $1.2 million of his own money to match that $1.3 million raised. The bad news for Wall is he only has $1 million in the bank.

Related to that, the Oshkosh Northwestern ran a story on Johnson’s interest in the race. Johnson told the Northwestern that his children have grown up and his business is big enough for him to take a leave. His major concern is whether he can put together a campaign staff capable of giving him a legitimate chance of winning. While nearly every recent poll had Thompson beating Feingold in a hypothetical matchup, neither Wall nor Dave Westlake, the other declared candidate, were within hailing distance.

April 14, 2010

Thompson Senate saga to end tomorrow with a no…maybe

by @ 16:38. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

If I were truly a good blogger, I probably would’ve had this about the same time that Kevin Binversie and Ed Morrissey did, but I was busy doing my taxes so I would be able to show up at the likely announcement tomorrow.

WTMJ-TV/AM is reporting that former Governor Tommy Thompson is expected to announce something regarding a potential Senate bid tomorrow at the Madison Tea Party. Charles Benson initially reported that a source close to Thomspon said that he would not run, but the Associated Press subsequently quoted Thompson, “The only person who knows what I’m going to do is myself and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

In anticipation of an actual announcement tomorrow, I will be closing the poll on whether Thompson should run, which is over on the left sidebar, at midnight tonight. I will mention that I chose “He won’t run, but should.”

While much of Thompson’s free-spending record, as well as his infamous “Stick it to ’em” quip to outstate Wisconsinites in the middle of the debate of whether to allow a Milwaukee-area-only sales tax to finance construction of Miller Park, would tend to mitigate against him appearing at a Tax Day Tea Party, he does have some credentials when it comes to school financing. As part of the deal where the state took over 2/3rds of funding, school districts have to have their budgets approved by the district’s electors at an annual meeting, and have to go to a voter referendum to either offer bonds of over $1 million or exceed revenue limits (historically anything more than the Qualified Economic Offer plus increase in enrollment from the previous year).

There are currently two announced candidates, Dave Westlake and Terrence Wall. They have both been rather-heavily courting the Tea Party crowd, and both have said that they would stay in the race even if Thompson enters. Westlake has the more-consistent track record, but he has essentially stopped trying to raise funds after a far-less-than-successful early effort. Wall, who has significant self-financing ability and has had some fundraising efforts, has donated to numerous Democrats.

Meanwhile, Dick Leinenkugel, late of Democrat Governor Jim Doyle’s administration as Secretary of Commerce, and part of the Leinenkugel Brewing family, has broadly dropped hints that he will enter the race for the Republican nomination. If Wall has issues with his donation record, Leinenkugel would have more-significant issues with his record as Commerce Secretary under a Democrat governor, which includes not getting personally invovled in numerous failed attempts to woo and keep companies that don’t serve the wants of government while getting personally involved in a rather-shady Spain-based Talgo train-car deal that was the nail in Milwaukee-based Super Steel. I’ll refer you to Kevin for the both-sides-of-the-street beatdown.

While the WTMJ video report didn’t mention Leinenkugel, it did mention Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson. Johnson said that, if Thompson didn’t get in the race, he would, but if Thompson did get in, he wouldn’t. I honestly don’t know who Johnson is, so I can’t offer an opinion yet on whether he should enter the race.

Revisions/extensions (4:40 pm 4/14/2010) – WISN-AM’s Mark Belling is talking about this now. He’s saying that while Thompson really wants to run, the rest of his family is begging him to not run.

R&E part 2 (8:12 am 4/15/2010) – A bit more on Johnson, who is a founder of the Oshkosh Tea Party, as well as the theory from WISN-AM’s Jay Weber, that Thompson will endorse Johnson today, here.

April 13, 2010

A taxing proposition

by @ 12:52. Filed under Politics - Minnesota, Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

If it’s tax time, it’s time to talk taxes. There are four interesting items that popped up the last few days, a Rasmussen poll, a CBS News poll (H/T – Allahpundit), a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story series, and a video from the Center of Freedom and Prosperity (H/T – Ed Morrissey). Before I get to the meat of the post, I’ll present the video which explains how even those who don’t think the tax code doesn’t impose a significant drag on the economy are ensared by the massive amount of work that is required to comply with a code that requires a handcart to make just the federal portion portable.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX8EswfGKQw[/youtube]

In the CBS poll, very few people across all income levels think they’re undertaxed. Overall, 50% said they pay their fair share, 43% said they pay more than their fair share, and 1% said they pay less than their fair share, the worst fair-share/more-than-fair-share split in that poll since 1997. Interestingly, of those making less than $50,000 per year, despite many having no net federal income tax liability (47% at last count), only 2% said they didn’t pay their fair share. Of course, the 7.65% FICA tax, whatever portion of the federal excise taxes (mostly gasoline, alcohol and tobacco, a total of 0.46% of income in 2007), and whatever state/local taxes they pay put a drag on that.

That ties with the Rasmussen poll, where 66% believe that America is overtaxed, with 25% not believing so. In that poll, a plurality (34%) believe America pays around 30% between federal, state and local taxes, while 26% believe it’s around 20% and 15% believe it’s around 40%. Further, an overwhelming majority (75%) believes the total government take should be under 30%, and a near-majority (43%) believe it should be under 20%. In reality, as of 2007, it was over 37%, not including water bills or state-level unemployment/worker’s compensation.

That leads me to the big enchilada – the Journal Sentinel story, which uses Census data to compare Wisconsin state and local taxes to those in other states, and includes a sidebar story comparing Wisconsin and Minnesota. Dave Umhoefer noted that, once crosses the $30,000 threshhold in Wisconsin, or buys property, the hammer really comes down, and doesn’t stop coming down at a harder and harder rate. My biggest gripe is that he and the rest of the staff didn’t put the taxation in terms of income, so I’ll do that.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2007, the per-capita income in Wisconsin was $36,271, which ranked 26th-highest among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and was a bit lower than the national per-capita income of $38,615. According to the Census Bureau, the state and local taxes were $23.340 billion, not counting water bills or unemployment/worker’s compensation taxes (which the Census Bureau counts separately). That took 11.49% of income in Wisconsin, which ranks 11th-highest and compares poorly to the average of 10.96% nationwide (note – I sent an e-mail to Dave last night asking whether he added water bills into that, which would make Wisconsin 15th because water bills in Wisconsin are far lower than the national average; I haven’t received a response yet). Specifically, property taxes took 4.14% of income (10th nationally, far higher than the 3.29% national average), sales taxes took 2.19% of income (34th nationally, lower than the 2.57% national average), the gas tax took 0.49% of income (9th nationally, higher than the 0.33% national average), individual income taxes took 3.12% of income (13th nationally, again far higher than the 2.49% national average), the corporate income tax took 0.45% of income (25th nationally, marginally below the 0.52% national average), and vehicle license fees took 0.18% of income (24th nationally, essentially the same as the 0.18% national average).

Fees in Wisconsin, ranging from tuition to school lunch, from hospitals to sewers, but not including utilities or mass-transit, took in $6.079 billion, or 2.99% of income. That was 31st nationwide, and just under the 3.02% national average. Overall, taxes and fees took $29.419 billion in 2007, or 14.49% of income. That ranks 19th, and is significantly higher than the 13.98% average.

Spending by the state of Wisconsin and local governments, which includes $7.166 billion in federal money transfered to the state and local units of government, was $46.612 billion in 2007. While the 22.95% of income ranks 28th, it is still higher than the 22.93% national average. Moreover, because that federal money is not quite what other states received, the $39.446 billion ex-federal-funding spending, which represents 19.42% of income, both ranks 16th-highest nationally and is significantly higher than the national average of 18.91%

Let’s compare that to Minnesota. The per-capita income was $41,108, which ranked 13th and was significantly higher than both the national per-capita and Wisconsin per-capita income. The tax take was $23.665 billion (11.11% of income, 20th nationwide, compared to 10.96% nationwide and 11.49% in Wisconsin), with property taxes taking 2.87% of income (31st, compared to 3.29%/4.14%), sales taxes taking 2.13% of income (36th, compared to 2.57%/2.19%), gas taxes taking 0.30% of income (39th, compared to 0.33%/0.49%), individual income taxes taking 3.39% (9th, compared to 2.49%/3.12%), corporate income taxes taking 0.56% (15th, compared to 0.52%/0.45%), and vehicle license fees taking 0.24% (15th, compared to 0.18%/0.18%).

Fees took in 3.01% of income in Minnesota, which puts the state 30th nationally, and slots between the nationwide average (3.02%) and Wisconsin (2.99%). Overall, the 14.12% of income taken by Minnesota and its locales puts it 24th, a few ticks above the national average (14.12%) and quite a bit better than Wisconsin (14.49%).

Spending in Minnesota follows a similar pattern because like Wisconsin, Minnesota is a “federal net donor” state. The $47.222 billion, including $7.333 billion from the federal government, represents 22.17% of income, good for 35th nationally and well lower than the national average of 22.93% and Wisconsin’s 22.95%. Backing out the federal money brings spending closer to the national average (18.73% versus 18.91%), ranking Minnesota 24th and placing it far better than Wisconsin’s 19.42%).

March 31, 2010

Shocker – the Barrett Bypass/Doyle Detour to end “early”

by @ 16:54. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Transportation.

The gang at the very-unofficial ScottForGov.com nailed the bullshit call on the 8-week closure timeframe trotted out by the DOT and dutifully parrotted by the LeftStreamMedia. Word has just come down that the new northbound US-45 span over eastbound I-94, which has been closed since last Friday, will reopen at 5 am tomorrow Friday morning. The Journal Sentinel’s Tom Held amazingly continues to parrot the government li(n)e that it is 7 weeks ahead of schedule.

News flash – as I noted when the old bridge was closed, the deck on the new bridge was already poured. All that remained to be done to put the new bridge into service was to let the concrete cure, put some asphalt down for the approaches, and restripe some lanes. Given the original closure limitation to nights and weekends, the original schedule of no full closure last weekend to do said approach work, and the fact it took half a weekend to pave the approaches, that delay is, depending on whether the work crews would have worked the holiday weekend or next weekend, either 4 or 11 days.

Revisions/extensions (5:02 pm 3/31/2010) – Somehow confused Thursday and Friday.

March 29, 2010

Deconstructing the Zoo Interchange Debacle

by @ 17:41. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Transportation.

Some semi-random thoughts on what has become the Barrett Bypass:

  • The moment I-94 between the airport and the Illinois border became the post-Marquette priority at the end of 2004, this became inevitable. The 2005 veto of engineering funds by Jim Doyle (supported by Tom Barrett) and the 2009 veto of most of the engineering funds (again a joint Doyle/Barrett production) would not have done anything to stop this. On the other hand, Barrett had a big hand in Doyle making that decision – at the time, it had been widely expected that the Zoo Interchange would be the post-Marquette priority, and Barrett’s staunch opposition to a Zoo rebuild that would accomodate an 8-lane Zoo-to-Marquette I-94 led Doyle to the “expedient” alternative.
  • That said, had the Zoo been rebuilt first, it is quite conceivable that before the Mitchell Interchange would have been rebuilt, it would have faced a similar situation. While those bridges (carrying traffic from I-894 to both directions of I-94, and to I-894 from northbound I-94) are 4 years newer than the Zoo bridges, they were of the same superstructure as both the failing Zoo bridges and the Marquette bridges.
  • The $1.2 billion that Doyle raided from the transportation fund is another key component. Do remember that on this type of project, the federal government typically pays for 80% of the cost. Thus, a $1.4 billion rebuild of the Zoo would have required $280 million from the state.
  • As for the $820 or so million for the car-speed train between Milwaukee and Madison’s airport, while that “stimulus” money is earmarked for that specific project, Doyle and company could have, instead of trying to cram commuter rail down our throats, applied to use that money for rebuilding the Zoo.
  • Bold prediction – once the last “original” bridge (the US-45 northbound bridge over I-94 westbound) is replaced (ahead of the 2016 “start date”), if Barrett’s governor, he’ll declare the Zoo fixed for “all time” (or at least until he departs the governor’s office). There are two bridges with rebuilt superstructures (the pair of US-45 southbound bridges, rebuilt in 1984).
  • If you believe that it will take until Memorial Day to open the northbound US-45 bridge, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. The deck of the new structure was already poured before the Friday closure. In fact, the guys at the very-unofficial ScottForGov.com blog are predicting the new bridge will be open before Opening Day (that would be next Monday).

Neumann enters falsehood-mongering territory

by @ 9:09. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I’m almost at a loss of words to explain various attempts by both the Mark Neumann campaign and Neumann himself to spread falsehoods on Scott Walker’s political future – despicable is about the only one that comes to mind. Fortunately, Christian Schneider broke out the full Dennis York on his Twitter feed this morning. A couple of my favorites…

Scott Walker is quitting the governor’s race to teach motor scooter safety to legless senior citizens.

If Scott Walker is elected governor, he will outlaw use of the letter “N.”

I have decided to drop the blog neutrality in the race because of this. I have tried to keep my personal endorsement of Scott Walker separate from the blog becuase up until this broke, I had also respected Mark Neumann. However, there is a difference between a factually-based “negative” campaign and a campaign built on lies, and Neumann crossed that line.

Republican Lieutenant Governor debate – tonight

by @ 8:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Ozaukee County GOP will be hosting a debate among the four candidates for Lieutenant Governor, Dave Ross, Rebecca Kleefisch, Ben Collins and Brett Davis, tonight at 6:45 pm at the Cedarburg Performing Arts Center, W68N611 Evergreen Blvd. in Cedarburg. Jeff Wagner will be moderating the debate.

I plan on being there.

March 25, 2010

Just how unfriendly is Wisconsin toward new business?

by @ 11:16. Filed under Business, Politics - Wisconsin.

Christian Schneider at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute illustrates just how unfriendly. If you prefer a pictoral, just click the thumbnails below.

Revisions/extensions (11:43 am 3/25/2010) – I should’ve taken a look at the WPRI post – Christian posted it just after noon yesterday. My screenshots were taken about 11:15 am this morning.

R&E part 2 (1:05 pm 3/25/2010) – Guess it takes Charlie Sykes pointing this out to get results. The site’s fixed.

March 24, 2010

Latest Thompson rumor – 75% there, final decision Easter week

by @ 7:04. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen Hayes posted a pair of Tweets that strongly suggest that Tommy Thompson will in fact announce he’s running for the Republican nomination for US Senate to run against Russ Feingold, and that decision will come sooner rather than later:

Tommy Thompson doing what a candidate-to-be does prepping to run for Sen. Quit a corp board Friday. Final dec on vacation over Easter w/fam.

Those talking to Thompson generally believe he’ll run, seems gen interested in being a senator. One source says he’s 75 percent there.

Revisions/extensions (7:15 am 3/24/2010) – And the story has hit The Weekly Standard blog. Two items from the story:

  • That corporate board of directors Thompson resigned from is CNS Response, Inc., a health-care data company. That was more of a sideways move, as Thompson agreed to become chairman of its advisory board.
  • The latest Democrat-affiliated Public Policy Poll had Thompson down 3 to Feingold 47%-44%, a significant improvement over its previous poll in November (50%-41%). Meanwhile, Rasmussen recently had Thompson up 47%-45% (a narrowing of a prior lead), WPRI recently had Thompson up 51%-39%, and a GOP internal poll had Thompson up by 5 points.

March 23, 2010

Tuesday Hot Read – The Republican Party of Dane County “apologizes”

by @ 7:35. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Lance Burri thoughtfully reposted an e-mail from the Republican Party of Dane County (for those of you outside Wisconsin, that would be the county with Madison as its county seat):

Republican Party of Dane County Apologizes For Its Opposition To Obamacare

We at the Republican Party of Dane County would like to publicly apologize for opposing the Obamacare health care bill. We have now seen the light and support it. There are a few reasons for our change of heart:

The Democrats are correct that the health insurance companies don’t make enough money. Obamacare will be the largest transfer of wealth to the health insurance industry in history. The Democrats are also correct that our budget deficit isn’t large enough. Moody’s has warned that passing this bill will likely cost the United States its AAA bond rating – and we agree with the Democrats in saying “good riddance!”

The Democrats are correct that it’s ridiculous that all Americans now have access to health care. Obamacare will dramatically decrease the number of doctors, and will dramatically decrease the amount of medical innovation in this nation. Who needs new cancer drugs anyway? More than 6% of United Kingdom citizens have reported pulling out their own teeth because they can’t get access to a dentist, despite “universal” health care. That’s the spirit!

Finally, we agree with Democrats that the electoral chances of the Democratic Party in 2010 are far more important than whether a new unfunded entitlement system that we’ll be stuck with forever is good for this nation. They have argued incessantly that even Democratic congressmen who hate the bill should vote for it because of the electoral consequences in 2010 and 2012. Absolutely!

So we applaud the Democratic Party. It takes a great amount of courage to simultaneously put aside the US Constitution, the laws of economics, the negative effects of a bill on the quality of health care in this nation, and the will of the people. Open the fridge and crack open a cold one, Democrats. You’ve earned it!

While you can put all the Republicans who actually live in Dane County in a phone booth, they sometimes do come up with a real winner.

March 13, 2010

Quick conversation – Ed Thompson

by @ 18:17. Filed under Defending the American Dream, Politics - Wisconsin.

Most of my material from the Wisconsin Defending the American Dream Summit will have to wait until I get home tomorrow (or possibly Monday), but I had the chance to briefly speak with Tomah mayor Ed Thomspon, who is running for the 31st Senate seat currently held by Democrat Kathleen Vinehout.

Thompson stressed that he is a conservative. In fact, he signed the Americans for Tax Reform no-tax-increase pledge just yesterday. He also touts his business credentials as a supper club owner.

He knows he has a hard road against him. The 31st has produced one Republican in the last 100 years, Ron Brown, and it was Vinehout that beat him after only one term. While that election was in the Democratic wipeout of 2006. In fact, he outspent Vinehout by roughly a 2-1 margin.

Of interest to everybody, especially to those not in the 31st, Thompson answered that he thinks his brother Tommy will run for Senate against Russ Feingold. He further said that Tommy does need to give an answer, one way or the other, soon.

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