Mark Belling has been pushing that line on his WISN-AM (1130) afternoon show.
As he said on last Friday's show, "It is my hope that what's happening in Massachusetts will be enough to get some prominent Republican to jump into the race for the United States Senate. Tell me what Senate Democrat in America can claim they're unbeatable. Name one. Some people would say Feingold. Really? Against a real opponent?"
The seat, held by Democrat Russ Feingold since 1993, is up in this fall's election. A couple Republicans are running for it, but none are exactly big names.
Belling briefly raised the possibility of his own candidacy.
"Why don't you run, Mark?" he asked himself. "I just signed a contract."
It was then that he floated the name of his rival for biggest conservative voice in Milwaukee talk radio, Charlie Sykes over on WTMJ-AM (620).
"Charlie Sykes should run," he said flatly.
"I'm serious. I think Charlie Sykes would be a credible candidate. People who think that I'm a mean old crotchety guy, well Charlie's nicer than I am. He's got the professorial look.
"We can't get a real Republican, well Charlie should run. I'm serious about this. What's wrong with Charlies Sykes as an opponent to Russ Feingold? He's got huge name recognition. He's got the intellectual credentials from all those books that he wrote. He's at least as knowledgeable on issues as Feingold is.
"People say, 'well, Charlie's a cold fish.' Feingold's not a cold fish? You ever talk to Russ Feingold? Clammiest hands in the United States Senate.
Belling concluded by saying, "I just throw these bombs out there. Somebody wants to run with it, go ahead and do so."
So who runs with it? Why Sykes, of course.
"I could completely ignore it and pretend it didn't happen," Sykes said on his Wednesday morning show, saying it took e-mails from listeners to talk about it.
He then set up a clip from Belling's Tuesday show, where the WISN talker repeated his call for Sykes to run.
"I want the doors closed," Sykes said, theatrically, in introducing the short burst of WISN airing on WTMJ. "Because if management comes in, that will slow them down."
After Bellings' voice faded out, Sykes issued his formal statement:
"All I can say is that at this point I am not inclined to make a decision, although, I did go out and buy a truck."
On TV: Travel Channel food guru Anthony Bourdain, in town for a Friday night show at the Riverside looks like he may be gathering local color for his show "No Reservations." The Spice House tweeted that a crew from his show would be stopping by.
- The Hallmark Channel movie "Relative Stranger," written by Milwaukee's Eric Haywood, is up for three awards in the Feb. 26 NAACP Image Awards: Outstanding TV movie, mini-series or drama special; Outstanding actor for Eriq La Salle; and outstanding actress for Cicely Tyson.
- Plugging holes in its post-Jay Leno schedule, NBC is adding episodes of "Community" and "Parks & Recreation," along with more "Law & Order," Law & Order: SVU" and "Trauma," according to Variety.
- A&E says it's giving David Hasselhoff, recently dumped from NBC's "America's Got Talent," a 10-episode "reality" show. The look at the Hoff's life is still untitled.
- Emeril Lagasse is getting a Sunday night show on Ion TV, which airs here on Channel 55.1 over the air, Channel 15 on Time Warner Cable. "The Emeril Lagasse Show," which will be recorded in front of a studio audience, debuts at 7 p.m. March 28.
- Jennifer Lyon, who came in fourth place in the 2005 season of "Survivor," has died after a five-year battle with breast cancer. She's the first contestant of the CBS "reality" competition to die.
- Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly returns from maternity leave Feb. 1 to anchor the noon to 2 p.m. shift. Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum will co-anchor from 8 to 10 a.m. weekdays.
- A new Andy Griffith Museum has opened in Mount Airy, N.C., the town that inspired the fictional Mayberry in one of the two best sitcoms of the 1960s.
Conan's deal is finally done: It took a few days longer than expected, but both sides confirm the divorce is final between NBC and Conan O'Brien.
Friday's his last show, and Jay Leno returns to "Tonight" on March 1.
The ends comes just as things are getting really vicious. Leno even brought CBS rival David Letterman's wife into it in last night's monologue on his dying prime-time show.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
