Thursday, April 8, 2010

Feingold vs. The Three Stooges and the Boogie Man

If people were wondering why I haven't written much about the race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Senator Russ Feingold, well, there are a couple, three of reasons.

One is that many other bloggers, like Zach Wisnewski at Blogging Blue, Jim Arndt at Pretty Important Politics, Bill Christofferson at Uppity Wisconsin and the whole crew at One Wisconsin Now have been doing an admirable job. I don't see any reason for me to just repeat them.

Secondly, I have my old pal Scott Walker to focus on, and given my position in life, I have the ability to give an unique point of view and some information that can get lost in the shuffle.

The third reason I haven't written about the race is because I don't see it being much of a race so far.

Feingold is pretty well set, in my humble opinion. Despite the squawkings of the usual suspects on talk radio and the right wing echo chamber, I don't think many people have much against Feingold. He has always done what he had thought was the best for the state and for the country. And even when people disagreed with him, some quite vehemently, he continued with his listening sessions all over the state, despite the vitriolic rhetoric people threw at him.

Besides Feingold's track record, he doesn't have much in the way of competition.

One potential opponent is Terrrence "I don't pay taxes" Wall whose tax-dodging skills are only matched by his propensity to put his foot in his mouth.

Another potential candidate for the right is Dave "Orange T-shirt" Westlake, who cannot raise any money or gain any traction, even with his campaign gimmicks. Although to be fair, Westlake is coming to Drinking Liberally this month, so he has that much going for him.

The most recent candidate to throw his hat into the Republican three ring circus is Dick Leinenkugel, recently of the Doyle administration. Not only have the right wingers started to attack him immediately for having worked with Doyle (so much for their mewling about bipartisanship) but he has come out of the blocks only to land flat on his face by listing his former state work phone number as his campaign contact number. This is obviously a problem for him since it's a no-no to use state property for campaigning. Even more telling is that he resigned from that position before starting his campaign, so even if he could use that number, he won't be there to get any calls.

But enough of the stooges. Not even the usual right wing suspects are paying them much attention, unless they are bored and need someone to taunt.

The one person that the right wing his hanging their senatorial hopes on is a guy who isn't running. Yes, folks, I refer to the one and only TOMMY!!, aka Tommy "Stick it to 'em" Thompson, aka the real Tommy the Taxer. The Tommy Thompson that showed up at the Green Bay Packer's celebration of their first Superbowl win in thirty year drunk as a skunk.

I hope that, for their sakes, they aren't holding too much hope out for Tommy. I don't think he will be running for a number of reasons:
  • He wouldn't want to take the pay cut,
  • He has always wanted to be the center of attention. He wouldn't get that as just one of a hundred Senators,
  • He wouldn't want to try to explain all the lobbyists hanging on him, and
  • If he were going to run, Leinenkugel wouldn't have chosen to run, since they are family. This would indicate that Leinenkugel knew Tommy wasn't running.
I might start writing more if the race became competitive, but right now, I think Feingold's team and my cohorts on the left side of the Cheddarsphere have it pretty well covered.

3 comments:

  1. capper, you're doing a heck of a job with Scott Walker; keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I salute both of you for your hard work!

    Zach, you are the best and you are the newest big thing out there!!

    ReplyDelete