Northwoods lager for the northwoods voters
Dick Leinenkugel goes out the revolving door at the state’s commerce department and is likely a Republican candidate for US Senate against Russ Feingold. Former Democratic consultant Bill Christofferson points out the family connection for Leinenkugel to the Tommy Thompson camp and says if Leinenkugel is in, Thompson is out.
Dick Leinenkugel just resigned as Wisconsin’s commerce secretary because he plans to run for the Senate as a Republican against Russ Feingold, WisPolitics reports.
If that’s true, Tommy Thompson is out of the race, and Leinenkugel knows it. (His sister Kate is married to Mark Bugher, a Thompson confidant and booster.)
WTMJ-AM’s Charlie Sykes, WISN-AM’s Mark Belling, Kevin Binversie and Owen Robinson all agree that Leinenkugel will not get Republican support after serving in the Doyle Administration. Kevin (not to pick on him) is typical:
This Senate run seems…beyond weird. The State GOP won’t embrace him because he worked for the Doyle Administration. The State Democratic Party has issued a press release that makes you wonder where Mike Tate’s going to leave the horse’s head. Simply put, he’s now a man without a party, a man without a country, and all it appears he has on his side, is his family name.
He comes in as businessman with great name recognition, but he has also been a part of Doyle’s administration for the past year-and-a-half. Is he going to hang his hat on the job creation, lower taxes, smaller government, and business-friendly regulatory climate that he and Doyle enacted?
Okay, no Tommy Thompson. Your choices are:
1) Dave Westlake who is not even accepting donations except the price of an orange shirt.
2) Terrence Wall, a past contributor to the Democrats, stumbled badly out of the gate, and will spend the rest of the election explaining why he didn’t pay any taxes (because he didn’t owe any).
3) Dick Leinenkugel, whose name is on the shelf and half the bar taps across the state of Wisconsin, now has government experience, and can say say he saw the inside of a Democratic Administration and that’s why he’s a Republican.
If Leinenkugel takes the standard conservative positions, given the choices left to Republicans and the conservative movement, how does he not win the nomination? And then, can you imagine his appeal to independents? Seriously, I bet it takes one, maybe two speeches, and he becomes the biggest threat to Feingold.
I can already write the speech for the guy. “I took on the job of Commerce Secretary because I believed that it needed to be done, and it needed to be done right. I reached out in a spirit of bi-partisanship. What I saw disappointed me… I see it again in Washington… Russ Feingold claims to be a maverick, but when his party called on him to support the disastrous health care bill that will bankrupt America…” and so on. I’d write more, but he has a big enough checkbook to pay for the whole thing.
Leinenkuegel has to be on the ballot. He’d never make it as a write-in.
I think you’ve pegged it pretty close. He’ll never appeal to the AFP crowd but he can stake out a large swath of moderate ground that wouldn’t have been available to Tommy! If he can avoid trying to out-goofy Westlake or out-pander T Wall he might be able to get within 15 points of Feingold in the end.
Leinenkugel’s not as rich as you assume. Miller built that brand in the decades after his daddy sold the company to them. I’m not a fan of T. Wall, but he at least made his own money.
In a spirit of bipartisanship he …
A) Supports the Talgo Deal and the 1B High Speed Rail plan (In addition, future gas price increases will make rail travel more appealing, Leinenkugel said. “If gas goes to $4.50 or $5 a gallon, and we all know it’s going to be there pretty soon, the economic equation is going to change,” he said.)
B) Held fundraisers for Dem Lawmakers (Rep. Jorgenson way back in, well, December)
C) Supported the Stimulus Bill
and worst of all…
D) Supported Doyle’s Disasterous 2009-11 Budget
http://www.biztimes.com/blogs/milwaukee-biz-blog/2009/7/8/state-budget-will-spur-business-growth
Leinenkugel has no shot at the tea party crowd with that resume. None. Zilch. Nada. Zip. TGT may not always have been as conservative as conservatives would have liked, but he was center-right and his spending came when taxes were low and revenues were up because of the prospertiy those lower taxes fostered.
Leine has name id. Love his Classic Amber. But as for him running a GOP campaign, this year? That dog won’t hunt…no matter how good your speeches for him would be.
A pure vanity campaign, championed by the leftovers of the Dreyfus crowd who loathe the unwashed tea partiers and want to advocate a ‘reasonable’ alternative. Sorry Wiggy, but his campaign has already reached it’s zenith.
James Wigderson Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
It’s likely Tommy is not running if Leinenkugel is running. So, once again, who are your choices?
I see no reason to believe that Thompson has made a decision or that he’d inform Leinenkugel of it before, frankly, you or any blogger or anyone in the main stream media for that matter. The notion that the two are ‘close’ is not accurate. But for the sake of argument, let’s say Tommy is out. I’d take T Wall over Leinenkugel if that’s the extent of my choices. I know Wall is unproven and donated to Dem campaigns, but he didn’t actively participate in the dismantling of the Wisconsin economy and the prolifigate DC and Madison tax and spend o rama. Plus, the field could grow. I’d write in your name, Wiggy, before I’d vote for a member of the Doyle administration in a GOP primary.
James, just a point of clarification – Dave Westlake is raising funds again, besides the t-shirt sales. He’s got a donation page back on his Senate website, and some folks held a money bomb for him a few weeks ago.
If Leinenkugel runs, somebody should ask him why beer makers can’t sell their products directly to the retailer and why I can’t purchase beer through the mail (the brands I prefer aren’t available in my hometown).
The three-tier distribution system … oh, tyranny!!!
James Wigderson Reply:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
It’s a state issue.
Northern Pike Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 8:20 am
But it speaks to his love of liberty … or lack thereof!
By “state issue” you mean the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, then James you are absolutely correct.
“I can already write the speech for the guy. ‘I took on the job of Commerce Secretary because I believed that it needed to be done, and it needed to be done right.’”
Sure, he could say that…but would I believe him…?
Accepting a Secretary position late in the Doyle administration comes with easily foreseeable baggage, pure and simple.
And if that’s a typical response, so be it. The worst part is that, from his time in appointive office, I don’t know he would necessarily be at least as fiscally responsible as Feingold.