It's All Sykes' Fault

Bruce Murphy, who occasionally makes a good point:

It was Gard who pushed the Republicans in both legislative houses to attack Gov. Jim Doyle from the moment he took office and repeatedly send him bills he’d already vetoed and had made clear he would continue to oppose. This was not about governing; it was about scoring political points for the next election, and it didn’t work.

I can't disagree too much with the above in general terms. There are specifics which could or should go either way, but there's no question that Gard's style was to load bills with hand grenades for Doyle--and it was Doyle's style to throw the hand grenades right back at Gard.

With base politics in mind, the Republicans made sure the marriage amendment was on the ballot for November, to ensure a big turnout of social conservatives. The turnout happened all right, but some voted for the amendment while voting against Green, rewarding a fiscal conservative like Doyle who had cut the deficit he inherited. Meanwhile, the amendment also triggered a big turnout of college kids and other liberals who overwhelmingly rejected Green

More arguable here. Doyle did not "cut" the deficit--he merely moved it to the next budget. And the chicanery with the highway fund is inexcusable. However, others have commented that when Gard forced the marriage amendment to the November ballot that he cut his own throat.

...The height of this folly was Sykes’ attack on former Republican Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus, calling him a RINO for opposing a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Sykes went further, attacking Dreyfus for raising taxes while serving as governor.

Here Murphy simply goes off the track. Dreyfus' rejection of spending controls was wrong, period. And the tax that Sykes attacked was the infamous "Taxation Without Representation" ever-increasing, never-ending, no-vote gas tax. This was a gaffe comparable with GWB's signing the Campaign Reform act which repealed portions of the 1st Amendment.

There is no doubt that Dreyfus is a moderate Republican.

Yah hey.

Traditional Republicans view Dreyfus with great fondness. Dreyfus and Panzer were exactly the kind of politicians Republicans thought of when touting their “big tent.” The “big tent” philosophy was both an embrace of electoral pragmatism and a rebuke of Democratic political correctness. But the Rove and Gard idea, enforced mercilessly by talk radio, was to make the GOP tent ever smaller. Last week, they achieved their goal.

"Traditional Republicans?" Name a few....oh, never mind. We know who they are.

As to Talk Radio--it's all Charlie's fault, eh?

Exactly WHICH metropolitan area had the largest 2001-2005 percentage job-losses, Bruce?