You can take the sports-to-politics analogies only so far, but primary contests have a lot in common with the playoffs before the Super Bowl or the World Series or the NBA finals.
It's in those preliminaries that you usually find the most interesting and hard-fought games, leaving the final games as anti-climatic contests. (OK, There is a recent exception. The Detroit Pistons did defeat the favored L.A. Lakers, but let's pay attention to the politics because this is WisPolitics.com, after all).
Look to the Republican primary in the state Senate's 20th District between incumbent Mary Panzer, who is also state Senate majority leader, and challenger Glenn Grothman, the state representative in the 58th Assembly District.
This is the race, ginned-up by Milwaukee's AM talk radio right-wing pot-stirrers, in which Grothman has accused Panzer, a conservative, of not being conservative enough.
Some of Grothman's allies, like state Reps. Steve Nass and Frank Lasee, have even called Panzer the worst thing you can call a Republican, or a conservative, or just about anyone in politics these days: a "liberal." Mark Belling the other day even called her "a lefty," which even for Belling is pure goofy talk.
It's amazing to see where Panzer's alleged liberalism has become a hot primary topic: She favors allowing abortions for women and girls who have been raped, who are incest victims, and who could die if a baby goes to full-term. In other words, she's really being too pro-life (the mother's).
Grothman, farther to the right of this so-called 'liberal' position, would have the government ban abortions in those three categories, meaning that rapists get to father babies with the state's approval, even if the mother is also their daughter, and with the government's approval, some of these mothers may die in childbirth. And that is pro-life?
The winner of this Republican primary fight between Grothman and Panzer will most certainly become the state senator in this very Republican area, so it is in the primary that the issues and stark differences have surfaced. The November general election race for the seat against a Democratic opponent or write-ins will be tepid by comparison.
Pretty much the same dynamic -- interesting primary election, predictably-ho hum general election -- applies in the Democratic primary in the 4th Congressional District made up of the city of Milwaukee and some southern suburbs. The seat is being vacated by retiring incumbent Jerry Klezcka, a moderate Democrat.
Republican challengers Jerry Boyle (the younger) and Corey Hoze have chances between slim and none of beating any of the three Democratic challengers: state Sens. Gwendolynne Moore and Tim Carpenter and attorney Matt Flynn.
None of those three would be ashamed of being labeled "liberal" -- mainly because they are -- and Democratic liberal activists will control the primary and general election outcomes. At a recent forum at a near West Side church on international issues, all three spoke authoritatively and passionately on a wide range of foreign policy and related domestic matters.
The only downer about the race -- but that's in the nature of contested primaries -- is that two of these broad-minded and bright candidates will lose in the primary.
It's too hard to handicap this race: 34 percent of the vote is all that is needed to win the primary, and an almost-guaranteed win in the general election. Flynn has the edge in money and in early TV commercials, but Moore benefits from EMILY's List ads. And both she and Carpenter, with legislative incumbencies and established grassroots committees, should be strong in a race where get-out-the-vote organization will tell the tale.
The most intriguing high-profile contest has to be the Republican primary fight among car dealer Russ Darrow, state Sen. Bob Welch, R-Redgranite, and construction executive Tim Michels.
Welch has managed to position himself as something of a populist, accusing his opponents of being millionaires -- something not exactly uncommon among Republican candidates.
Welch has also scored early points against Michels and Darrow for their previous donations to a variety of Democratic candidates, including Gov. Doyle and in Darrow's case, to the villain himself -- incumbent liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.
Both Michels and Darrow have said these donations were just about doing business in the real world -- something that political realists in both parties know happens all the time.
Maybe if career incumbents like Welch had championed real campaign finance reform, donations like those now coming back to bite Darrow and Michels wouldn't have happened.
Welch has succeeded in embarrassing his primary opponents, and he's far enough to the right to get a plurality of the conservative Republican faithful because he's not one of those Panzer liberals. But that same ideological right wing-ery is too extreme for a statewide win against an entrenched and likeable statewide incumbent like Feingold.
Remember Mark Neumann?
Saying you should win an election because you didn't write your primary or partisan opponents a check for $1,000 isn't much of a campaign platform, but give Welch his due: he's gotten voters' attention.
Once the general election rolls around for the seat, and those in West Bend and for Milwaukee's congressional district, it will also be clear that the most interesting contests came and went in the primaries.
Rowen is a Milwaukee writer and consultant who used to work for Mayor John Norquist's administration.
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