Monday, August 22, 2011

Mark Neumann and Tommy Thompson

So it appears that both Mark Neumann and Tommy Thompson are planning to enter the race to replace Herb Kohl in the U.S. Senate.

Ugh.

I will not vote for Neumann. Period. His primary campaign last year was disgusting and dishonest. Even if he makes it to the general election, I will write someone else in.

As many of you know, I’m not a fan of TOMMY! I appreciate his great record on welfare, school choice, and promoting Wisconsin, but he is an old-school big-spending Republican. His flirtations with Obamacare, rampant spending as governor, and many other things make him a candidate who I wouldn’t support. If he makes it to the general election, I’ll hold my nose and vote for him, but I’m not going to be happy about it.

With any luck, these two titans will kill each other in the primary and a candidate I can truly get behind (ahem: Ted Kanavas) will get to the general election.

(11) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2207 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. Good grief…what year is this?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2011 at 2224 hrs


  2. All you need to worry about with Tommy is will he cast a deciding vote to kill Obamacare, Dodd Frank and for a balanced budget amendment.  He needs to be asked on these repeatedly and put on the record.

    If I feel confident he’d be boxed in to vote the right way on those votes, I have no problem with him.  Frankly his general election over Tammy Baldwin would be a shoe in as he’d appear somewhere between Scott Walker and a moderate Dem.  The independents in this State would love him. 

    We need 60 votes in the Senate.  No margin for error.  No screwing around with “pure” candidates like Christine O’Donnell or Sharon Angle.  Even Neumann has some baggage although I like him.  GOP needs to win this seat.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2011 at 2224 hrs


  3. “Good grief…what year is this?” - Mr. Pants

    I turned on the teevee a few weeks ago and saw Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich at a presidential debate pretending that people didn’t stop giving a crap about them years ago.

    If I didn’t know better, I’d say Time-Life books was trying to market its “Washed Up GOP Politicians of the 90’s” series.  We’ll know for sure if Lamar Alexander starts wearing red and black plaid shirts again and old men start referring to themselves in the third person.

    Posted by Recess Supervisor on August 22, 2011 at 2236 hrs


  4. I agree.  If the GOP wants to succeed over the next decade, or more, they need to stop trotting out these stodgy old white men.  Go young, go fresh, or go home.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2011 at 2244 hrs


  5. Kanavas doesn’t seem terribly charismatic if his subbing for Mark Belling is any indication. 

    Neumann beats Thompson in a GOP primary, imo.  Thompson has JB Van Hollen on his team…that’s reason enough to vote for someone else.

    And for anyone pining for Fitzgerald, the guy is scum.  He took the Indian nickname repeal, which could have passed in a day, and assigned it to the only possible committee where it would die since the head of that committee was the ONLY Republican who publicly opposed the repeal.  Why did Fitz wimp out?  Because he is scared ****less of the Potowatamis.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2011 at 2324 hrs


  6. Greg, if it’s a two-man race between Tommy and Neumann, I’ll bet my house that you’re wrong.  And then I’ll bet my car that you see Neumann get clocked by a margin similar to what he experienced in the gubernatorial primary.

    Why?  The answer is in Owen’s original post.  Neumann got killed last year and pissed so many people off in the process.  By the end, it was nothing more than a kamikaze effort that killed any hope Neumann has of getting elected to anything ever again.

    The best argument a candidate has against Tommy is that he’s a has-been, but Neumann’s the one guy that can’t play the card since Neumann’s as much as a has-been as Tommy, except he never got anything done and his own district barely liked him enough to re-elect him.  Tommy’s at least got some big accomplishments to point to.  What’d Neumann do that anyone remembers, other than make himself look like a jackass in one of his debates with Feingold when he made a college girl cry? (Yeah, I know she worked for the Feingold campaign.  So did Neumann, which made his stupidity even worse.)

    And why are you blaming Fitz for the Indian naming bill?  You think he works in a vacuum?  For all you know, Walker asked him to bury it.  That issue is dead and gone.  You think Walker wants that bill on his desk?  So the media can run stories implying that Walker thinks Wisconsin is a better place when it can name its high school teams the Redmen or the Flying Sacagaweas?

    Uh, no.  That bill has terrible politics written all over it and the best place for it is a committee where nobody - let alone vulnerable members - ever have to take a vote on it.

    Posted by Recess Supervisor on August 23, 2011 at 0118 hrs


  7. I believe that there is a very good candidtate waiting in the wings that will blow them away but I’m still waiting to see why a retired military officer hasn’t made his appearance.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2011 at 0808 hrs


  8. Owen, I’m right there with you on this.  I could not vote for Neumann for the reasons you state.  He really burned all the bridges with his vicious attacks on Walker.  Tommy needs to stay out, too old, would only be around for one term.  We need to find another Ron Johnson so we can hold this seat for many years to come.  I have to believe that person is out there.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2011 at 0811 hrs


  9. Neumann did PO a lot of people in the gubernatorial campaign. It’s not just that it was ugly, it’s that Neumann showed some serious character faults.

    BUT, would you hold your nose and vote for Neumann anyway, if the alternative is Tammy Baldwin??

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2011 at 0817 hrs


  10. BUT, would you hold your nose and vote for Neumann anyway, if the alternative is Tammy Baldwin??

    No. If Baldwin wins, she will be equally effective in the Senate as she is in the House. In other words, she’ll keep the seat warm. Neumann could do a lot of harm to the conservative cause by acting like a lying jackass while draping himself in the conservative mantle. The media will eat that up.

    Posted by Owen on August 23, 2011 at 0918 hrs


  11. If you guys could produce a better candidate for me, then I’d consider switching from the Tommy bandwagon.

    Kanavas is a really smart guy, but he just doesn’t have the name recognition or charisma to run his first statewide campaign. He sort of has a “Mark Green” problem there as I really liked Mark Green but he got nowhere on a State ballot. Remember Ron Johnson is partly where he is because he had $10 million of his own money to “define” himself early on.

    Fitzgerald and anyone else in the State legislature is too tarred from the budget battles this year.  Tim Michels?  Eh, he couldn’t debate Feingold and in the end didn’t put in enough of his own money. 

    If you want someone who can appeal to independent voters, raise enough money to run and who has experience winning Statewide races, the horse is Tommy Thompson.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2011 at 1018 hrs


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