For those of you who do not know my real name, my name is Aaron Camp. As a lifelong Illinoisan who has written about Wisconsin politics since not long after Scott Walker and his allies came to power in Wisconsin, it was only a matter of time before the Wisconsin GOP started using my words to attack a Wisconsin Democrat.
You may remember this diary that I wrote, in which I compared Mary Burke, a member of the Madison School Board who is one of numerous potential Democratic challengers to Scott Walker, to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Indeed, Ruth Conniff wrote this pro-Burke hit piece in which she admitted that Burke has a "Mitt Romney" problem.
You see, Mary Burke played a critical role in developing a study that recommended that Milwaukee Public Schools fire hundreds of employees. If Burke were to run for the Democratic nomination in the 2014 race for Governor of Wisconsin, the TV ads that a progressive primary challenger to Mary Burke could run would almost write themselves.
One has to remember that Wisconsin is a swing state with a highly polarized electorate. If Democrats nominate a centrist candidate, such as Mary Burke, Chris Abele, Tim Cullen, or anyone else who isn't regarded as a progressive, Scott Walker will win re-election because a centrist Democrat would depress turnout of usual Democratic voters. On the other hand, if Democrats nominate a candidate who ties himself/herself too much to organized labor, such as Kathleen Falk or Mahlon Mitchell, centrist voters, who are a very small but important part of the Wisconsin electorate, will vote for Walker. If Democrats nominate someone who can sell progressive ideals to a broad coalition of voters and turn out usual Democratic voters in droves, Scott Walker will have a real race on his hands, and he could very well lose re-election. In short, the ideal Democratic challenger to Scott Walker is one that views organized labor as part of a much larger progressive coalition, and Mary Burke is certainly NOT that kind of Democrat.
Another factor that would work against Burke, or any other centrist Wisconsin Democrat who might run against Walker, is that, unlike my home state of Illinois and many other states, there isn't much of a Democratic machine left in Wisconsin that can provide financial and institutional support to centrist Democrats like Burke.
If Mary Burke runs against Scott Walker and faces a credible, progressive primary challenger, she may be unable to win the Democratic nomination. Mary Burke would carry the banner of the "Party of Jim Doyle" into the Democratic primary for Governor of Wisconsin. The guy who carried the "Party of Jim Doyle" banner into the Democratic primary for Governor of Wisconsin in the last two gubernatorial elections was Tom Barrett. In 2010, Barrett received 90.5% of the vote in the Democratic primary. In 2012, Barrett received only 58% of the vote in the Democratic primary. Given that downward trend, any Democrat of the Jim Doyle mold, such as Mary Burke, may not be able to win a Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin.
I knew that, when I started writing about politics in Illinois, Wisconsin, and elsewhere in this great country, that it would be fair game for anyone to use my words against me or anyone else. However, I view Scott Walker, who is considering running for President in 2016, as a danger to this country, and Wisconsin Democrats can squash Walker's presidential ambitions by defeating him in the 2014 gubernatorial election in Wisconsin, but Wisconsin Democrats will need to nominate a more progressive candidate than Mary Burke in order to defeat Walker.