The Wisconsin Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee has noted that there are only 8 seats (out of 99) without a Democratic incumbent or challenger.  Republicans control the house 52-47 right now.  However, this point could use some more analysis.  Some of these seats are very strongly Republican statewide, but some are quite even between the parties or even slightly Democratic, and there is no excuse for not having a candidate.  

The eight districts, and the biggest city located in them, are the 6th (Shawano), 23rd (Mequon), 27th (Sheboygan Falls), 33rd (Hartland), 58th (West Bend), 59th (Cedar Grove), 67th (Chippewa Falls), and 99th (Hartford).  In particular, Russ Feingold and Jim Doyle did well in the 23rd and 67th.  

Below, a couple lines of analysis for each district (mostly statewide election results broken down by district.)  I will be using the 2004 Senate and Presidential races and the 2006 Governor race to provide more information on the partisan breakdown.    

From Roscoe Bartlett's website (http://www.bartlett.house.gov), comes this little headline:

"This afternoon, Congressman Roscoe Bartlett enjoyed an extensive discussion about peak oil with President George W. Bush at the White House.  Congressman Bartlett declined to discuss or characterize any of his private conversation with the President, but said that he was very happy about the meeting."

It's not much to go on, but of all the House members, Bartlett was the most worried about peak oil, just look at his speeches on his House web site.  So if he was happy about the meeting, perhaps there is some cause for hope that there might be some action soon.  Not time to celebrate, but it's a start.

So, it seems like everyone is jumping on McCain-Feingold here and is making assumptions about their desire to regulate activities on the Internet.  I agree, if they're really trying to regulate links and content of a web site, then we need to fight about that.  But let's remember a few things here.  

1.  Russ was the only member of the Senate to vote against the Patriot Act and its infringments on civil liberties.  Do you really think he would be out in front of a policy that tries to restrict speech on a web site?  

(more below)

I've seen lots of interest and respect here lately for Eliot Spitzer.  And I've also seen a lot about election machine reform (and that's an understatement.)  But no one's quite synthesized the two yet, as far as I can tell, so, here goes...