Uppity Wisconsin

Sen. Russ Feingold and maybe, could-be, might-be challenger Tommy Thompson traded jabs again Friday, which seems to perplex Tommy and some of the political media covering the race. Wis Politics says:

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold said Friday that potential GOP opponent Tommy Thompson has "become part and parcel of the corporate lobbying system," while the former guv shot back that Dem attacks on his list of clients indicate they “really must be afraid.”

... Some observers have questioned why Feingold is choosing to focus in on Thompson when the former guv hasn’t announced he’s in the race yet. Following his speech to supporters in Madison, Feingold said in an interview that he's honing in on Thompson "because he can't have it both ways.

Tommy is used to getting a free ride from the media, who report his every move. He thinks he should get daily stories that undermine Feingold's campaign -- and those of the two Republicans already in the race -- without anyone criticizing or questioning him. That ain't how it works.

Maybe Tommy doesnt know that because he's never really taken a punch in a campaign, and thinks his opponent should act like a punching bag and never hit back.

What Feingold and the Dems are doing is serving notice to Tommy that if he does get in, he is in for the race of his life -- one that he just might be afraid of.

Latest sign that Tommy may be backing off, or that Bill McCoshen, his head cheerleader, has been too far out in front of the boss:

New video from the state Democratic Party.

Rasmussen Reports, which has been peddling some very suspect numbers about Wisconsin political races in recent months, has a new Wisconsin poll (paid for by who knows whom.)

What's been remarkable about Rasmussen polls is the high name recognition of two Republican Senate candidates that no one has heard of in real life -- not to mention the fact that it shows Tommy Thompson, who's not even running, beating Russ Feingold.

The pollsters tried to defend themselves, but their latest set of numbers takes a new tack.

The two Repubs, David Westlake and Terrence Wall, both are less well known now than they were a month ago, they say. But their favorable-unfavorable numbers are still greatly inflated.

Now, Rassmussen says those numbers don't count:

Feingold is viewed very favorably by 34% of Wisconsin voters and very unfavorably by 31%. Twenty-one percent (21%) view Thompson very favorably, while 17% view him very unfavorably.

Fewer than 10% of Wisconsin voters share strong opinions of either of the two announced GOP candidates. Thirty-three percent (33%) have no opinion of Wall, while 40% feel the same about Westlake.

At this point in a campaign, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with a strong opinion more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers.

Weasel words.

By the way, Rasmussen says the Thompson-Feingold matchup is a dead heat, 47-45. It seems like just last week that Wisconsin's Phony Research Institute released a poll showing Tommy up by 12.

The road to filing day is littered with the wrecks of candidates who were once 80% or 90% sure to run for something, but never quite got to the starting gate.

Is the Tommy Thompson for Senate campaign about to join the would-be candidacies that never quite materialized?   There's already a whole section in that political graveyard with headstones marking Tommy's previous brushes with running that were stillborn.

In any case, a story by Politico and another in the Washington Post certainly make it sound much less certain that Tommy will take the plunge than his surrogate son, Bill McCoshen, has led people to believe.

McCoshen had Tommy 70% in earlier, but now the Post reports:

Now,Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) is "50-50" on whether or not to challenge Sen.

"Is there any group of people held in lower regard than lobbyists? Car salesmen? Journalists? Here's one possibility: Lobbyists who are thinking about becoming politicians."-- Dan Bice column in the Journal Sentinel,Dec. 6, 2007.

Bill McCoshen's all over the news these days, talking like the unofficial spokesman for the might-be, could-be but maybe-not Tommy Thompson campaign for US Senate.

McCoshen also took time this week to trash the state's (and Democrat Jim Doyle's) record on job creation, in an appearance in Beloit where he relied on data from the conservative (read Republican) Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. "Forward may be the state motto, but it's going backward," McCoshen said. Cute.

Some people watching and reading the news may be wondering just who this McCoshen guy is.

If I were Tommy (I can't even imagine that!), I might want to pay more attention to the comments than the story about his musings.

The news media and some Republican insiders may think Tommy for Senate is a great idea, but the great unwashed are unimpressed. Check it out. It's certainly not a poll, but it's a focus group of sorts. People sound like they've had enough.

The Massachusetts voters have spoken, and Tommy Thompson has been listening.

What does he hear? That voters are so upset with politicians that they want a Washington, DC lobbyist to run for the US Senate in Wisconsin. He tells Politico:

In a brief interview Wednesday about the possibility of a Senate run this year, Thompson, a Republican, would only say: "I'm not saying no."

Will Tommy, who's been feeding at the corporate trough since leaving the Bush administration, actually run? Given that he's been threatening to run for something every two weeks for several years, it seems unlikely.

But people of Wisconsin might welcome a Tommy candidacy, so we could find out once and for all how much money he's been raking in and from whom, since he'd have to release all of his financial dealings.

Mostly, this seemed worth noting just to be able to post that remarkable AP photo.  Stand by for another in a long series of Journal Sentinel "Tommy might run" stories tomorrow.

Strategic Vision, the controversial (some say phony) polling firm that perhaps should have called itself Virtual Reality, has been a major factor in Wisconsin media's political coverage.

As we noted earlier, the media, particularly the Journal Sentinel, were all too happy to report the results released by Strategic Vision, which always claimed it had no clients paying for the polling and was somehow doing all kinds of expensive polling as a public service.

Reporters never asked to see the cross tabulations -- the breakdown of underlying responses that produce the bottom line numbers.

Remember the 2006 stories about how Tommy Thompson would beat the pants off Jim Doyle if Tommy decided to run for governor again? Here's the JS report, by Patrick Marley and Steve Walters, to refresh your memory:

Madison — Former Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson would trounce Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle by a nearly 2-to-1 margin if he jumped into the race, according to a poll released Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Thompson has called former aides and other Wisconsin political power brokers, soliciting advice as he considers taking on Doyle or U.S. Sen.