John Lehman owes his victory in WI-SD-21 over Van Wanggaard to some wedding photographer named Lori Compas who lost her recall bid by a wide margin to Scott Fitzgerald in WI-SD-13.
You're probably thinking I'm out of my mind.
I'm not out of my mind. Scott Fitzgerald wanted to loan his campaign resources to Van Wanggaard because Wanggaard was facing a recall election in a legitimate swing district, however, because Fitzgerald was facing a recall election in his own right in his heavily Republican district, Fitzgerald was forced to use his own campaign resources to save his job. Had Lori Compas not gathered enough signatures to force Scott Fitzgerald to run in a recall election, Van Wanggaard would have probably won his recall election against John Lehman.
SD-13 is an R+7 district that is regarded by Wisconsin Republicans as a traditional power district for them. Let's just face it: Lori Compas had zero chance of defeating Scott Fitzgerald unless a major scandal implicating Fitzgerald broke a few days before the general election. However, she ran a charismatic grassroots campaign, which forced Fitzgerald to campaign seriously in order to keep his job, something Fitzgerald doesn't normally have to do.
SD-21 is regarded as a swing district, in fact, the successful recall of Van Wanggaard last night is not the first time that an SD-21 incumbent has been recalled from office: in June of 1996, George Petak was defeated by Kimberly Plache after Petak voted for a sales tax increase to finance the construction of a proposed professional baseball park, which was eventually built and named Miller Park, to replace Milwaukee County Stadium. It's also interesting to note that Petak and Wanggaard are both Republicans and Plache and Lehman are both Democrats. Wisconsin Democratic Party operatives officially backed the movement to recall Wanggaard from the outset, and ran John Lehman, who lost in the 2010 general election to Wanggaard, and Lehman won by less than 1000 votes!
The whole point in Lori Compas forcing Scott Fitzgerald to campaign in order to keep his job is the underlying philosophy of Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy: Run candidates who are serious campaigners in every single district, even the heavily Republican districts in order to force the Republicans to spread their resources thin. I think we ought to start calling it the Dean-Compas Strategy because the version of the 50-State Stategy that Lori Compas used would be a misnomer, to say the least. It wouldn't even be a 33-District Strategy, the Wisconsin State Senate equivalent of the national 50-State Strategy, because only 4 State Senate Districts were up for election last night. Three of the four recalls, SD-21, the one which we won, and SD-23 and SD-29, which we also lost, were backed by the Wisconsin Democratic establishment from the outset. SD-13 was a district that the Wisconsin Democratic establishment had long regarded as a "safe Republican" seat, so they never thought about seriously contesting SD-13 until Lori Compas gathered enough signatures to force Scott Fitzgerald to campaign in order to keep his job, indeed, Compas had very little backing from party establishment. The underlying point of the Dean-Compas strategy is not to concede "red states" or "red districts" but to contest them, even if there is little or no chance of winning those "red states" or "red districts". The fact that the Democratic establishment concedes "unwinnable" territory to the Republicans before putting up a fight is part of the reason why the Republican Party, Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, and other powerful right-wing interests have become powerful. While one could easily bring up the Citizens United v. FEC SCOTUS ruling the primary reason why right-wing donors have become so influential in our political system, that ruling would have gone against the SuperPACs and not for the SuperPACs had John Kerry ran a 50-State Strategy in 2004 and won the Presidency, as he would have been able to appoint two justices, including the chief justice, to the Supreme Court. He certainly wouldn't have appointed Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, nor would he have appointed John Roberts to replace William Rehnquist.
I'm not advocating for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step aside and let Howard Dean or Lori Compas to take the chair of the Democratic National Committee. But the Democratic establishment in this country needs to get their heads out of their rear ends and run the 50-State Strategy! It worked for John Lehman!
By the way, this will be the last diary that will use the We are ALL Wisconsin tag.