Wishful thinking

Owen Robinson, Jim Doyle's new political consultant, has some advice:

Now that Mark Green will be his opponent in November, Doyle is focusing very heavily on federal issues - especially unpopular ones. I’m not sure it will work very well. Wisconsinites are electing a governor. They are more interested in where Green is on state issues. Sure, his time on Congress is fair game, but he was one out of 435 members of the House. Trying to link him to every bad thing that went on in Congress is kind of a reach. Doyle would be better off picking out specific bills that Green authored or co-sponsored and going after them.

As much as Mark Green might wish that what he's done and how he's voted for the last eight years would go away, he's going to be held responsible for his time in Congress.

His record in the House will tell Wisconsin voters a lot about who he is and what his priorities are.

Green would no doubt like a free pass, for example, on his votes to put the US trillions of dollars in debt by cutting taxes for the richest people in this country -- while voting to slash programs like Medicare, student loans, child support enforcement and farm programs to help people who need it far worse than the fat cats who got the tax cuts.

He's voted with George Bush (and Tom DeLay) nine times out of ten. He's cast extreme votes on issues like stem cell research. He's beat the drums for war while voting against veterans. He cast the deciding vote for the mess that is the new Medicare prescription drug plan. It's not a reach at all to hold him accountable; if he had voted "no" the bill wouldn't have passed.

Now he's running for governor and none of that counts? Nice try, Owen. But the voters are smarter than that. There are hundreds of bad Green votes. Doyle's hardest job will be to figure out which are the worst.