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GOP has high hopes for McCain to win Wisconsin

Party convention in Stevens Point this weekend

John Nichols  —  5/16/2008 4:38 pm

STEVENS POINT -- Go to the Republican Party of Wisconsin website and you will see that the organization is still struggling to adjust to the new political playing field of 2008.

Prominently featured on the front of the site is a call to "Help Defeat Sen. Clinton and the Democrats!"

As Republicans gather in Stevens Point for their 2008 state convention this weekend, nothing sums up the change dynamics for Wisconsin's Grand Old Party this year better than the nostalgic reference to the campaign the Republicans would have liked to run in this essential swing state.

The 2008 presidential race Badger Republicans thought they would be running -- a campaign against known entity New York Senator Clinton -- now seems unlikely, as Illinois Senator Barack Obama appears all but certain to claim the Democratic nomination. Polls suggest that Obama is far more popular with Wisconsin voters than Clinton, and that means the party will have to adjust to a much tougher fall contest for the state's 10 electoral votes.

Republican stalwarts still think they can win that race.

They're pegging their convention as a "Red State '08" event -- suggesting that after watching Wisconsin painted Democrat blue in every presidential election since 1988, they are now ready to paint it Republican red.

Even state GOP Executive Director Mark Jefferson admits that the party finds itself in "a challenging presidential environment."

But while national conservative pundits such as Robert Novak are suggesting that Wisconsin may slide more easily into the Democratic column in 2008 than in past presidential years, the stalwarts still hold out hope for McCain.

"Senator McCain's got a tremendous appeal to independents, and you're seeing that reflected in the polls," says John Murray, a top aide to the state's leading Republican official, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch. Murray points to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll that shows Arizona Sen. John McCain -- the presumptive Republican nominee -- with a margin-of-error lead over Obama.

But Murray know that most other polls have given Obama, who swept the state's Feb. 18 Democratic primary, a sometimes rather comfortable lead.

So it is that he says his party has "a chance" to win Wisconsin. That chance rests in no small part on the identity of McCain's running mate.

"Two of the best prospects will be at the convention," says Murray, referring to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who will deliver the keynote address at the chairman's banquet tonight, and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who will speak on Saturday.

Pawlenty, who the GOP has long touted as one of its brightest up-and-comers, is featured on most "short lists" of Republican vice presidential prospects. Now serving his second term as governor of a neighboring state, he could be expected to have some cross-border appeal in Wisconsin -- especially in booming counties along the Mississippi River that are in the Minneapolis-St. Paul media market and thus know Pawlenty well.

Ryan, who represents southeastern Wisconsin's 1st District, is a longer shot. But he's been boomed by fiscal conservatives as the right fit for a McCain ticket: young, Midwestern, focused on the economy and better regarded than the Arizonan by movement conservatives.

Few doubt that the presence of a hometown boy on the McCain ticket would help Republicans compete in Wisconsin this fall.

And, as they retool to take on a ticket led by a Democrat from just across the border in Illinois, the Republicans who gather in Stevens Point this weekend are looking for just such help as they prepare to enter the uncharted territory of an Obama-McCain race.

John Nichols  —  5/16/2008 4:38 pm