New Poll: Republican Senate Race Changes as Presidential Race Stays Steady

With just over a month to go to the Aug. 14 primary election that will pick a Republican candidate for US Senate, the four-way race is changing shape, according to results released Wednesday by the Marquette Law School Poll. Support for Madison businessman Eric Hovde is rising while support for former Congressman Mark Neumann and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald is declining, the poll results show. Former Governor Tommy Thompson’s support has changed little and he remains in the lead. But with 25% of likely voters in the primary saying they are undecided, the outcome of the race is hard to foresee.

The poll found Thompson supported by 35% of likely primary voters, compared to 34% a month ago, and Hovde supported by 23%, up from 14% a month ago. Neumann was at 10% (down from 16%) and Fitzgerald at 6% (down from 10%).

In match-ups of each of the four Republican candidates against the Democratic candidate in the November final election, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, the current outcomes were within the margin of error, with Thompson ahead of Baldwin and Baldwin leading Hovde, Neumann, and Fitzgerald.

The poll also found little change in the presidential race in Wisconsin, with Democratic President Barack Obama ahead of Republican challenger Mitt Romney, 51% to 43%.

In the aftermath of the US Supreme Court decision on the federal health insurance law, there was little overall change in Wisconsinites’ opinions of the law and in the overall numbers for how people rated the Supreme Court. But there was a notable decrease in favorable views of the Court among Republicans and a notable increase among Democrats.

For more information and full results of the poll, click here.

 

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Money and the Recall

Paul Secunda, as a labor law professor, weighs in on the aftermath of the recall. He makes some good points. But as (I think) one of two people in Wisconsin who teach Election Law (Mike Wittenwyler, an adjunct at UW, is the other), I would like to revise and extend his remarks.

Paul complains of the “8 to 1” spending advantage said to have been enjoyed by Scott Walker and suggests that this somehow can be attributed to the the results of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. This advantage, while overstated, is the result of a law. But that law has nothing to do with Citizens United.

First, a caveat on the “8 to 1” figure.

As my colleague, Tom Kamenick, pointed out (and not at my direction, I was off in DC), this metric doesn’t reflect the situation on the ground. 

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Tearing Down Fences

G.K. Chesterton, the English essayist and Catholic thinker, said the following:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.”

To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

G.K. Chesterton, “The Drift From Domesticity,” in THE THING (1929).

It is long past time to stop tearing down fences in Wisconsin.

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