The Republicans will regain control of both the State Assembly and the State Senate. We will go from a Democrat controlled Assembly, Senate, Governors mansion to Republicans controlling all 3.
For Congress:
Republican Dan Kapanke will narrowly defeat incumbent Ron Kind.
Republican Sean P. Duffy will win the seat formerly held by Democrat David Obey.
Republican Reid Ribble will bounce out incumbent Democrat Steve Kagen.
All other seats will remain the same with incumbents being re-elected.
Please comment.
I hope not but you maybe right. I hate Walker. He was given the task as Milwaukee county commissioner to look after the county’s assets including the parks and he did his best to give them away to the highest bidder. Maybe It is because I dislike his policies so much that I found him exceedingly slimy when I met him.
I don’t dislike Johnson on the same gut level, he hasn’t really done anything political, He does seem to be running on that whole privatizing Social Security thing which strikes me as insane, but I don’t see that actually making any traction. So he can’t do a lot of harm. I do however like Feingold and would hate to see him go.
I am hoping that the Republicans get only the Senate or the house not both, but it might be good for them to get one.
Pkbites, what is your take on Feingold? I always thought of him as pretty liberal, but then when I surf a site like DailyKos a lot of them consider him a little too moderate (I know DailyKos’ posters are typically very left-oriented, so I consider the source). Is Feingold’s politics just really out of step with Wisconsin now, does he not bring home enough bacon, or are people just tired of him?
I agree with you that Walker looks poised to take Barrett. I think it is probably more a repudiation of Doyle’s ineptitude that anyting else, though that is not to say that Tom doesn’t have his detractors.
I hope that Johnson loses to Feingold. I seriously don’t think I could stand that man taking a U.S. senate seat when most of the meat of his campaign is “I’m not an incumbant” and “I’m not a lawyer.” He’s got very little grasp on the issues (in my opinion is debate performance was laughable at best) and some very extreme/nonsensical ideas while he dodges ever giving a specific response other “taxes bad, big goverment bad, small business good.”
It’s possible he could just ride in on the anti-incumbant wave with nothing much to recommend him- it seems to be his approach so far and it seems to be working so why give specifics that could bite him in the ass. If I see one more commercial with him and his dry erase board marker I may have to offer him a tip as to where to shove it.
He’s also sold the myth that he is a self made success when in truth he married into his money and into Pacur. It has a whole lot less to do with bootstraps and a whole lot more to do with wedding bands. I have to admit, besides his personal politics which I disagree with, I am aquainted with him and his family and find him to be a smug, elitist jackass.
I think Baldwin will keep her seat, she usually wins by quite a margin. I think that margin may be smaller this time around, but I think Lee will still come up short. I have to admit it’s hard to get a grasp on the actual climate when one lives in Madison.
You’ve asked a lot of questions here, actually. My outlook is there is a “perfect storm” brewing. It looks to be a Republican year, Ron Johnson is a likable, though inexperienced candidate running a brilliant campaign with no real skeletons in his closet (pun intended about a Feingold ad from years past.). If Feingold isn’t bounced out this year, the job is his for life. I can’t think of a better scenario for his defeat.
If you’re looking for my personal opinion, I’m hoping that all my predictions come true.
IMHO Feingold is an arrogant phony who calls himself a maverick when in reality he votes the party line over 95% of the time. The few times he’s bucked the trend is when his vote didn’t mean anything.
I’ve lived in Milwaukee County for over 20 years, and during that time I’ve lived off and on in the City of Milwaukee and have owned properties there.
During Scott Walkers time as County Executive the county’s share of my property taxes consistently went down while my city taxes went up. I’m certain this trend will end when he is gone, but I’m looking for him to do as great of a job in the state capitol as he’s done here. I’m also confident he will put the kibosh on the stupid $800 million train they want to build between Milwaukee & Madison that nobody will ride.
Was he cutting county services to the city which then had to be made up by the city to continue to provide those services? If so, what services? Does the county run a balanced budget? Does the city?
Do you expect to see your state taxes go down if he is elected? What then would you expect your county and city taxes to do?
Serious questions. Despite having a sister who lives in the northern part of your state, I know little about Wisconsin, and even less about Milwaukee County and Milwaukee.
Well, the one and only thing you seemed to like about him is that he cut your county taxes. Cutting taxes always has an affect on government, whether it’s by reducing services, by sluffing off the cost of the services onto a lower level of government, or by running a deficit. Obviously that part of the equation doesn’t matter to you.
Firemen have been cut. Maybe not enough to count but there are some screams from that direction suggesting it is dangerous.
County parks budgets have been decimated. We used to have one of the best city park systems in the world which to my mind add a huge living benefit here, but they are becoming pretty decrepit. Most of the pools are shut down and the jobs that came with them are, of course, gone. When they started going south he started trying to find ways to sell them. To my mind those parks were given to him in trust for future generations and he betrayed that trust.
County security guards were let go. These jobs were bid out to a company that saved us maybe a few dozen thousand dollars a year, certainly not the millions promised… In exchange we find we have ex cons doing the bag checks at the county courts. (Ok. Maybe it was only one ex con they found so far, but the fact is, it turns out said company was not doing security checks on people they were putting in public buildings with guns.)
In terms of taxes in Milwaukee, the real problem is not Democrat or Republican there, it is that the middle class has been decimated, so there isn’t much of a tax base. It used to be a strong blue collar town, but many of those jobs are gone. The faded parks and the horribly kept roads and the shoddy infrastructure, and the struggling school system do not help getting companies to move back in, because, they won’t move where they can’t get workers and where their executives refuse to live. It will take a real influx of resources, money and imagination, to fix those issues.
In terms of the train, that is the same argument I heard in Denver before they put in their transit system, and now those are some of the most ridden trains in the world. I don’t know if this train would have the same response, but I am suspicious of the knee jerk “that won’t work” to every proposal, and I can see a lot of jobs coming out of building it.
I think Walker wins the governor’s race.
Feingold squeaks out a victory against Johnson.
Reid Ribble in a close one against Kagan.
I am angry at Feingold for voting for health-care, but in the past (Clinton’s term), he has shown the willingness to balance a budget.
As for the train, I don’t think alot of people are opposed to the cost of building it (which is mostly paid for by the feds) as opposed to what it would cost to run and maintain it. The cost of driving from place to place and parking near to your destination is vastly less than paying for a train ticket which would take you from station to station and still leave you with having to pay to get from the train station to your ultimate destination.
I do think it will be a very close election but in Johnsons favor.
Could you articulate how the polls are right on your other predictions but not this one? Every poll since June has Ron ahead. The last few have him up by as much as 9 points.
How does walker win a state wide election but not Johnson when both are so far ahead in polling data?
Thank gwad none of our money from Wisconsin goes to the feds. This is free money then, huh?
I watched the debates between Feingold and Johnson. Johnson didn’t really have many answers other than ‘eliminate all taxes’. Feingold was better informed, and had a better grasp on the big picture. Johnson was big on job creation, but wasn’t interested in getting rid of treaties (Nafta, Cafta, etc) that have decimated Wisconsin’s job base.
Feingold looked like a fighter while Johnson seemed old and inneffectual.
The race is close enough that I feel that these perceptions will make a difference.
Before I watched the debate, I was leaning toward Johnson, but now I think I will vote for Feingold. I think many swing voters may feel the same way.
Why do I think this is possible? Because Feingold has not engaged in negative politicking against Johnson to the extent that Barrett has engaged in negative ads against Walker and so is still viable in the minds of many swing voters.
I would be very surprised if Feingold won, but not “shocked”. I admit there is a possibility of people voting for the incumbent in that race. Keep in mind that a zillion more people see the ads than the debates.
I will be shocked beyond resuscitation if Walker loses.
I’ll be sorry to see him go. He authored McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform before the Supremes gutted it, and refuses to take PAC money.
Then again, I admit I like health care reform, since there is no way to fix our long run budget situation without it. None. You can’t be a serious deficit hawk and oppose health care reform at the same time. The fact that it stops insurance companies from yanking coverage from paying customers when their bills get inconveniently high is also nice: I like holding companies to the contracts they sign. [1] Also starting this fall, children with pre-existing conditions like leukemia can’t be denied coverage. Some very careful minds [2] thought hard about this problem for years: even with its compromises the bill that emerged was a fine piece of legislation.
Finally, I distrust politicians like Johnson who run away from reporters. If you can’t answer what passes today for tough policy-oriented questions, you should pursue other employment.
[1] Technical name: rescission.
[2] Henry Aaron (the economist), J Gruber.
538 puts the odds at Feingold maintaining his seat at something like 4%. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Finally, I distrust politicians like Johnson who run away from reporters. If you can’t answer what passes today for tough policy-oriented questions, you should pursue other employment.
QUOTE]
I agree with your post as a whole, but specifically quoted this for relevance. Johnson has repeatedly said that he doesn’t want to give any details. He quite literally has, very artfully I admit, dodged giving almost any kind of detailed answer to any question.
I can only hope Nate is wildly wrong about this one- though he probably isn’t, much to my dismay.
I wish Kohl would have been up for re-election this year instead of Feingold. I’d rather see him get the boot. Feingold has always seemed like a decent guy to me. I’m unimpressed with Johnson.
I voted for Johnson, however, primarily because he ran the same kind of business I am in. That - can’t hurt. I hope. I wish it had been Kohl.
