Wisconsin
2006
Governor Jim Doyle | wiki |From funding the BioStar initiative to expanding access to technology zone tax credits, Governor Doyle is capitalizing on Wisconsin’s leadership in research, biotechnology, and stem cells, and laying the foundation for a vast expansion in high tech jobs.
June 29, 2006 | Op-Ed News Story |
Governor Jim Doyle is widely seen as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent governor facing reelection this coming November 2006. But stem cells may cure his electoral woes.... "Wisconsin pioneered this research, and I believe that the governor of Wisconsin has a special obligation to these families (relatives of those stricken by ailments for which one day stem cells may provide treatment or cure). I will not turn my back on these families. I will never let partisan politics slam the door on hope for these families," thundered Doyle.
Now, three weeks later, stem cells have driven a razor-sharp obstruction between the two main Republican constituencies - the business community and the religious right - heretofore held together here by former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, a still-popular politician (and now businessman) who recently begged out against running for governor and U.S. Senate.
The business community is keenly aware of the enormous benefits of stem cells to the business climate in Wisconsin, home to break-through research on stem cells at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and is already aggressively fighting the religious right on the issue with each candidate for state office.
"A trio of business groups is so eager to stay at the front of the issue it's firing off letters to every statehouse candidate urging support for the controversial research. ‘At a time when Wisconsin is seeking to succeed in the new, knowledge-based economy, it is irresponsible for us turn our backs on this life-saving research,' wrote
(A-list Wisconsin Republicans)
Mark Bugher, director of the University Research Park,
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce President James Haney, and
Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council,"reads a popular political column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Spivak & Bice, June 29, 2006).
Supporting pioneering research on human embryonic stem cells sends a positive message to
the scientists,
science-based companies and communities
that already call Wisconsin home.Without that support, attracting, retaining and nurturing new high-tech companies becomes extremely difficult if not impossible."
Predictably, the religious right went ballistic when alerted to the pro-stem cell letters coming from leading Republicans.
As Spivak and Bice write, Susan Armacost, of Wisconsin Right to Life, lamented,
"We're very disappointed with them...very disappointed.
It is irresponsible to be calling this life-saving research..."Armacost is known derisively among many Democratic legislative aides as "Susan Armageddon," a reference to her religious right affiliations and what some regard as an idiosyncratic persona.
A recent poll shows Doyle with a 12-point lead over Green, and rising.
As Missouri and now Wisconsin appear to be demonstrating,
idiosyncratic, right-wing religious passions
brushing up against
the reality-based business communitymay signal a dissolution of the contemporary Republican coalition that is already frayed, and seen as increasingly secluded from a war-weary and angst-ridden American public.