August 11, 2006

Wisconsin Attorney General Debate

Staying up really, really late following the U.K. airline bombing story meant I slept through yesterday's Attorney General debate between Paul Bucher and J.B. Van Hollen. After listening to it (hey, Charlie get your podcast RSS feed fixed) I'm so glad Scott Walker and Mark Green aren't facing each other in September's primary. If Bucher and Van Hollen are any indication Walker and Green would have tore into each other but would have had more money so they'd do it with television and radio commercials. And Gov. Doyle would cruise to victory.

Despite both candidates saying they only disagreed with each other's management styles and issues you could feel the bad vibes between the two. That was capped by Van Hollen telling Bucher off-air that his management style "sucked." Van Hollen has apologized on his weblog saying, "I regret that I lowered myself to this level with my language choice." Bucher decided not to accept the apology.

Van Hollen has demonstrated he occasionally says wacky things. His "suck" remark goes right up there with saying earlier in the year, "We have in Wisconsin terrorists who are training and raising funds."

Bucher reinforced former governor Lee Dreyfus' endorsement that he would be a pugnacious Attorney General. Bucher verbally pushed Van Hollen on every question treating his opponent like a hostile witness. That's fine if you're a prosecutor in the courtroom, but not so good you're trying to impress voters you can run the state Justice Department.

Democrats Kathleen Falk and incumbent Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager haven't been as loud going after each other like Bucher and Van Hollen. Yesterday's debate won't hurt the GOP candidate that wins the September primary unless the animosity moves to their commercials. Then voters could have a bad taste for both Bucher and Van Hollen.

The debate wasn't as decisive as I hoped. Both Bucher and Van Hollen would make good conservative Attorneys General that would far surpass the Doyle-Lautenschlager regimes. I will take issue emphasis, character, and electability into consideration when handing out a TAM endorsement.

Here's some other blogospheric reaction:

• Boots & Sabers: "GOP AG Debate"
  
• Lakeshore Laments: "Thoughts on the AG Debate"
  
• Jeff Wagner: "GOP Candidates Need To Grow Up Quickly - Before A Golden Opportunity Slips Away"
  
• James Widgerson: "Paul's being mean to me. He sucks."
  

"GOP Candidates Come out Swinging"