Justin's Political Corner

Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin is leading or tied with the various Republican candidates in the Wisconsin Senate race, according to the new Quinnipiac poll.

Baldwin and former Gov. Tommy Thompson are tied at 47 percent each. Baldwin leads businessman Eric Hovde, 47 percent to 43 percent. Baldwin leads former Rep. Mark Neumann, 48 percent to 45 percent. And Baldwin is much further ahead of state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, 51 percent to 39 percent.

h/t: TPM LiveWire

FRIENDSHIP, Wis. — Rep. Tammy Baldwin stood in the Friendship Cafe, giving voters a populist pitch for why she should be elected to keep Wisconsin’s open Senate seat in Democratic hands, where it’s been for the last 55 years.

When she began to field questions, a 70-year-old retiree offered the first comment, and hit on one of the most difficult issues confronting Baldwin as she tries to break the Democrats’ recent losing streak in the battleground state.

For Baldwin, the first openly gay candidate elected to Congress, questions about her sexuality evoke her reputation as an unabashed liberal and a product of left-leaning Madison, and reinforce concerns about her viability in the more conservative parts of the state she’ll need to win the seat in November.

“I ran into all kinds of people who thought Obama was a Muslim,” said Davis, a Democratic activist from nearby Adams, adding that he’s worried Baldwin will struggle to get votes beyond Dane and Milwaukee counties, the more liberal parts of Wisconsin.

With Baldwin running unopposed in the Democratic primary, attention has been focused on the GOP field, where four Republicans are vying for their party’s nod to succeed retiring Sen. Herb Kohl, a Democrat. Leading the pack is former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who is trying to shake off accusations from his challengers that he’s not conservative enough while also positioning himself to win the general election in a state President Barack Obama won by 14 percentage points in 2008.

But she’s far less known in the rest of the state, where the party desperately needs to build support among swing voters. And Baldwin’s Democratic agenda will be tough to sell to a divided electorate that has repeatedly rejected many liberal ideals in the aftermath of the Great Recession. 

h/t: WaPo

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde (R) says he is sick and tired of reading sad stories about people struggling in the recession. Instead, he wants to see the media focus more on the debt and the larger problems afflicting the country.

Then, pointing to a reporter in the audience, Hovde said he would love to see the press stop covering sad stories about low-income individuals who can’t get benefits and start covering issues like the deficit more frequently.

“I see a reporter here,” he said. “I just pray that you start writing about these issues. I just pray. Stop always writing about, ‘Oh, the person couldn’t get, you know, their food stamps or this or that.’ You know, I saw something the other day — it’s like, another sob story, and I’m like, ‘But what about what’s happening to the country and the country as a whole?’ That’s going to devastate everybody.”

In fact, journalists already give short shrift to stories about individuals struggling in the recession.

In May 2011, National Journal looked at the nation’s five largest newspapers and counted how many times “unemployment” or “deficit” appeared in their headlines or first sentences. The analysis found that unemployment was covered significantly less than the deficit.

Hovde, a Wisconsin businessman, is one of four candidates running for the GOP nomination for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. The winner will face Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) in November.

h/t: Huffington Post

The Wisconsin Republican convention over the weekend saw a stunning result in the state’s other major election this year: In the vote on whether to endorse a candidate in the four-way GOP primary for U.S. Senate, former four-term Gov. Tommy Thompson came in an embarrassing third place.

Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl is retiring after four terms, and Wisconsin Democrats have already united around Rep. Tammy Baldwin as their presumptive nominee.

The state GOP endorsement in Wisconsin is not the same as the convention process in Utah or elsewhere, where the nomination itself is determined. In Wisconsin’s case, though, an endorsement from the convention would give a degree of official party support to a candidate, if he or she can reach a 60 percent threshold.

On the first ballot, former Rep. Neumann took 42 percent, state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald 20.9 percent, Tommy Thompson 20.8 percent and businessman Eric Hovde 16.3 percent, the Capital Times reports. On the second ballot, after Hovde was eliminated, Neumann took 46.6 percent, Fitzgerald 35.2 percent and Thompson fell way behind with 18.2 percent — eliminating Thompson from consideration for the endorsement.

Now that Thompson actually is running, he has been targeted by the Club for Growth for being too moderate. Thompson must run in a Republican primary in the era of the tea party, where bucking establishment practices is rewarded and seniority is often derided.

Thompson still has one important element working in his favor: Support from the right wing could split among other candidates, giving him room to win a plurality among actual primary voters. But if nominations were decided solely by party activists, he would be out of luck.

h/t: Eric Kleefeld at TPM

Madison - U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Madison announced Tuesday that she is entering the 2012 race to succeed retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl.

Baldwin is the first Democrat in the field and likely the front-runner for her party’s nomination.

In a video statement emailed to supporters and posted on the Internet, Baldwin set out the broad theme of her campaign: “to stand up for you (voters), no matter how tough the odds or how powerful the special interest it means fighting against.”

She linked herself to the political tradition of Kohl and former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and declared, “It’s time politicians looked out for seniors, working families and the middle class - instead of protecting the profits of big oil and Wall Street.”

Baldwin’s early entry puts pressure on potential Democratic rivals U.S. Rep. Ron Kind of La Crosse and former U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen of Appleton to make up their minds about entering the race, even though a possible primary is about a year away.

With a strong base of support in voter-rich Dane County - and no candidates from the Milwaukee area - Baldwin has a viable path to claim the nomination.

In an interview with the Journal Sentinel, she promised to wage an aggressive grass-roots campaign, both online and in person, and vowed to travel across the state.

“Showing up matters,” Baldwin said, adding, “I’ve always been a people-to-people campaigner.”

To her supporters, Baldwin, 49, who was first elected to Congress in 1998, is a political maverick who voiced early opposition to the war in Iraq and has called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

“If you look at her career, people consistently underestimate her and she consistently surprises people,” said state Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine). “She has a real message that appeals to people’s lives, how things affect them in the workplace, the doctor’s office. She represents the interests of ordinary Wisconsin citizens.”

Kevin T. Conroy, president and CEO of Exact Sciences Corp., hasn’t decided which Senate candidate to back. But he said Baldwin is a “great listener and she really cares about the businesses in this state.” Conroy’s opinion draws attention because his name was briefly floated for a run at the governor’s office in 2010.

To her opponents, particularly among Republicans, Baldwin is the definition of a tax-and-spend Madison liberal who backed “Obamacare.”

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, who announced last week his bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, made it clear he regarded Baldwin as his Democratic opponent. He said his campaign would stress the differences between his conservative record and Baldwin’s record.

The National Journal, he said, ranked Baldwin in a tie as the most liberal member of Congress.

Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), who is all but guaranteed to enter the U.S. Senate race, said, “I think Tammy is the epitome of what’s wrong in Washington right now.”

“I’ve never personally met Tammy and I hear she’s a wonderful woman, but there you have somebody in the state Assembly for a long time (Baldwin was first elected to the Assembly in 1992), she’s a professional politician, she’s been in D.C.,” he said. “But when you look at her record, it’s just a record of increased spending and higher taxes. And although I think she’s going to be very strong and tough to beat in a primary, I think in a general election that’s going to be a tough message to sell statewide.”

Other Republicans considering Senate runs include former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, state Sen. Frank Lasee (R-De Pere) and former state Sen. Ted Kanavas.

Baldwin also appeared eager to take up the challenge to define herself to the electorate. One recent poll showed she had 54% name recognition among the state’s voters.

If she wins, Baldwin would be the first openly gay person to serve in the U.S. Senate.

“The fact is, I’ve been honest about my sexual orientation my entire adult life,” she said. “And integrity is important in public service. But what voters are looking for is somebody who understands them, is fighting for them and won’t give up. The election is not going to be about me, it’s about the voters.”

Baldwin’s liberal record - a solid credential among Democratic activists - would likely play a large role in a general election campaign. To win statewide, Baldwin would not only have to claim some independents, she would have to hold on to conservative Democrats in Milwaukee County.

Asked if she is a Madison liberal, Baldwin said: “What I am is a fighter. And when I fight for my constituents and when I fight for working people, that means standing up to some pretty powerful interests. And when you do that, it’s not unusual that they pick labels. But what I am is a fighter.”

H/T: Bill Glauber at Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Former Wisconsin Rep. Mark Neumann (R) has announced that he will run for the state’s open senate seat in 2012 and will likely challenge former Governor Tommy Thompson for the party’s nomination. In declaring his candidacy during a radio appearance this morning, Neumann predicted that he will face openly-gay Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) in a general election — who is also expected to announce her candidacy in the coming weeks — and promised to bring her record “to the forefront.”

But as Denis Dison notes, Neumann will first have to answer for several homophobic remarks he made in the 1990s, when as a freshman congressman, he told the New York Times that “If I was elected God for a day, homosexuality wouldn’t be permitted, but nobody’s electing me God.” A year later, speaking before the Christian Coalition, he remarked, “If somebody walks in to me and says, ‘I’m a gay person, I want a job in your office,’ I would say that’s inappropriate, and they wouldn’t be hired because that would mean they are promoting their agenda. The gay and lesbian lifestyle (is) unacceptable, lest there be any question about that.”

Neumann clarified his statements in 2010 by explaining that he regrets saying that he would want to be God:

Eventually, though, he did apologize for a portion of his quote in The Times. “The part about me being God for a day is the problem with that,” said Neumann, who is Lutheran. “I’m not God, don’t intend to be and hope I never have that much power….I regret talking about the fact that I would be God,” Neumann responded. […]

“Let me give you an answer to your question,” Neumann said. “You’re asking me, ‘Do I stand by those (remarks)?’ The answer to your question is, I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, the same as I’ve believed all my life. I’m going to stay focused in this race on jobs and economic development to the best of my God-given ability.” […]

Neumann served two terms Congress and waged and unsuccessful challenge to then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D) in 2008. In 2010, he ran for Governor and lost the Republican nomination to Scott Walker. Notably, Tommy Thompson will likely have to deal with his own LGBT clunkers. Thompson isn’t known as a firebrand on conservative social issues, but during his failed bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, Thompson said that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against gay people. He immediately walked back his position, citing a broken hearing aide and a need to use the restroom.

Wisconsin does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression, but in 1982, “became the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation” in employment. The law was signed by Republican Governor Lee Dreyfus. In 1996, however, did remove language from the GOP platform “that opposed civil rights protections for those discriminated against because of their ‘sexual preference.’”

H/T: ThinkProgress LGBT