It appears Grothman was the one who scared Petri into retirement in the first place. Now if only we could similarly get someone to scare out Sensenbrenner and Amnesty Paul...
Indeed, he did scare him out. Petri had no intention of facing his first real opponent since the 1992 general.
That's not entirely accurate. My State Rep. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) actually scared Petri into retirement when he announced publicly that he was considering a challenge to Petri. That put Stroebel on all 5 Milwaukee conservative talk radio shows.
Before Duey could formally announce his challenge, Grothman (my state senator) unexpectedly jumped in to challenge Petri the very next day. The Grothman move was unexpected because he did NOT live in the recently redrawn and very large congressional district. Petri, sensing that any conservative challenge would likely result in his electoral defeat, chose not to run. Stroebel probably would have joined Grothman to challenge Petri, but establishment-leaning State Sen. Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) would not.
Kudos to Grothman, a career politician, for his aggressive action. He made a similar move 8 years ago to challenge a RINO State Senate Majority Leader.
While I like Glen as my state senator, I would really have rather seen Stroebel or even Leibham win the congressional seat. I've met often with Grothman - both as a private constituent and as a government affairs professional - and I have always found him to be rather odd.
He is middle-aged, single, never married and he doesn't watch TV or movies. He reads policy books. He's never really run a business or faced concerns about making a home mortgage payment. He has no children and has never had to worry about getting multiple kids to concurrently scheduled baseball practice, music lessons and a dentist's appointment. He may be conservative politically, but he has ZERO direct understanding of the daily lives of most of his constituents and supporters.
I know it's not really fair to Glen, but I get the same creepy, eccentric vibe from him as I did from US Sen. Herb Kohl.
I'm also not real happy that the result of last night's primary effectively removes 3 conservative/Republican voices from the state legislature. Stroebel & Leibham had to give up their seats to run for Congress and Grothman's victory will necessitate a special election to fill the remaining 2 years of his state senate seat in January.
While it would make sense politically, I doubt Stroebel wants to self-finance a campaign for Grothman's seat. Rumors are already flying that former Assembly Leader Jeff Fitzgerald is considering moving from nearby Horicon to run for the seat.
I really shouldn't complain about a primary that featured 3 really good conservatives (OK, 2 conservatives and 1 nearly conservative Republican), BUT this morning I feel really shortchanged with the 3rd best guy winning the race.