Along with Marco Rubio, Michael Williams, and Nikki Haley, I’ve got my eye on a few other races.

One of those is Sean Duffy who is running for Congress in Wisconsin. If you are in your mid-thirties, you probably remember Sean Duffy from television.

But for the past number of years, he has been a prosecutor in Wisconsin racking up a serious law and order record and has proven himself both a serious public servant and serious candidate for higher office.

What makes 2010 so great is that we have the potential to pick off some Democrats who would otherwise be safe. David Obey is one of those candidates. Obey has never had a real job outside of being a state and federal legislator. He’s also a pompous ass. And this election season he is vulnerable.

Duffy presents an attractive alternative for the people of Wisconsin. But he is going to need some help.

One of the leading opponents on Congress of the Democrats’ healthcare plans is Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Over the next two weeks, he will have a series of townhalls in his district to talk about healthcare.

RedState has obtained an email showing the Democrats and Barack Obama’s own Organizing for America are working to actively disrupt Paul Ryan’s townhalls.

In the email, Democrat activists Kelly Gallaher sends out a series of instructions for activists, telling them to keep them secret.

She writes that “the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Organizing for America, and Community for Change are wroking together to promote attendance at these sessions.”

At each session there’ll be a 4 page brochure on “Organizing for Health Care”; “information on why Paul Ryan’s health care plan is wrong”; “Contact information for Ryan, Feingold, Kohl and [Organizing for America]“; and other items.

She adds “if we encounter official resistance to our table, we will have bags to carry all the same information. The rally signs may not be allowed in the actual meeting place.” Why would there be official resistance? Well, this is a townhall for a Congressman, not a rally for Organizing for America.

The stated goal is “to overwhelm each session with reform supporters.

But it’s not just that.

On August 27th, Congressman Ryan is going to have one townhall in Racine, WI, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Ms. Gallaher writes, “For the Racine session, which runs until 2:30, we have reserved the room until 5pm, so the session can continue with or without Paul Ryan. (That is a bit of secret, so don’t tell Paul Ryan!)

In other words, they are going to try to drum up some bad PR for the Congressman — all using Barack Obama’s own horde of volunteers.

The best way to combat this is to show up yourselves. Get all the details from Kelly Gallaher’s email.

The funny part? I wish that this wasn’t just a goof-up.

Madison — As the state agency charged with running elections, the Government Accountability Board can’t show favor for Republicans or Democrats.

But is it biased toward anarchists?

The board recently launched a new logo - an A inside a circle - that looks similar to the traditional symbol for anarchy.

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There are merely taxes that people pay attention to, and then there are taxes that people forget about. And once they forget about them, the government can safely and quietly make them permanent. Wisconsin’s cell phone tax is a case in point:

In 2003, the state created the cell phone tax to upgrade 911 response services. When the upgrade was done, it left a balance of $20 million in the state’s coffers, which was slated to be returned back to consumers as a credit on their phone bill.

However, Gov. [Jim] Doyle has now proposed extending the cell phone tax, raising it by 75-cents, and then making it applicable to all landlines as well. Oh, then he would then add another 56-cent tax to cell phones for the state’s Universal Service Fund, which has nothing to do with cell phone usage. All told, the proposal amounts to a $100 million per year tax increase on cell phone users.

See also local blogs Wigderson Library & Pub, No Runny Eggs, and Boots and Sabers for more details. I will repeat: this is how permanent tax hikes happen. It’s easy to put them in - and once they’re there, they’re staying there, as Wigderson reminded us about the 100 year old phone tax. Remember that any government will always consider a tax to be justified (otherwise, it wouldn’t impose it in the first place), and will thus think nothing of trying to find some way to keep it, and the revenue that it represents.  That’s just the way the world works - and that’s one reason why the GOP defaults to supporting tax cuts: it’s always a safe bet to make that the government’s taking too much of your money.

Needless to say, both the Governor and the state legislature of Wisconsin are Democratic. Still, that party’s control of the legislature is by thin margins, so pushback is possible. People are coordinating one through here and here; I suggest that people check it out, particularly the ones from Wisconsin itself.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Here is the nanny state at its most ridiculous. Healthies — people that obsess about health — are on the march in Madison, Wisconsin trying to get the state government to ban people from feeding peanuts to squirrels on the state Capitol grounds. It’s a state emergency, ya know? Why these casually discarded peanuts could just maybe affect a child that has an allergy. We MUST ban the evil peanut to SAVE THE CHILDREN!

One would think that people are dropping dead every 5 seconds from peanut allergies with all this energy and focus directed against that monstrous Mr. Peanut. You would think that this important health effort would save uncounted lives, wouldn’t you?

Maybe not.

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