I'd Like to See Owen Defending WEAC

Given how much he hates WEAC, Campaign Finance Reform, and the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board:

Last November, Democratic Sen. Bob Wirch was in the fight of his political life against Republican challenger Reince Priebus. [. . .] Normally, an incumbent would not be viewed as vulnerable as the Pleasant Prairie Democrat was, but a couple of items conspired to make him so. 1) He riled Wisconsin Manufacturing & Commerce, a powerful business advocacy group, which simply had the will, money and power to make him vulnerable. And 2) he angered Gov. Jim Doyle when Wirch voted to override a veto of a concealed weapons bill.

He was the only incumbent Democrat in the Senate on whose behalf the governor did not appear or do a fund-raiser for during the fall campaign.

Wirch survived, but this is less a testament to his own political acumen than to the intervention of yet another player from outside his district. The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's largest teachers union, poured in $569,270 for Wirch.

This was to counter spending by WMC, which spent an estimated $200,000 to $300,000 in its effort to boot out Wirch. We say estimated because, under current law, this group did not have to report its spending. [. . .]

But who elected WEAC and WMC to wield so much power--WMC with the ability to oust an incumbent, barring a bigger outside giver stepping in, and WEAC, in this case, with the ability to save him? [. . .]

Total spending in the Wirch-Priebus race was $2.2 million, according to Common Cause in Wisconsin. But, combined, the two candidates spent about $530,000, or perhaps just a quarter of the total. That means folks other than the candidates essentially waged separate campaigns in which they got to shape the issues and characterize the candidates, rather than the candidates making their own cases.

Other members of Wisconsin's right wing--Lance, for example--have been on this anti-CFR trip, too. I'm not sure Mike Ellis's bill is perfect, but it makes more sense than what we have now, a system that, as shown over the last several cycles has proven to be pretty broken.