The Washington Post says that the Republican majority in the US Senate could very well be a short lived one. Democrats would need to flip four or five seats to regain control and of the ten most vulnerable seats, eight of them are Republican.
1. Wisconsin (R): Sen. Ron Johnson starts the 2016 election cycle as the most vulnerable senator on the map. He's undefined in the eyes of many, polling shows; and he's running in a state that has gone Democratic in seven straight presidential elections. To boot, there are rumors that Democrat Russ Feingold, who Johnson unseated in 2010, may run. Feingold would start with high name recognition and a loyal liberal following.
RoJo took office in 2010, during the midterm Republican sweep, in an upset over the very popular Feingold.
RoJo likes to claim that he is a self-made millionaire businessman and that everyone could be if only it weren't for that darn government getting in the way. Poor old RoJo forgets that he actually married into the millions he has and that the company he runs was a gift from his father-in-law.
RoJo apparently learned his hatred of government when he got a low interest government loan of $2.5 million. (Maybe he got upset when he had to pay it back.) The poor suffering man also had to endure getting a railroad line built up to his factory, thanks to a HUD grant.
And showing that he is a typical Republican hypocrite, RoJo has some of his employees on the state-subsidized BadgerCare. Yet other employees are actually prison inmates who work for serf wages and have health care provided by the state.
Yes, Rojo has really suffered at the hands of the government.
Other RoJo highlights include, but are in no way limited to, the following:
- RoJo argued that the $20 billion that BP agreed to pay for the Macando oil spill was "not good for the country." And by country, he meant his stock portfolio;
- Standing with Charles Murray, who wrote an essay on why it doesn't pay to educate black children;
- Voting against the Violence Against Women Act;
- Fought against allowing tribal courts to prosecute people who aren't Native American and abuse a Native American woman on a reservation. RoJo doubled down on the dumb by saying that this was unconstitutional and would cost $2 billion;
- Leading a everlasting Quixotic campaign against the Affordable Health Care Act.
- Arguing that child rape victims should not have their day in court. (Here's the video, if you can stomach it.)
- Blaming global climate change on sunspots.
As the gentle reader can see, there is ample fodder to use against RoJo.
Furthermore, the authors of the WaPo article are correct that in Wisconsin's state wide races, where gerrymandering is not a factor, tends to go to Democrats, especially in presidential years. In 2012, Senator Tammy Baldwin easily defeated former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.
If Feingold does run again, and wins, that would go a long way to make up for the embarrassment of Scott Walker being elected three times in four years as governor.
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