Ineptitude Should Sink GOP Candidates

If this were a regular fall season without political campaigns, we'd all be complaining about the endless ads by the storm window companies.

I remember a radio ad some time earlier by a company's comparing its professionally-made-and-installed replacement windows to those built by some slippery-sounding guy's brother-in-law.

You get the point: what you want is quality and expertise, which brings us around to the contrast between some of the top Republican/Tea Paartier office-seekers and their Democratic counterparts.

By my latest count, Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County Executive and Republican candidate for Governor, is running a television ad on stem cells rated "false" by The Milwaukee County Journal,, changed his opposition to toll roads to supporting them, is managing Milwaukee County towards bankruptcy, has presided over a mental health complex where patients have been raped, impregnated and starved to death, and flip-flopped on opposing and then taking federal stimulus funding.

His running mate, Rebecca Kleefisch, has refused to debate her Democratic opponent for Lt. Governor, and has made her opposition to government-managed health care a big issue while simultaneously lauding her government-and-taxpayer-paid health plan's life-saving cancer treatments.

The Republican candidate for US Senate is the anti-government, Tea Party-inspired business owner Ron Johnson - - shose plastics company while his company accepted the benefits of government-provided loans, a government-financed rail spur, state-paid health insurance for employees and tax laws that cut his taxes on a million-dollar or so annual income to less than 7%.

It's as if these candidates are shouting "Vote for me even though I'm two-faced and in way over my head."

Back to storm windows.

I know some people with a lovely arts-and-crafts style home who had their house painter install a nearly square, but still rectangular storm window in their downstairs front room, and it never looked or fit quite right.

An actual expert took a look and discovered that the window had been installed sideways, so there was a do-over.

So when I voted early this week I voted for candidates with the temperament and experience that governing demands:

Tom Barrett, Tom Nelson and Russ Feingold.

Our needs make those jobs too important for do-overs.