David Michael Miller
Sen. Ron Johnson has now pretty much sealed his fate, not that his fate was all that much in question to begin with.
Johnson will lose his bid for a second term to Russ Feingold, who will return to the seat he held for three terms before Johnson beat him in 2010. That was likely to happen anyway. A Republican has not won a U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin in a presidential voting year in 36 years. That’s because a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won Wisconsin since Reagan, and that’s because turnouts for president are bigger and more liberal.
When you add in the facts that Feingold only lost in 2010 because of a conservative tsunami and that Johnson has been a weak senator with one out of three voters not even sure what to make of him, Feingold’s victory seemed like a sure bet.
But Johnson is not leaving anything to chance. He’s doing everything he can to make a Feingold win an absolute lock. Case in point is his endorsement of Donald Trump. Somebody might have pointed out to Johnson that Wisconsin was the last state that Trump lost...by 13 points. He lost the big Republican counties, where any Republican running for statewide office has to win big — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington — by 40 points. The influential conservative radio hosts in that neck of the woods despise Trump.
And it’s not like Johnson didn’t have options. When House Speaker and Wisconsinite Paul Ryan says he’s not ready to support The Donald, that might give a guy in a challenging race a clue that maybe he wasn’t being required to go down with the ship. Johnson could have asserted his independence — which Wisconsin voters like anyway — and nobody in his party would have blamed him for not supporting their party’s standard-bearer. In fact, if it helps give him a shot at saving his Senate seat for the GOP, they would most likely have encouraged him to do it.
And, yet, inexplicably, Johnson jumped into the cesspool with Trump. Not only does this evoke head-scratching from political strategists, but it’s also morally indefensible. Donald Trump is unqualified to be president. He hasn’t demonstrated even a basic level of knowledge, a willingness to learn or an interest in putting together qualified advisers who could help him. Any one of his endless comments about women, Hispanics, veterans, the disabled or a host of others would rightfully have eliminated any other candidate by now.
Even Johnson's supporters understand that he's running behind, and they're showing the desperation of a last-minute Hail Mary pass, even months before Election Day. A super PAC supporting Johnson attacked Feingold for not responding to a whistleblower at the VA hospital in Tomah, a charge Politifact Wisconsin rated as false .
When this is over, responsible politicians will have to do some deep soul-searching about how we allowed a man this awful to get this close to becoming our president, but right now this is as clear a moral test as there is. Those who support Donald Trump are putting their party (and even that’s debatable) ahead of their country. Johnson’s endorsement of him isn’t just politically foolish; it’s disqualifying in itself.
