Election Year 2006.

Here in the state of Wisconsin we are in an interesting election year.

The top of our ticket this year is our governor's race. Diamond Jim Doyle (D) is the incumbent and beat out Scott McCallum (R) in 2002. McCallum lost a lot of support because he took a very tough fiscal stand and was impolitic about it. Also, McCallum was finishing out Tommy Thompson's last term who went to Washington D.C. to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services in W's administration.

There are two Republican contenders. The first is Mark Green who is currently the representative for the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin. Mark Green has done a good job and served in that job since 1998. Mark is known well the whole state over and has an excellent team put together for his bid.

The other Republican contender is Scott Walker. Scott Walker currently serves as the Milwaukee County Executive, which is no small feat for a Republican. Scott's strength lay in his name recognition in the Milwaukee area which is traditionally very friendly to Democrats.

In addition we have Paul Bucher and JB Van Hollen fighting for the GOP nomination to run against incumbent Peg Lautenschlagger for Wisconsin Attorney General.


Well, this leaves an opening in the 8th District. Who is running for the 8th district? We have two Republicans and three Democrats. Terri McCormick who is currently the Wisconsin 56th Assembly District representative and John Gard. Of the two John Gard probably has the better chance of winning the nomination as he has Mark Green's support and is currently the speaker of the Assembly so he has a lot more free press than Terri does. We will see, I support Terri in her bid.

There are three Democrats who have declared interest in the 8th District race. The first is Nancy Nusbaum, the second is Jaimie Wall, and the third is Dr. Steve Kagen.

This also leaves and opening for a new 56th Assembly District representative. More on that as it becomes clear to me.