The Return of Joe Wineke

By any analysis, former State Senator and Verona Do-Gooder Joe Wineke should be serving in Congress today. Had Dane County Executive Rick Phelps not diluted his party’s primary vote, Wineke would be entrenched in Washington, leaving then-state Rep. Tammy Baldwin waiting for long, long, long serving state Sen. Fred Risser to leave with his boots on. Instead, Tammy became Wisconsin’s first female in Congress, and Wineke is poised to be elected state Democrat Party Chairman.

Republicans would have rather suffered Wineke on Capitol Hill than facing him in swing districts across Wisconsin.

Since the retirement of WEAC political gun Morrie Andrews, and the departure of WEAC’s John Stocks, Democrats have suffered a campaign vacuum. Republicans have exploited the weakness like a cheetah knocking down its prey. Nature culls the feeble.

An historic low 40 Dem seats in the 99 member State Assembly -- despite electing a Democrat governor for the first time since 1982? A state senate that has a fractured Republican majority calling each other RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) -- despite Democrats holding both U.S. Senate seats? The state’s largest county, with its largest pool of Democrat voters electing, and reelecting, a conservative Republican county executive who emerged from the GOP-controlled Assembly chambers?

Opportunity races are everywhere in 2006.

Regrettably, Democrats have identified their weakness and recruited a fiercely partisan, articulate cheerleader; a beer bottle street fighter who will craft political rhetoric with the smoothness of a watch-maker.

If Wineke corrals the Deaniacs, the labor unions, the public unions, the Milwaukee money, and his statewide officeholders, then he may achieve something for the disappearing Democrat Party of Wisconsin.

However, I am hoping that a tribute from a former state Republican Party director will serve to doom Wineke’s bid for state Party chairman. I wish he had gone to Congress.