Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A few post-primary thoughts

1. Susan Happ! I was a huge Richards guy, but Happ blew him and Ozanne away. What's especially impressive is how broad-based Happ's support was, as she won pretty much all the counties out there, including Milwaukee and Dane Counties. In fact, Happ did better than her statewide total of 52% in almost every other county outside of the Big Two. This is the flip side of Tom Barrett's regionalized win in the 2012 recall primary, and portends very well for her chances against the corrupt 262 puppet Schimel.

In fact, Happ reached 50% or higher in 68 of the 72 counties in the state, and needless to say, if she was able to win it the first time, a lot of those voting for her will want to do it again on November 4. Maybe it's a good thing we didn't see many polls before this election to spoil the pot.

2. Mark Harris just got a massive fund-raising boost for his candidacy in WI-6, because there are few people that'll fire up Dems to help out in this race than being able to take out Glenn Grothmann. And given that Grothmann lost Sheboygan and Manitowoc county as badly as he did yesterday, you'd think that would be fertile territory for both Harris and State Sen. candidate Martha Laning, who's in good shape to take Joe Leibham's light-red seat. And Harris seems to be saying all the right things for a Dem to win in that district, as Andy from Wisconsin Soapbox points out (and Andy grew up in WI-6).

3. The overvote in the Milw Co Sheriff race was ridiculous. Over 113,000 votes were cast in the Sheriff's race, but barely 72,000 in the County Treasurer's race? That's an amazing disparity. In fact, it's so high that I'd almost ask for a recount if I were Moews to look into some of those ballots. Between that and the late-night reporting in Sheboygan that nearly put local boy Joe Leibham over the top, and it teels me we need some serious DOJ-style supervision of the polls come November, because I don't have a lot of trust in the people counting the votes and giving us the totals.

While I despise people who take their orders from the SykesBelling propagandists, those weak-minded minions VOTE. It's one of the biggest reasons those people are in power despite having opinions that the vast majority of Wisconsinites disagree with. Sadly in 2014, it's not about what the everyday person thinks, but what everyone WHO VOTES thinks. You wonder why things are screwed up?

4. There was definitely some pushback against what was perceived as strong-arming by DPW leadership, which explains why Mary Jo Walters got more than 40% of the vote for Lt. Gov and why Ernie Wittwer has a lead over Pat Bomhack in SD 17. Between this split and the WisGOPs' brutal primary in WI-6 and SD-21, whoever loses this election in 2014 may be headed for a massive internal battle for the direction of the party.

But Mike Tate's job did get easier yesterday, as I think the Burke-Happ ticket is a very good one that should have better statewide appeal for Dems, especially in the blue-leaning rural areas. Jonathan Brostoff's and David Bowen's wins mean more strong, young progressives in the Assembly from Milwaukee, which gives the city vibrant leadership that's long been lacking in Madison. And Lisa Subeck's impressive win adds to an already impressive group of younger, tough women in the Assembly that hail from Dane County. And you can bet these ladies will be out and about to help Mary Burke be the first female governor for the State of Wisconsin.

Combine that with the prospect of Glenn the Gross Man likely being out on the stump running for Congress in swingy NE Wisconsin, and turning a 60-40 Walker area into a 50-50 vote, and you have to think that the real decision-makers with the Wisconsin GOP is very worried about the direction this race has taken. And all the Koch money in the world can't fix these issues.

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