Out of the Blue

Wisconsin is a safe Democratic state.

That statement would have been taken at face value four years ago, when Gore took the Badger State. Mike Dukakis even won Wisconsin. Now, however, in the wake of John Kerry saying how glad he was to be at the home of the Packers, "Lamburgh Field", he's fallen in the polls 38%-52%, which is a bigger gap than Kerry faces in a lot of Red states, like Mississippi and Tennessee. Older polls show a Bush lead as well. Wisconsin has come out of the blue and into the red.

Not only are Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes up for grabs, but the Senate race is becoming a contested affair as well. Popular Senator Russ Feingold is ahead of Republican Tim Michels, but one poll put the race as close as 50%-45%. Feingold's key will be hanging on to Bush voters as well as straight-ticket Democrats. Polls indicate that he's doing a good job of it so far, despite his opposition to the war in Iraq and other Bush centerpieces. What's not debated is that the race has become one of America's most expensive, with $13.4 million spent so far.

The liberal Feingold's overlap of popularity with Bush highlights the ingredients missing from John Kerry's campaign. Feingold has a history of integrity, he's a leader in the Senate, he's nationally known for bipartisan reform legislation, and he's clear on his position in Iraq. The presidential election is not a referendum on the Iraq War - the 35% of likely Feingold voters who plan to split the ticket and vote Bush can attest to that. Nor is it a referendum on economics or even homeland security. The American people want a leader, and the Democratic Party failed to give them a legitimate option in 2004.

InstantReplay will go out on a limb and predict that the sponsors of the McCain-Feingold bill will be facing each other in the presidential election of 2008.