Barack Obama has been getting increasingly involved in state races but he hasn’t always been successful: He couldn’t to keep Andrew Romanoff and Joe Sestak from challenging Democratic senators in Colorado and Pennsylvania, he did not persuade Roy Cooper to run for Senate and there is little indication for now that David Paterson was marked by the president’s message that he should retire.
In other contests, however, Obama’s intervention has proven decisive. Kirsten Gillibrand owes a lot to Obama’s pushing Steve Israel out of the Democratic primary, though we haven’t heard of any direct contact between the White House and Carolyn Maloney. And we can now add a new race to those bearing Obama’s signature: Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race.
This might not be the cycle’s highest-profile battle, but there is no reason to be surprised that the White House is keeping an eye on it: Wisconsin will be an important battleground in the 2012 presidential election. Whether the governor is a Democrat will obviously not determine who wins the presidential race, but it can nonetheless be a factor: Controlling a swing state’s gubernatorial mansion provides the party a high-profile surrogate, powerful photo-ops and an efficient network of local officials to rely on.
Add to this redistricting considerations. Democrats have a narrow majority in the state Assembly and the state Senate; if they can hold on to both and keep the governorship, they would be in a position to draw a map that would protect some of their vulnerable incumbents and endanger some sitting Republicans (check these SSP diaries for a contrast between a bipartisan map and a Democratic-drawn map).
It’s in that context that we learned over the week-end that Obama was trying to convince Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to enter the race, with The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writing that the White House “badly” wants Barrett to run.
I was a bit surprised to hear this because there already was a high-profile contender in the race: Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawson. She carried a big liability (Republicans would have tried to tie her to Governor Jim Doyle and thus make the 2010 race a referendum on Doyle’s unpopular legacy) but she is clearly a capable candidate who’s ran statewide before; a June Research 2000 poll showed her enjoying a strong favorability rating (35-17) and leads against Republican candidates.
In short: An argument can certainly be made that Barrett would be a stronger contender than Lawton, but not in the clear-cut way we can make it New York’s Governor’s race, the other contest in which Obama tried to push out a candidate who’s already running. (A side motivation here could be that Lawton was a Clinton surrogate in Wisconsin’s decisive primary, while Barrett backed Obama. But the president hasn’t shown much desire to punish Clinton backers since he came in office, quite the contrary, so I am not at all convinced this played a big part in his involvement.)
Whatever the White House’s motivation, the bottom line is that they seem to have gotten what they wanted: Lawton announced yesterday she was dropping out of the race! She cited “personal reasons” and there is no evidence that her decision is tied to the White House’s intervention or to the fact that their preference for Barrett spilled out in the public domain this week-end. At the very least, however, Lawton was damaged by her inability to get the state establishment to accept her as the front-runner for the nomination - a failure to which the White House and Doyle contributed.
The problem for Democrats: Lawton is now out of the race and Rep. Ron Kind ruled out a gubernatorial run a few weeks ago - but there is no sign that Barrett is ready to commit to a run
That same Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article said he might not decide until February, which could prove quite a dilemma for the party. Sure, it should be easier for Barrett’s drafters to convince him to jump in now that he won’t have to face the Lieutenant Governor. Also, the likelihood that an intra-party fight has been avoided should be a relief to Democrats since Wisconsin doesn’t hold its primary until September 14 - a late date that could have proven problematic. But what happens now if Barrett does not run?
Lisa Madigan’s decision to run for re-election as AG instead of running for Obama’s Senate seat was another recruitment failure.