In Wisconsin's 8th congressional district we have a real chance to take a long-time Republican seat. Our right-wing Congressman Mark Green is leaving his seat to run for Governor. (God help us if he should become Governor.) Republican wingnut John Gard is not garnering much support in his effort for the seat. At their recent state convention Gard even commented to the crowd, "This isn't a wake, it's a convention". On the Democratic side, there are three candidates in the primary: Nancy Nusbaum, Steve Kagen, and Jamie Wall.
Nusbaum is a well known former county executive with a LOT of negatives. She is an establishment candidate and a political opportunist. A few years ago, she was going to run for this seat as a Republican.
Kagen is a millionaire doctor with the ability to buy this election. He can talk about health care but seems lost and uninformed when discussing any other issue. On his website, he actually BRAGS about being endorsed by Jay Johnson. (Johnson was a one-term Democratic Congressman from this district. He was a local TV anchorman who managed to win ONCE based upon his face and name recognition. He was kind of the "Ted Baxter" of local TV.)
Based upon the issues, Jamie Wall is definitely the liberal/progressive's choice. He has been endorsed by Congressman David Obey. Does anything else really NEED be said?
Wall is young Rhodes scholar who cares about and knows about the issues. That is why he is running. Jamie was "calling for Rumsfeld's resignation before calling for Rumsfeld's resignation was cool". To learn more about him go to his website. He deserves our support.
The main reason that 8th district Dems should support Wall is that he has staying power. If he wins this election, he is politically savvy and smart enough to keep the district for many years. I don't think that is true of the other two candidates. We have a very rare chance to take this district and then we need to keep it. The Republicans would beat Nusbaum or Kagen the next time around. We need to elect Jamie Wall to keep this district in Democratic hands and to have a Congressman we can be proud of for years to come.