The two Republicans running to replace longtime Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey are both attacking his stimulus bill one year after it was signed into law. Yet their campaigns remain a study in contrasts.
Ashland County District Attorney Sean Duffy and Portage County organic farmer Dan Mielke both say the country can't afford the $787 billion stimulus bill that Dave Obey helped write.
Duffy claims the money "is being borrowed from China", and says "using our children's money to buy votes ... isn't gonna work this cycle."
Mielke says, the money isn't generating "any stimulus", and suggests the only thing being stimulated is Congressman Obey's next election.
But while both candidates agree about the stimulus bill, their campaigns are worlds apart.
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Sean Duffy has raised more than a quarter-million dollars so far for his war chest, and was endorsed Wednesday (2/17) by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. He's also been profiled by Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and the National Review as one of the country's up and coming Republican stars.
But if Duffy is getting the limelight, Dan Mielke says the GOP is trying to force him off the stage, despite being the party's candidate in the last election. Mielke says he's been excluded attending, speaking at, or handing out literature at Lincoln Day dinners. Mielke says he's been a lifelong Republican, and wonders if he's ruffled the GOP's "feathers a little bit."
The socially conservative Mielke commissioned a poll of 7th Congressional District voters, and the results show him leading both fellow Republican Duffy and Democrat Obey. Mielke says he's in the race to stay, and that means a contentious Republican primary before Obey faces the winner in the general election.
Meanwhile, Congressman Dave Obey says "it's clear" that Recovery Act money has helped pull the economy back from the brink, and kept more jobs from being lost during the recession. Obey says he's talked to workers and small business owners who say the Recovery Act has helped them in the year since its passage.
He says there's no question that the country has a long way to go, but people and politicians all need to be working together -- and that "political snipping and garbage" doesn't create even one job.
