Primary, Green challenges for Doyle?

John Nichols at the Capital Times can hardly contain his glee that the left wing -- in Democratic Party, Green Party, independent or all the above -- may challenge Gov. Jim Doyle next year.

Nichols thinks (hopes, actually) that Doyle may get both a Dem primary challenge and a Green opponent in November.

He dismisses Black's musing about a run as "little more than a summer flight of fancy," since Black is a Democrat who may want to continue his political career and eventually run for the State Senate.

But the Greens "already have a solid statewide network of activists, a track record of running credible fall campaigns and a disdain for Doyle's compromises that guarantees they'll place a gubernatorial candidate on the 2006 ballot," he says.

"When all is said and done, it is extremely likely that Doyle will face a Democratic primary challenger in September 2006. And that opponent, even if he or she is unable to match the governor's campaign fund, will win a solid vote from Democrats who - while they might ultimately vote for Doyle in a November contest against a conservative Republican - will want to register their disappointment with a Democrat who too frequently has governed like a cautious and conservative Republican," Nichols says.

Well and good, it's a free country, anyone can run, bring it on, etc. etc.

But Nichols fails to address one nagging question that should bother Democrats, liberals, and even far-lefties: Will those challenges, while allowing the self-proclaimed keepers of the "progressive" flame to feel good, perhaps siphon enough votes from Doyle to elect a Republican.

If Nichols thinks Doyle has "governed like a conservative Republican," wait until he sees a real one in the governor's office. Let's hope that is not 2007. Nichols column.

Earlier Xoff take on the subject