Wow. I just looked back at the long list of stories the media never reported-on in this race. I came with up over 20, but culled the list down to a dozen:
- Johnson has attacked Feingold several times for supporting amnesty, yet Johnson himself supported amnesty a few months ago.
- Johnson attacked Feingold in a direct mail piece for offering businesses gov-loan revenue bonds as part of the stimulus, yet Johnson himself has used the same loans three times in the past.
- Johnson has made his daughter's life-saving surgery a central theme of his campaign, arguing that if "Obamacare" would have been around when his daughter needed the surgery, she probably wouldn't be around today. Well, the reality is that Johnson's daughter had her surgery at the University of Minnesota and was operated-on by a University of Minnesota doc. Oh, and the doc is a Feingold supporter and supporter of "Obamacare"--seems like good fodder for an article. Nope.
- Ron Johnson says he's an "avid fisherman," but hasn't had a fishing license in at least five years. Trivial, I know, but you can bet if a rich, Democratic elitist made such a claim, the media would make all kinds of hay over it.
- Ron Johnson's inlaws sold Pacur in 1986 for 17 million to company called Bowater, Johnson ran the company for eleven years, and then Johnson bought the company back for... 2 million in 1997. What's the deal there? Crickets from the media.
- Ron Johnson has repeatedly claimed and complained about having to pay the top income bracket's tax rate of 35%. This is total BS: Johnson get's most of his income from investments and those capital gains and divididend payments are only taxed at 15%. As Warren Buffett points out, millionaires usually pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries because of this unfairness in our tax code.
- Ron Johnson is a part-owner in the gov-subsidized, PBS show Hometime. In fact, Johnson's brother, Dean Johnson, hosts the show. Relevent? Not, according the media.
- Ron Johnson served on the board of Chamco, the industrial development arm of the City of Oshkosh, which specializes in getting corporations government grants and loans.
- Ron Johnson, who has called the stimulus "immoral" and "inter-generational" theft, at the same time called for using the stimulus funds on tax cuts for the wealthy.
- Ron Johnson's claim that "he exports plastic, not jobs" isn't really true. Johnson used to work for Bowater, which was named to Lou Dobb's Exporting America, Ron Johnson is heavily invested in foreign firms, and Johnson is major supplier to his wife's family's plastic companies who have outsourced numerous plants-- including three in China.
- While Ron Johnson was lobbying to kill the Child Victims Act, which would have lengthened the time victims of childhood sexual abuse can have their day in court, Johnson was serving on the Green Bay Diocese's Finance Council, which was facing two lawsuits for mishandling pedophile priests. The Diocese was trying to get the lawsuits dismissed on statute of limitations grounds.
- Ron Johnson describes himself as "starting" a business from the "ground-up" and the NRSC describes him as a "self-made man." Nothing could be farther from the truth. Johnson's company was started by his gazillionaire farther-in-law, plastic titans Howard Curler. This story has only been mentioned, in passing, in the back pages of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The vast majority coverage STILL repeats the unrue intimation that Johnson is a "self-made" man.
So, for everyone that is wondering why this is close race, this lack of coverage is a huge piece of the puzzle.