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On November 2nd, we'll pick a President. Either President Bush will be re-elected or Senator John Kerry will be elected the 44th President of the United States. Either way, one of the deciding factors in the Electoral College will be the decision made by the Badger State. Wisconsin has been often mentioned as a battleground state; a must win for either President Bush or Senator Kerry. And from the looks of things, the good folks in the Badger State may see a lot of both and Vice President Cheney and Senator John Edwards. But if either camp is hoping to sway Wisconsin enough for certainty, they may be sorely disappointed. For the last 100 years, Wisconsin has been somewhat evenly divided in its political leanings. With the exception of supporting favorite son Robert LaFollette for President in 1924 over national landslide winner Calvin Coolidge, Wisconsin has gone Republican 13 times and Democratic 11 times. And of those 25 Presidential elections, Wisconsin has picked the winner 19 times, roughly 3 out of 4 times. Both parties realize, in what is proving to be a close election, that Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes just might be the key to winning the Electoral College. Last year's Presidential contest showed Vice President Gore winning Wisconsin by the razor thin margin of not quite 60,000 votes. That's roughly the number of loyal fans who regularly attend a Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau Field; which equates to about 2% of the 2.6 million who turned out to vote in 2000! Now four years later, both of the major parties know they each have a shot at winning Wisconsin. But if history is any indicator, Wisconsin should go Democratic. And there are two obvious reasons why. First, regional politics demonstrates that likelihood clearly: whereas the far northeastern United States tilts Democratic (Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire), geographically, Wisconsin, too, is surrounded by heavily Democratic states, Michigan, Minnesota, and all but certain Illinois. But the Republicans, aware that Wisconsin was in doubt much of Election Night 2000, are determined to wrest it from what would normally be a Democratic given. Secondly, Wisconsin's history of late shows that it has not supported a Republican heartily (by more than 10% of the vote) since Dwight Eisenhower's wins in 1952 (by 22%) and in 1956 (by 24%)! Both Richard Nixon's national landslide win in 1972, and Ronald Reagan's national landslide win in 1984, were only by around 9% of the vote in Wisconsin. I've said this before: this election is Senator Kerry's to win. President Bush must have both Ohio (20 electoral votes) and Florida (27) and at least one of these 3 states: Missouri (11), Minnesota (10), or Wisconsin (10) in order to prevail. Strategy-wise, President Bush might just skip Wisconsin and put his money on winning Missouri as his best hope. Whereas Senator Kerry would do well to concentrate efforts on all three of those states. Win them all, and Kerry will win it all. Lose just one and, if Ohio and Florida are in the 'R' column, President Bush can start planning his second Inaugural Ball.
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