Does Bryan Kennedy have a chance of defeating Sensenbrenner?

[Poiuyt]

I know that is a pretty Republican area. After today, he HAS to go.

[RetroLounge]

1. He does if we all help

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1846522

RL

[MessiahRp]

2. Talked with him today

Dying Eagle and I convinced him to call Randi Rhodes. She spent the entire day railing against Sensenbrenner and was just looking for people to bitch him out. So we told him to give her a call and he will so he might be on her show on Monday... Great Publicity and timing, IMO.

Rp

[RetroLounge]

3. Great Idea!

RL

[Zynx]

4. Honestly, it is a helluva long shot.

The demographics of the district are really friendly for Sensenbrenner. It is a combination of rich people (Whitefish Bay, Brookfield, the Lake Country - where I live), blue collar people (West Allis, the Falls, etc) and outright rednecks (Dousman, Eagle, and so on).

The area is very, very white. Most of Waukesha County's growth in the last two decades is a legacy of white flight from Chapter 220 busing. There are no substantial minority populations to speak of other than a lot of Hispanics in the actual city of Waukesha. The few African-Americans out here are generally pretty affluent themselves.

A Democrat out here needs to be:

-- Pro-life.
-- Pro-gun.
-- Anti-tax.
-- Not even mention homosexual rights.
-- Fiscally conservative.

Those are just not debatable. On top of that, taking on Sensenbrenner requires a lot of money. Several million dollars worth, because you have to go after him HARD to start making people who shouldn't be voting for him think about voting for someone else, and attack ads cost big money.

One bit of good news is that this is a mainline Christian area, not evangelical morons. We do have them, but most people here are mainline Protestant or Catholic - groups Democrats can actually win.

[theshadow]

5. The sad thing is that....

...Sensenbrenner has such an awful public persona, that a reasonably polished candidate in a more diverse district could beat him up. His speech, his mannerisms, and his conduct in public are so crude.

This is heresy on DU, I suppose, but if we can't get a Democrat in, I'd support a moderate Republican. As I posted elsewhere, I remember when F. James used to knock on our door in the late 1960's, when he ran for the state legislature. He's been an anchor on our necks ever since. But then, there aren't any moderate Republicans in the district, either!

[LittleClarkie]

8. It occurs to me

that is why Sensenbrenner barely campaigns. He gets by on name recognition and being a Repub in a heavily Repub area. If he tried to campaign it would probably have the opposite effect.

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

6. Help spread the word about Senslessbrenner's actions!

There's no way that this is reasonable behavior for ANY politician, let alone a chairman!!

I am in the Falls, let's get this fucko out of office!!

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

7. Sensenbrenner cannot be "defeated"

But Kennedy can definitely win.

Having banged my head against the wall in two campaigns against Steve Chabot -- a neanderthal who is Sensenbrenner's soul mate -- I can tell you running against Sensenbrenner is a pointless (and ultimately, fruitless, task). When you run against Sensenbrenner, it comes necessary at some basic level for people to accept that they were foolish for having allowed such a person to ever serve in elected office.

Most people won't do that. They simply won't accept that they have been duped or hood-winked -- we all like to think that we're much smarter than that, and that there's no way we could have made such a poor choice. So when you run against Sensenbrenner, you're running against the entire Republican Noise Machine and the collective ego's of everybody who's ever cast a vote for him.

Tough sledding. People won't vote against Sensenbrenner. But with the right message, they might decide to vote for Kennedy.

Nobody ever switched from Coke to Pepsi because somebody else convinced them that Coke tastes like crap. They switched because somebody convinced them to give Pepsi a try, and they might like it better. Telling people "Coke tastes like crap" is essentially telling people that they have poor taste, and nobody likes to hear that.

Every time Bryan Kennedy meets a voter, the first words out of his mouth should be, "Hi, I'm Bryan Kennedy and I'm running for Congress because..." and then give a good reason based on the person he's talking to. Have a half-dozen sounded bited responses that clearly show the Kennedy is offering something different, something better, than what they're getting in Congress now.

And if he can do that roughly 500,000 times in the next eighteen months, he's got a good shot.

[RevCheesehead]

9. That is truly excellent insight, Jeff.

We're too reactionary. What if we actually made a case for Kennedy? Why not something like "it's time to send another Kennedy to Washington, because it's the American thing to do" (or something like that). Pulls on the heartstrings of people yearning for a more innocent time, when people valued public service, yada, yada....