Doyle pulls Democrats out of the wilderness

By Phil Brinkman, State government reporter

After 16 years in the wilderness, Democrats reclaimed the governor's office in 2003 with the election of former Attorney General Jim Doyle.

Doyle defeated Republican incumbent Scott McCallum, ending the long-time lieutenant governor's abbreviated two-year term after former Gov. Tommy Thompson left in 2000 to join President Bush's Cabinet.

The victory gave Democrats much to celebrate, but it was tempered by a Republican takeover of the state Senate, giving the GOP control of the full Legislature, and a stagnant economy.

With the state facing a potential budget deficit of $2.6 billion, Doyle's pledge – repeated often during the campaign – not to raise taxes was expected to be severely put to the test. The deficit also limited the new governor's ability to deliver on promises to improve schools, attract high-paying jobs, protect the environment and improve health care for the poor and the elderly.

"It means we can't do everything. And in truth, it really means we can't do a lot of things we should do," Doyle said in his inaugural address. "It breaks my heart, but that's what we're faced with."

The son of one of the Legislature's first female representatives and a prominent federal judge who was instrumental in rebuilding the state Democratic Party after World War II, Doyle grew up on a steady diet of politics.

But the route he took to the East Wing of the Capitol was decidedly his own. Inspired as a teen-ager by John F. Kennedy's call to volunteerism, Doyle and his wife, Jessica, spent two years in the Peace Corps in Tunisia. They went over as teachers but say they ended up learning far more than they taught.

The couple later spent three years working on the impoverished Navajo Indian Reservation before returning to Madison where Doyle began his political career as Dane County district attorney.

He served three terms, moved into private practice for several years then ran for attorney general in 1990. Voters returned him to office two more times. The campaigns gave him statewide name recognition, which helped him win a three-way Democratic primary before defeating McCallum in the general election.

Doyle, who is paid $131,768, is the leader of the state bureaucracy. His staff and cabinet appointees supervise state agencies, develop policy and propose the state budget.

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