New Republic Says Walker-Burke Is Key US Race

The New Republic author  - - and this is the second recent NR piece devoted to Walker's toxic politics - - plays out scenarios that will cost us sleep by raising the stakes beyond the heavens:

His brand of aggressively partisan, aggressively conservative politics [could] vault him to the top tier of presidential candidates for 2016.

And if the GOP wins the US Senate?
As I wrote three years ago:

You want Mike Gableman on the Federal bench, or as Attorney General, or Annette Ziegler or Diane Sykes on the US Supreme Court?  Don't laugh. Dennis Smith at Health and Human Services? Robin Vos at Transportation, or Scott Fitzgerald at the Department of Labor?

I especially liked the article's last few sentences: 

So, long story short, this Wisconsin election is an enormously big deal. The problem is that almost no one has an incentive to tout it as such. Burke, for her part, understandably wants to keep the focus on local issues, having learned from the recall that Wisconsin voters don’t view their state as the place where Liberalism and Conservatism should slug it out... 

Then there are progressives, who pine for a candidate more in the mold of Elizabeth Warren than a former business executive like Burke, with her relatively centrist record on labor and education. Some also feel burned by the 2012 recall and are wary of raising the stakes in Wisconsin all over again, particularly in a non-presidential year when the electorate skews right. Many of the national progressive groups I reached out to for this piece either passed on commenting or put me in touch with local allies in Wisconsin, suggesting it’s not a race they’re particularly consumed by, even if they would love to see Walker go down... 

All of that makes sense on some level—I too would love a more progressive candidate in Wisconsin, and I worry about the skew of the midterm electorate. But the logic happens to be wrong in this case. Wisconsin is where it’s at these days, whether or not progressives go all in. 

Conservatives certainly appreciate this. It’s time the left did, too.

So: amen to all that. 

If you want to stop Scott Walker from hosting the Koch brothers at state dinners and playing out his Neo-Reaganesque fantasies eating Jelly Bellies in the Oval Office, write Mary Burke a check. 

Then there are progressives, who pine for a candidate more in the mold of Elizabeth Warren than a former business executive like Burke, with her relatively centrist record on labor and education. Some also feel burned by the 2012 recall and are wary of raising the stakes in Wisconsin all over again, particularly in a non-presidential year when the electorate skews right. Many of the national progressive groups I reached out to for this piece either passed on commenting or put me in touch with local allies in Wisconsin, suggesting it’s not a race they’re particularly consumed by, even if they would love to see Walker go down. (The exception is Jim and Howard Dean’s Democracy for America, which, according to spokesman Neil Sroka, sees the race as a "priority.") Their energy is quite reasonably trained on the Senate. 

All of that makes sense on some level—I too would love a more progressive candidate in Wisconsin, and I worry about the skew of the midterm electorate. But the logic happens to be wrong in this case. Wisconsin is where it’s at these days, whether or not progressives go all in.

Conservatives certainly appreciate this. It’s time the left did, too

The easiest way to make sure that Walker doesn't get to live out his Neo-Reaganesque jelly belly fantasies or play with the White House red phone is to send Mary Burke a check.