"Bob Kasten is the most predictable vote for big business in the Senate," Democrat challenger Ed Garvey says in "Battle of the Skunks," Charles J. Sykes' cover story. "General Dynamics doesn't have to spend five minutes trying to figure how to lobby him. He's a phone call away." Retorts the Republican incumbent: "Garvey is running a kamikaze type of campaign. He's using the game plan written by [former Jimmy Carter pollster] Pat Caddell a year and a half ago. It said the way to go was to attack negatively, that the name of the game in this campaign would be negative attacks on me." Kasten goes on to win re-election by a four-point margin but is ousted six years later by Democrat challenger Russ Feingold. Garvey goes on to run as a Democrat against incumbent Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, but loses in a landslide. Now an attorney in private practice, Garvey is also editor and publisher of the online opinion magazine fightingbob.com.
Smells like election spirit
From the Isthmus archives, Oct. 24, 1986