The deadline for candidates to file for this fall’s elections is three days away, and it appears Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan will go without a Democratic challenger for the first time.
That is, unless Kenosha Democrat Paulette Garin, or somebody unforeseen, jumps into the race at the last minute. Garin said she won’t say what her plans are until next week.
One thing’s for sure: Democrats will go without the well-financed candidate they hoped to draft to go up against the 12-year incumbent Ryan.
As of Friday afternoon, Kenosha Libertarian Joe Kexel and Bill Tucker, an independent candidate from New Berlin, were the only opposition on Ryan’s radar screen.
Karen Erb, chairwoman of the Kenosha County Democratic Party, said that’s a reflection of the difficulty of unseating an established incumbent and a lack of commitment to the race from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“We’ve had a lot of good potential candidates,” Erb said. “Part of the problem is that Paul has won by a very large majority, and there aren’t very many candidates that would want to get into this without an awful lot of cooperation and help coming from Washington, D.C.”
Jerald Mast, an assistant professor and chairman of the Political Science Department at Carthage College, said the challenge is simple: incumbents in Congress raise a lot of money. Ryan, as of June 30, had nearly $2.2 million on hand, according to federal filings.
“One of the impacts of having lots of campaign money is not only that it helps you to defeat the people who run against you, but it also helps to scare off people from running in the first place,” Mast said.
Garin, who came in second in a four-way Democratic primary in 2008, is outspoken in her criticism of how the party establishment has approached finding a Ryan challenger for this year.
After stating her interest in running at last year’s 1st Congressional District Democratic convention, Garin said she became “Candidate D” in a behind-closed-doors search for a better-funded alternative.
“It’s always been this mindset if we can’t find somebody with money, we can rely on Paulette,” said Garin, who employed a grassroots campaign style two years ago and believes such an offensive remains valid today.
“It’s very sad to me what’s going on right now,” Garin said. “We’ve got this new leadership at the (congressional district) level and they made all these promises that we’re going to find a candidate, and they did formally form a committee to do this.”
Mark Pienkos, the district Democratic chairman, was unreachable for comment Friday.
Garin, or anybody else who wants to run, would have to collect 1,000 petition signatures from district residents before Tuesday afternoon’s filing deadline.
On Friday, Garin would not say whether she has circulated papers, or whether she plans to over the weekend.
“I will let everybody know next week,” she said.
The 1st District is by no means a lock for Republicans.
Comprising all Kenosha, Racine and Walworth counties and portions of Milwaukee, Waukesha and Rock counties, the area carried President Barack Obama by a small margin in 2008.
And the area elected Democrats to Congress reliably for a quarter-century, before Republicans took control of the House in 1994.
But Ryan has polled solidly ever since his first election in 1998, taking no less than 63 percent of the vote in each of his five re-election bids — a fact that doesn’t sit well with Marge Krupp, the Democratic nominee who mustered just 31 percent of the vote against Ryan in 2008.
“He’s far-right-wing and we’re a moderate district,” Krupp said. “So it doesn’t make any sense that he represents us. I think the Democrats might be creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy here, and it’s too bad he’s getting a free ride.”
Carthage’s Mast said Ryan manages to get plenty of votes from people who don’t necessarily agree with his positions, largely because he appears sharp, smart and well informed.
“There’s evidence to suggest that voters are willing to vote for a candidate who doesn’t necessarily reflect their ideological perspective, so long as they think a given candidate has a clear plan and has their interests in mind,” Mast said. “And so, I think that Mr. Ryan meets that criterion for a lot of voters in southeastern Wisconsin.”
Queried after one of his listening sessions in Kenosha last month, Ryan was reluctant to talk about the upcoming election and any opposition from Democrats, or lack thereof, that he might face.
“I don’t concern myself with things that are outside of my control,” he said. “I don’t put my mind around starting to campaign until the fall.”
Ryan, who continues to tout his budgetary reform plans in the national media and has had his named dropped as a possible 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, really didn’t want to talk about running for higher office — a question that arose when a constituent asked him, “Are you running for president?”
“No, I’m not going to be running for president,” Ryan said. “Other people can run for president, but other people can’t raise my kids. That’s just too important for me.”
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The only people that believe that Democrats will do well this year are hard core democrats. Why would any Democrat waste their money against a popular incumbent? If the Dems were going to beat Ryan, they would have done it in 2006 or 2008
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