The old adage was that a political candidate from Milwaukee could never win the race for governor of Wisconsin. But the 2010 race is turning that on its head. It’s quite likely that only a candidate from Milwaukee can win.
The recent poll by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute had some bad news for non-Milwaukee candidates. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, who hails from Green Bay, has extraordinarily high negatives: Just 21 percent of state residents have a positive view of her, while 22 percent have an unfavorable view. That’s a terrible base from which to begin her campaign. (With advertising you can easily push undecided voters into the favorable column, but it’s always difficult to convert unfavorable voters.)
On the Republican side, former congressman and current businessman Mark Neumann, who lives in Waukesha County and served a district centered in Racine, is in somewhat better shape: 24 percent view him favorably and 12 percent unfavorable. That’s not disastrous, but leaves him far behind Scott Walker, at 30 percent favorable and 16 percent negative. Add in the fact that Walker is ahead in fundraising, and has been running for governor and traveling across the state for years, and you can see the challenge for Neumann. The WPRI poll showed Walker beating Neumann 39 to 14 percent.
If Walker wins the primary, that’s a grim scenario for Democrats. The standard wisdom is that the Democratic candidate must win 60 percent of Milwaukee County to carry the state. But how do you do that when the Republican opponent is based in Milwaukee and has handily won three straight elections for county executive? Walker would quite likely thump Lawton in Milwaukee County.
Enter Tom Barrett. The WPRI poll shows he polls the best of all candidates statewide, with 36 percent positive and 12 percent negative. He bests Lawton by 38 percent to 16 percent. His disadvantage of being from Milwaukee is cancelled out if the opponent is Walker. Those outstate voters who hate Milwaukee would likely sit out the election, and odds are that more of them would be Republican.
Meanwhile, Barrett takes away Walker’s key advantage: the county executive’s strength in Milwaukee. Unlike his predecessor John Norquist, Mayor Barrett has done nothing to antagonize the suburbs. My guess is he was already well-liked there, but his heroism in defending a woman threatened by a violent man has likely sent his favorable ratings sky-high in suburbia. Meanwhile, Walker has spent more than six years in pitched battle with the county board, with numerous supervisors constantly attacking him. That takes a toll on your popularity. A soft-edged, nice guy, heroic mayor makes a nightmare opponent for an ever-embattled county executive.
One Democratic insider who is not a fan of Barrett tells me that a poll done jointly by a number of groups statewide, and by a reliable pollster, found Barrett getting 60 percent of Milwaukee County’s vote in a matchup against Walker. I’ve also heard Barrett’s folks were blown away by the poll results they’ve seen. That’s all rumor-mongering, granted. But I guarantee this: Walker will not be happy to see Barrett enter the race.
The only scenario whereby a Milwaukee candidate doesn’t win is this: Neumann must go negative. He already has a higher ratio of unfavorable ratings with voters, and I suspect that will endure through the primary campaign against Walker. Neumann’s only recourse is to ratchet up Walker’s negatives with a series of ads portraying all the problems of Milwaukee County (budget and pension problems, a dirty courthouse, parks falling apart, felons not being checked for DNA) and connecting it to Walker. He would reinforce the negative impression of Milwaukee in outstate areas and make Walker the poster child for big-city ills. That would make for a dirty campaign, however, and some of the dirt could stick to Neumann. That, in turn, could hurt him in the general campaign, all the more so if it’s against nice guy Barrett. No matter how you cut it, Barrett looks like a very strong statewide candidate.
More Woeful Water Wisdom
Last week, I wrote about UW-Milwaukee professor Marc Levine’s study warning that the strengths of Milwaukee’s “water industry” are greatly exaggerated. Perhaps no one has been more starry-eyed than Milwaukee Department of City Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux. “We can be and we will be the water capital of the world,” Marcoux told the BizTimes Daily. Not the capital of the Midwest, not the capital of America, but the capital of the world. What, we can’t run the entire solar system?
Marcoux and DCD have proposed to spend $6.4 million to help create a business park emphasizing the water industry in “Reed Street Yards” – the little-used land between West Florida Street and the Menomonee Valley from Third to Sixth streets. “This project has tremendous potential to complement our region’s efforts to build its water technology industry,” Mayor Barrett declared.
The Common Council voted to proceed, with only its president, Ald. Willie Hines, voting in the negative. A second vote is coming up to approve the funding, and that will likely pass, for the simple reason that at this point, no one dares oppose the idea that Milwaukee’s water industry is about to take over the world.
There’s just one problem with this: Not one water industry company has expressed any interest in locating on this land. “They [DCD officials] weren’t prepared to give me any person that was interested in the land,” says Hines. He calls the city’s proposal “void of substance.”
The Barrett administration proposes to spend $4.3 million to build streets, sewer lines and other infrastructure, all to create a water industry park that no one has requested. Normally, the city builds after it has commitments from businesses to locate there. As Hines notes, the city could construct the infrastructure and then spend more to redo it because the companies that eventually locate there need something different.
And meanwhile, the city is still working to develop the Park East land. Why spend to develop another parcel of land for which you have no buyers?
With the creation of the Harley-Davidson Museum and The Iron Horse Hotel in the Menomonee Valley, it’s quite likely there could be spillover development into Reed Street yards. But it may not come from the water industry – or from industry of any kind. Perhaps it could be retail, or some kind of mixed-used development. Why not wait for signs from the marketplace to help determine development, rather than dictating the land be used for what could be a pipe dream?
The Buzz:
-Mayor Barrett has reportedly told some people he wants to settle the issue of a governance change for Milwaukee Public Schools before he runs for governor. That strikes me as a mistake. He could run for governor while pushing the idea, and it would eliminate any possible taint of self-interest. Instead, he could note that he might well be restructuring the system to benefit his successor (who could be Willie Hines, and wouldn’t a takeover by an African-American mayor be a little easier to support for some black legislators?). This would also give gubernatorial candidate Barrett a dramatic issue he could champion as a way to improve the state’s biggest city, making him look more proactive – and more statesmanlike – than his opponents.
-The Banality of Klauser: Courtesy of last week’s Shepherd Express comes this earth-shattering observation from former “Deputy Governor” James Klauser: “Elections are choices and everyone has to make a choice when there is a choice.”
-The laugh’s on us? The Wisconsin Tourism Federation’s change of name drew yuks from the British media.
-Citizens for Responsible Government has launched some ads and activism to support Scott Walker’s zero-tax-increase budget. But contrary to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Steve Schultz’s recent story, the group did not withdraw from its effort to recall Gov. Jim Doyle after Doyle withdrew from the race. On the contrary, CRG gave up its effort well before Doyle’s announcement, and was apparently unable to get enough signatures to launch the recall. Let’s have no revisionist history here.
And the Sports Nut explains why the Packers lost, and why Brett Favre will rot in hell in the afterlife.
