So gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann is not seeking the Republican Party’s endorsement in the primary. His reason? He wants the election to be decided by voters, not “party leaders who will be meeting in Milwaukee.”
(Walker’s camp, by the way, shot back that Neumann is rejecting the state’s grassroots activists.)
Smart politics, perhaps, if you think about it.
First, in an anti-establishment year, Neumann looks even more like an outsider who wants to change the system. By bucking the systemand making Walker look like the anointed onehe looks really mavericky. Who knows? Maybe this is a small baby step he’s taking before deciding to run as a non-Republican candidate in the fall.
Or, it could be that he knows he’s going to do poorly against Walker at the convention and he’s taking the ball and running home from the game with an easy explanation for his poor showing. Then again, Neumann may have done well with convention attendees if he’d really gone for it. We’ll never know now, I guess.
Then there’s the money. According to Wispolitics, which has the most complete coverage of this dust-up and how the party goes about endorsing its candidates, a candidate who wins at least 60% of the vote gets quite the booty“up to $700,830 from the GOP, shared fundraising tools like the party’s donors list, utilization of RPW staff, and taking advantage of the party’s voter turnout efforts.”
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Looks like it’s Walker’s for the taking.
Then again, Neumann probably has enough F-U money of his own.
So what does it all mean? Well, looks like the state GOP is going to coalesce behind Walker. (It already has, unofficially, if you ask me. Payback for bowing out of the 2006 race? Hm.)
But Walker is a deeply problematic candidate. The county budget fiasco is not going to go away anytime soon. And he’s got to deliver another equally problematic budget proposal before the November election. That should be plenty interesting.
Add in the growing awareness of problems at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex and Walker’s leadership looks pretty bad.
Come September, Republican primary voters may think that Neumann is a much safer bet: a successful businessman, a solid conservative, a guyunlike Walkerwho’s not desperate to win the favor of the party’s elite. Neumann may be the safe maverick while Walker looks like a craven politician in a year when politicians aren't to be trusted.
UPDATE: I spoke with Chris Lato, on Neumann's campaign team. Is Neumann still a Republican? "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes," Lato said. So don't expect a third-party run.
