As one can see in the polls, weak challengers have not polled well in past months when considering a race for Senate against Sen. Russ Feingold. However, when considering Tommy Thompson as a challenger, polls indicate that the Republican, former-governor may have the name recognition needed to give Feingold a heated battle for the Senate seat in 2010. While Thompson has not announced a run for Senate, according to an interview with Politico.com, he has not ruled it out.
This is a very interesting topic when considering the quality of challengers and 2010 Midterms.
This is a class blog for the students of POLSCI 426: Congressional Politics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
4 comments:
I think Thompson would have a better chance against Kohl.
Jeremy that is an interesting thought. Why do you think that would be the case?
It would certainly make it interesting, but I don't know whether Thompson would wind up winning. He is definitely a more moderate Republican, and as we discussed in class on Thursday, they are going out of style. Either way, it would make it an interesting race.
I say that he would have a better chance against Kohl because I think Kohl is the weaker Senator, and because he matches up better against him than Fiengold. Fiengold is a lot like Proxmire. The liberals love him because he is a civil libertarian. Conservatives tolerate him because he is CHEAP! The independents like him because he is a likeable guy and has a sense of humor. While that trait should not be a factor, it unfortunately is. As dangerous a reason as it was for people to vote for Bush because they would rather have a beer with him. I don't know about the rest of the class but I want my leader to be smarter than me and be better at running things. If I want to have a beer or crack a joke, I have friends for that.
Kohl, on the other hand, represents a counterpopulist image. Sure he is immensely wealthy and should be immune to lobbyist and special interest money. That was his appeal in the past. However, everytime a CEO rewards himself with a golden parachute for ruining a company, everytime an investment firm gives multimillion dollar bonuses for taking excessive risk the public gets angrier. I think, just as Corzine got voted out of office in New Jersey, Kohl faces the same headwind. The people that the citzens are enraged by are the very people Kohl rubs elbows with.
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