Kagen For A Second Term [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
A moderately successful freshman year and his opponent’s penchant for political trench fighting make the choice clear in this district.
We just didn’t understand what in the world Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen was thinking when, soon after he was elected to the U.S. House from a northern Wisconsin district two years ago, he apparently made up a dressing-down he gave to Laura Bush and Karl Rove. An attempt at humor, he said.
But, owing to a moderately successful term for a House freshman, we still prefer him over Republican challenger John Gard, the former Assembly speaker renowned for taking partisanship to new heights during his time in the state Legislature.
We recommend Kagen, a physician turned politician.
As we said two years ago when Kagen bested Gard in the House race, partisanship above all else is a quality we didn’t much appreciate in Madison and one we’d prefer to see diminished in Washington, D.C. Gard, we fear, would enhance it.
Though Gard can claim some state legislative successes, we’ve found his bare-knuckle style unproductive - appointing Republicans who challenged him to committees that never met and laying off part-time Democratic staff members in an alleged budget cutting move, as two examples.
Kagen had two of the 21 bills he introduced passed and has shown considerable concern for laid-off workers in his district.
We didn’t agree with his vote against the $700 billion congressional bailout of the financial markets, but Gard says he also would have voted against it.
