Doyle names a campaign manager

Rich Judge, a Wisconsin political veteran who was the state director for Kerry-Edwards and helped keep the Badger state blue in November, begins a new assignment today as manager of Gov. Jim Doyle's re-election campaign.

Judge, 39, has been Doyle's deputy chief of staff in the governor's office since January. That, presumably, has given him a chance to learn how Doyle's government operates and to get better acquainted with some of the key players -- while giving the gov a chance to get more comfortable with Judge.

He's had his time in the pressure cooker (some would say meat grinder) as the Kerry-Edwards director in one of the battleground states, where the Democratic ticket won by fewer than 12,000 votes.

In the previous campaign cycle in 2002, Judge was field director of the Democratic Party's state coordinated campaign, running a statewide network of staff and volunteers to contact, identify, persuade, and get Democratic voters to the polls. Democrats won the governorship and attorney general's office that year, bucking the national trend.

Judge also has served in 2003 as the political director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, has worked in both the State Senate and Assembly as a staffer, and has worked on legislative races in every media market in the state.

Before joining the Kerry campaign, Judge was a public affairs advisor at Foley and Lardner, so he has some private sector time on his resume, too. He has been commuting from Milwaukee for his gov's office job and will probably divide his time between Madison and Milwaukee for the campaign, at least until it heats up.

It's 17 months until the 2006 general election, but Doyle has a history of putting key staff in place early, as an extra precaution to separate the campaign from his public office. Susan Goodwin, who managed his 2002 race, left her position in the attorney general's office in January 2001, almost two years before the election, to join that campaign.

Katie Boyce left the governor's staff last November to become the 2006 campaign's finance director.

On the Republican side, Mark Green named a campaign manager, deputy and fundraiser in mid-May. Scott Walker has a consulting firm, but when last heard from was still bragging recently that his campaign had no full-time staff, making you wonder who does the work.