1st Congressional District Juiced To Flip

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If Monday's headline is any indication of how the Janesville Gazette responds to the huge turn-out last week at the Obama Campaign Grand Opening in Janesville, you can bet the paper is priming up to mount a solid effort on behalf of John McCain.

Instead of reporting on the local Obama event with good, subjective journalism, the newspaper's coverage of the turn-out (up to 200 attendees) was relegated to an anonymous comment in Sunday's edition. The Gazette, (just in case you might want to know why all those people showed up at the Obama office opening they failed to cover) then tops it off with an unbalanced McClatchy-Tribune analysis of Obama's popularity as front page news headlines the next day, quoting McCain aides describing Obama's leadership appeal as nothing more than a candidacy based on celebrity-ism among other things.

JG Excerpt: (quote highlighted in newspaper)
"(The election is) either about Obama or about Bush, McCain loses. If it's about Obama, he (McCain) has a possibility to win" -- GOP Strategist

Matt Dowd.... forgetting that if the election is about John McCain OR the Republican Party - Obama wins again!!

The core premise to the article is this: Republicans want us to know that if we pay too much attention to Obama, he will lose.

At this moment, McCain's popular vote numbers are not going to change, he probably has 50 million votes today and 50 million on Election Tuesday. They know Obama probably has 54 million right now and the only way to defeat him is to smear and slander him down to 48 million. Those 6 million won't vote for either candidate....McCain wins.

That's McCain's low-road strategy and you can believe there will be no apologies, win or lose.

Dowd's observation though also explains how important it is for voters in the 1st Congressional District to maintain consistency. In other words, it should be against the political law of "gravity" for both Rep. Paul Ryan (Bush) and Sen. Barack Obama to win the south-eastern corner of Wisconsin.

DailyKos Excerpt:
Focus on…..Wisconsin
District 1—Paul Ryan (Inc R). This suburban district on the Illinois border is the most politically neutral district now held by a Republican. This one and the 8th are the only ones considered "on the map" in 2008, and even then, only barely.

Ryan’s Democratic opponent will be either Marge Krupp, a chemical engineer, or Paulette Garin, a teacher and CPA.

In a wave year, this one has a chance of flipping. If it does not flip, most of my thoughts on redistricting are directed to this blue corner of the state, which can be made to flip. In the last redistricting, it was gerrymandered to protect the incumbent.

In good years for Ryan, Democratic challengers with little to say and no money averaged 35% of the vote. That is a solid core for anybody to build on against Ryan in the general and we can bet it has changed dramatically since the last election.

In the 1st CD, Democrats for Obama must also remain focused on Paul Ryan, his congressional record, his republicanism and his ideological link to George W. Bush just the same in order to pull off a win for Obama. This is the key for victory.