2008 Primaries, Strategic Blueprints • May 13th, 2008

Will Wisconsin be McCain Country in ‘08?

by Chris Lato

For the last five presidential elections, Democrats have taken Wisconsin – the last two times by razor-thin margins.

What does this mean for self-styled maverick John McCain in 2008? His campaign advisors think Wisconsin is promising – so much so that moves are being made to ensure the Badger State flips from blue to red this year.

The Journal Sentinel article I linked to above points out McCain will have to run a different type of campaign to carry Wisconsin – reaching out to the independents, conservative-minded Democrats, etc.

That will have to happen – to a point. But the McCain campaign forgets about the base at its peril.

In 2000 and 2004, the GOP worked like dogs to pull off a massive get-out-the-vote effort on behalf of Pres. Bush. It took an army of people to pull it off, and it was tantalizingly close to a success. After that, though, people were burned out, and that intensity wasn’t there in 2006, when Mark Green needed that juice to beat Jim Doyle in the race for governor. That was one reason (but certainly not the only reason) why Green lost – people weren’t quite feeling it.

This time around, again, the base is still not on fire over their party’s standard-bearer. McCain, as we’ve said before, has burned a lot of bridges with conservatives and the level of drive isn’t there yet. It will have to be, and soon. A good indicator of where things are at will be at this weekend’s GOP state convention in Stevens Point.

Still, Senator Russ Feingold makes a pretty astute observation about Wisconsin and McCain. You’ll recall the two worked side by side for years on campaign finance ‘reform’ legislation. Feingold’s politics are not my cup of tea, but he’s no dummy. From the Journal Sentinel article:

Feingold, McCain’s Senate colleague, has repeatedly warned that beating McCain in the state will be a serious challenge…In an interview earlier this year, he said McCain is “a candidate who seems to be extremely conservative (but) will be very hard to characterize,” and added that, in Wisconsin, “it’s going to be tougher than winning it against Bush, and Bush barely lost it twice.”

That is the X-factor here. McCain’s ‘independent’ streak speaks to people in Wisconsin who have no qualms about voting for a Democrat governor and a Republican attorney general. And that is what McCain’s team hopes to capitalize on. The only question now is whether that will be enough to carry the state without a message that also speaks to the base.

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