Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk made the least surprising political announcement monday when she declared her candidacy for the Democrat nomination for Attorney General for the state of Wisconsin. This follows upon a letter by ten Democrat members of the State Assembly asking her to run and months of "private talks" surrounding her possible candidacy.
There is talk of how this will divide the Democrat Party, and some political observers are expecting a long drawn-out Democrat bloodbath. Really, this is unlikely to happen.
While the incumbent, Peg Lautenschlager, has some natural advantages of incumbency, her very public record as the incumbent will hurt her as well. The Chai Vang prosecution and her battle with cancer did a little to shore up her standing. She has been working to build up her base with environmentalists, given the lawsuit filed against MMSD and the recent appearance by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Some Democrats may be seeing this primary campaign as a proxy fight against the incumbent Governor with whom they may be unhappy. One of Peg Lautenschlager's supporters, for example, is State Senator Spencer Black who was a possible primary challenger to Governor Doyle.
Some Democrats may be seeing this as a "cave-in" by leadership to talk radio and other conservative voices who kept alive the Lautenschlager state car issues long enough to permanently damage any chance she had for re-election.
But in the end, she cannot escape that night she had too much to drink and then attempted to drive a state-owned vehicle, and the questions about her driving a state-owned vehicle that followed. As the campaign heats up, Democrats will be made keenly aware that the current incumbent is severely wounded and cannot win re-election.
Advantage of electability then goes to Kathleen Falk, who (so far as we can tell) has no skeletons in the closet that will haunt her in the primary. Had there been such a skeleton, most likely it would have surfaced during the Democrat primary campaign for governor nearly four years ago.
Another advantage for Falk is geography. She is currently County Executive for Dane County, the big vote pumping heart of Wisconsin Democrats. During the Democrat primary for Governor four years ago she captured nearly 50% of the Dane County vote when she was considered a long shot behind then Milwaukee Congressman Tom Barrett and then Attorney General Jim Doyle. Now Falk's opponent's home base is Fond Du Lac, not exactly known for generating a large amount of Democrat votes. The battleground is Milwaukee, where Falk has already campaigned before for governor in 2002 and where Lautenschlager just upset the local Democrat powers-that-be with her lawsuit against MMSD. If Falk holds even with Lautenschlager in Milwaukee, a very modest goal, Falk wins in a landslide.
A campaign battleground in Milwaukee also means money, and lots of it. So far, Lautenschlager has been able to raise what money she can because she is the incumbent and she had no primary opponent. Falk's official entry into the race changes everything.
It would have been easy for Falk to wait until the Spring to say, look, the polls aren't getting any better, I'm jumping because my party needs me. Had she waited until then, even die-hards like blogger Folkbum and the cranks at Fightingbob.com would have had to concede that Lautenschlager just wasn't going to win in November and they would have welcomed Falk with open arms.
But Falk needed to change the money equation. Money tends to flow towards winners. You want to know why congressional Democrats got all the PAC money in the 1970s and and 80s? Because they were winners. They won, and they were going to win, so they got the money. In the 1990s, Republicans became the winners, and the money started flowing to them. Everyone loves a winner, especially campaign donors. Lautenschlager is looking like a loser, and Falk is looking like a winner. Falk's people know they have to buy ads in Milwaukee, they need the money, so the "winner" better start fundraising right now.
Meanwhile, a Falk candidacy means money stops flowing to, you guessed it, the loser, Lautenschlager. Her campaign is going to see a drop off even from the meagre contribution flow they've been getting, and it will only get worse. By the time the Milwaukee Brewers have their opening day and Kathleen Falk is in front of the stadium handing out Brewer schedules, someone in the Lautenschlager camp may have to break the bad news to Peg that its over.
