Losing makes the left feel righteous

I wondered in yesterday's post on the Democratic primary for attorney general how some of the same people who thought it was horrific for Kathleen Falk to challenge Peg Lautenschlager could be the same people who are encouraging someone to launch a primary challenge against Gov. Jim Doyle.

One of those who fits that description, John Nichols of the Capital Times, ties it all neatly together in a column today, suggesting that Falk should have run against Doyle instead. He knows, of course, that her chances of beating Doyle would be miniscule while she has at least a 50-50 chance of winning the AG primary. But a Falk-Doyle race would have accomplished everything Nichols wants -- protecting Lautenschlager while damaging Doyle.

[If Nichols got his wish, maybe the Ds could lose both offices. There's something about losing that makes the far left feel they've done the right thing. If you win an election, they figure, you must have sold out. Losing is a sign of purity. The most severe criticism they've made of me as a campaign consultant is that I care too much about winning. Guilty as charged; I thought that was my job.]

Cute idea from Nichols. Luckily, Falk didn't bite.

Now that she's running for AG, Nichols attributes Falk's candidacy to ambition. And what could be worse than an ambitious woman? Ambition is certainly part of it -- saying "ambitious politician" is redundant -- she's running because she doesn't want to see the Dems lose the AG's office and doesn't think Lautenschlager can win in November.

Falk's taking a big personal risk to try to keep a Republican extremist from becoming AG, as she said in her announcement. Nichols says Lautenschlager will be tough to beat in a primary; no argument there. But it should be clear, from yesterday's barrage of anti-Falk negativity from the Republican candidates, that they want to run against Lautenschlager. There's a reason for that. They don't think she can win, either.