'06 governors' races and the '08 presidential

[ginnyinWI]

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has a front page story today,talking about the importance of a Governor's political party related to who wins his/her state in a Presidential election.

Contributing to the article is Mark Mellman, JK's pollster in 2004, who is now working for Gov. Jim Doyle's re-election.

Anyway I thought this group would be interested because it includes discussion of Kerry's Wisconsin campaign and how Doyle was able to help, and a general discussion of other states, too.

"It's not the be-all and end-all, but it can make an important difference," said Mark Mellman, the pollster for John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004 and for Gov. Jim Doyle's 2006 re-election campaign.

Mellman contends that "if Jim Doyle were not governor of Wisconsin, John Kerry would not have won Wisconsin."

There is no way to test that proposition, and some strategists - such as Matthew Dowd of the Bush re-election team - are skeptical about the impact of home-state governors on the ticket.

But as the closest state in the nation in 2004 (Kerry won by 0.38 percentage points), Wisconsin is the kind of place where even marginal factors can matter.

There is also a nice graphic of several gubernatorial races (on the right side of the page--click to enlarge) showing states that could be affected in '08 by what happens this year. It's interesting how the Repub side is trying to downplay the importance.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=494186

[sandnsea]

1. Wisconsin was that close???

I can't for the life of me figure it out. How can Oregon so easily stomp Bush, yet other states, that seem similar in demographics, have such a tough time. I understand the south, and even some of the mountain states because of logging, ranching and mining - but I don't get the Great Lake states at all.

:shrug:

[ProSense]

2. And in 2000

Gore won it by a smaller margin, .22%. Kerry picked up more than 247,000 votes than Gore, but I still don't get it!

[ginnyinWI]

3. We have our blue areas, but

a lot of the people in the state are rural and conservative. I heard more than once about people who would never vote for "baby killers", etc. Sigh. I guess Iraqi babies are fair game, though.