We got Doyle because yes, WI has a strain of Kumbyah herpdey-derp, aided by population concentrations in blue strongholds like Milwaukee, Racine, and Madison, further shored up by Democratic farmers who vote for their subsidies and price supports.

 

We also got him because as former AG, it gave him some sort of (un-earned) “tough on crime” air about him.  Add to that, all the Depression-era/WWII generation who thought FDR was the best thing since sliced bread, and then the boomers who gelled politically under JFK and will ALWAYS pull the lever for the Democrat, maybe only until they reach Gwendolyn Moore levels of moonbattery… and it was a done deal.

 

However, Doyle could have lost in ’06 if the WI GOP hadn’t gone full bore on the gay marriage amendment to the state constitution. Instead of turning out the GOP base like they thought, what it did was expose the somewhat schizophrenic political nature of the state, and TONS of Democrat anti-gay constituencies, elderly knee-jerk Democrats, Blacks, and socially conservative “Joe sixpack” union goons turned out in droves to vote for the amendment, then went on to pull the lever for Doyle.

 

However, there’s some things going on that are helping the state to trend red.

Now that Scott Walker and the GOP has done the heavy lifting to break the backs of the .gov and teachers unions in the state, they won’t be plugging money into the WI Democrat’s coffers anymore.

 

The conservative suburban counties outside the population centers of Madison and Milwaukee like Waukesha county actually out-populate Milwaukee proper and are providing a much needed counterbalance.

 

The Republicans largely “won” the 2000 census redistricting/gerrymandering fight in WI when it comes to the legislature.

 

All the herpedy-derp over Act 10 and the .gov union breaking, followed up by Democratic/Liberal resistance to mines and new industry in Wisconsin kind of woke up the remaining private sector blue-collar union block… somewhat.

 

And WI as a whole has come to get used to the Walker era and post-Act 10 life, and realized everything is still running along just fine.

 

WI tends to stick with the incumbent governor for years and years whoever it might be…

 

The current Democrat front-runner, Mary Burke has a LOT of negatives. Too much Madison herpedy-derp for much of the state to stomach, at least what little is on her record.  Her time with Trek bicycles saw them outsource their lower end consumer lines to China which weakens her even further among what remains of the union power structure in WI. She shows just how weak the WI Democratic party is right now that they had to pick her, a relative unknown politically other than her time on the uber-liberal Madison school board who’s main positive is she’s got lots of money and is willing to throw it at her campaign, because the Democrats are tapped out, now that they don’t have the union dues gravy train from WEAC etc. anymore. And there’s a chance of a fracture in the WI Democratic party over the primary, because there’s a lot of pissed off people in the wings that she was just summarily “anointed” as the challenger.

She’s in an unenviable spot of being too liberal for much of the state, and not liberal enough for what’s left of the battered and bruised WI Democratic/Leftist establishment.

If Madison and Milwaukee run the whole state how did we get a (R) Governor that handily won a recall election in his first term? Also how did we pass CCW? Also how did we pass bitch slapping unions?

here is what she actually said