MADISON — With recall elections in the rearview mirror, Wisconsin politics, as sport, now turns to the running game. Who’s in? Who’s out? Who’s thinking real hard?
It’s late summer in the Badger State and the political hot stove league is heating up. Wisconsinites are getting a better feel for who’s serious about running in 2012, but many names and questions remain.
Voters may not know exactly who’s running, but now they know who’s not. Democratic Party heavyweight Russ Feingold broke a lot of party faithful hearts Friday when he announced he is not running in 2012.
The former senator – who lost his Senate seat to Tea Party insurgent businessman Ron Johnson in 2010 – said he will not seek the Senate seat being vacated by senior U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, who is retiring.
“While I may seek elective office again someday, I have decided not to run for public office during 2012,” Feingold said in a statement posted on his website.
Feingold said he’s content teaching law at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee and working on his book on U.S. foreign policy in the wake of 9/11. Feingold doesn’t miss an opportunity to promote “While America Sleeps,” to be published in February.
Feingold said he knows “progressives are eager to reverse some of the outrageous policies being pursued by corporate interests at both the state and federal levels,” and he is aware of his “very strong standing in the polls” should he run again for Senate or take on Gov. Scott Walker.
A lot of Wisconsin Democrats saw the ex-senator as a top contender in talks about recalling Walker. They would need the requisite 500,000 signatures on a recall petition, beginning in November, to push for an election next year.
“There’s no recall election, if there’s no opponent,” said Barry Burden, political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But Feingold’s exit from the political stage shifts Democratic standard bearer status to U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin. The seven-term congresswoman from Madison is expected to announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate after Labor Day.
“I think Tammy Baldwin is going to be tough to beat,” Madison-based pollster Paul Maslin told Politico, because she’s moving up fast in the polls. “I think there’s certainly a very good chance we have no primary, or maybe it’s one in name only.”
But Rep. Ron Kind, long-serving congressman in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, is also considered a power name in Democratic political circles. He may yet make the race.
“If Ron Kind decided he wanted to take on Walker in a recall, he could hold on to his House seat while he ran” if an election were held in winter 2012, Burden said.
If he won, there would be plenty of time for a special election to fill the House seat. If he lost, he’d still be a congressman. A recall race holds liabilities, however, for a congressman many say embodies his last name.
“A recall election is a nasty and highly partisan referendum on what Walker has been doing,” Burden said. “There is a risk of getting into a nasty partisan fight and losing.” Kind, of La Crosse, could not be reached for comment late Friday.
The Republican side, pundits say, is a little more settled. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson is ripe for the Senate contest, and he’s got big-name recognition and fundraising muscle.
Thompson has some credential issues among Wisconsin conservatives, however. His previous support for government programs, high-speed rail between Milwaukee and Madison and perhaps his biggest demerit, his initial support of President Obama’s health-care plan, make conservatives more than a little nervous.
Former congressman and avowed big-government hater Mark Neuman remains, like Thompson, among the officially undeclared but undeniably interested on the GOP side.
Neuman is fresh from his runner-up run against Walker in Wisconsin’s GOP primaries last year.
Recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) numbers show a Thompson-Feingold fight figured a statistical dead heat, with Feingold faring a bit better against Neumann. The point is moot now.
There are other GOP names being bandied about, but just barely. The Fitzgerald brothers, Majority Leader Sen. Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, have toyed with the idea of a U.S. Senate run, Burden said.
“I don’t think that would go very far,” he said. “Jeff (Fitzgerald) would have the backing of his fellow Republicans because he led them through the budget battles this spring, but he’s been such a polarizing figure coming out of the state budget, I think he would have a hard time statewide.”
Back to the Democrats, Milwaukee mayor and 2010 gubernatorial contestant Tom Barrett has been mentioned as a possibility, but contemporary wisdom holds he’s content where he is.
A lot of chips fall, of course, depending on who jumps in and who wins. State Sen. John Erpenbach, D-Middleton, one of the 14 Dems who fled the state in February and March in the heat of the budget battle, has his eye on Baldwin’s 2nd District Congressional seat.
State Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, said it’s much too early to call favorites for 2012. He’s confident Neumann or Thompson could beat any Democrat in the field.
The debt crisis in Washington, D.C., Grothman said is much too important, and he believes Democrats aren’t serious about addressing the problem.
He stalls a bit when considering Thompson’s record and past, but Grothman said Wisconsin’s former popular governor knows how to get the job done.
“Gov. Thompson has traditionally seen a lot of good in what government can do,” Grothman said. “I think he’s a heck of a politician.”
Multiple calls to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and to the Democratic legislative leadership seeking comment Friday were not returned.
Matt Kittle is a reporter for WisconsinReporter.com, which is owned by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.
