#wi-sen

Progressive champion Russ Feingold is back and running to reclaim the U.S. Senate seat he held in Wisconsin for three terms before losing to Republican Ron Johnson in 2010.

“People tell me all the time that our politics and Washington are broken. And that multi-millionaires, billionaires and big corporations are calling the shots,” Feingold says in his announcement video. “They especially say this about the U.S. Senate, and it’s hard not to agree. But what are we going to do? Get rid of the Senate?

“Actually, no one I’ve listened to says we should throw in the towel and give up — and I don’t think that either. Instead, let’s fight together for change.”

(via Paul Krugman Tells GOP Senator Johnson on ABC's This Week: "‘Your Facts Are False’ On Social Security")

During a contentious panel on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) found himself at odds with his fellow panelists — and with the facts — about Social Security’s solvency.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman jumped in to point out that Johnson was unwilling to accept even the most basic facts over the way Social Security is funded, all for the sake of a talking point:

KRUGMAN: You said ‘let’s start with the facts,’ but we’ve just run aground right there.

JOHNSON: Exactly my point, we have got to agree on the facts and figures.

Democrat Tammy Baldwin defeated Republican Tommy Thompson in a race to become the next senator from Wisconsin.

Fox News and CBS News called the contest Tuesday night for Baldwin, who will become America’s the first openly gay senator — a development that progressives and gay rights advocates immediately praised as the results trickled in.

“Tonight, at the end of a long and hard-fought campaign, we have won a huge victory for Wisconsin’s middle class,” Baldwin said in her victory speech. “Well, the people’s voice was heard tonight, Wisconsin - and come January, your voice will be heard in the United States Senate.”

BREAKING: Tammy Baldwin has won #WISen over Tommy Thompson. She is the 1st openly lebsian Senator. Hooray! #TammyBaldwin #p2

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Tommy Thompson, four-term Wisconsin governor and now Senate nominee, warmed up the GOP audience for the main event, which was an exuberant, humorous, always biographical plea from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for Republicans to get their friends and neighbors to vote.

"You don't want to wake up and have Tommy miss by that much," Christie told a quiet luncheon of about 150 recently, imploring them to spend every day but Green Bay Packers' game day calling names in the Wisconsin phone book.

"You don't want to say to yourself, 'I could have done something, I could have done a little more. I didn't listen to Christie. ... I didn't make a difference and now we have her as United States senator.' We don't want that."

"Her" is Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a seven-term liberal Democrat locked in an excruciatingly close race with the better-known Thompson for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl. Baldwin started hard early while Thompson struggled in a four-way GOP primary that left him bruised and underfunded. Republicans say he has revived his campaign in the closing weeks and holds a slight edge.

Both the presidential election in this competitive state and the Senate contest will be a true test of the ability of the campaigns to energize voters weary after Republican Gov. Scott Walker prevailed in a June recall vote.

The election also stands as a tie-breaker on Wisconsin's political identity. The state backed President Barack Obama by 14 percentage points in 2008 but two years later elected Walker and tea party-backed Ron Johnson over incumbent Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

The Thompson-Baldwin race will help determine which party controls the Senate. Democrats hold a 53-47 advantage, with Republicans needing a net of four seats to grab the majority. If Republican Mitt Romney wins the presidency, the GOP will need just three: The vice president casts tie-breaking votes in the Senate.

During an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorial board last week, Thompson unveiled a new Medicare proposal in what appeared to be an attempt to distance himself from Ryan's plan.

Instead of setting up a new system of plans for seniors to choose from, Thompson would give seniors two choices: stay on Medicare or buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, which is essentially a private exchange that federal workers have access to.

According to a report commissioned by Kaiser Health News in September, FEHBP does a poorer job of holding costs down than does Medicare. FEHBP grew by an average of 7.1 percent per enrollee each year, compared to 5.8 percent for Medicare.

But Thompson insisted that his plan has been "projected" to "save money," arguing that the Congressional Budget Office looked at a plan that was similar to his.

"They have not looked at my plan," he said of the CBO, adding, "This is a plan by Paul Ryan, I’ve modified it. I think my plan is better … When I'm elected to the United States Senate, I have a chance to use the computers and have the access to CBO and I’ll be able to make the necessary things. I’m talking conceptually, about an idea out there that has been advanced by somebody else and I think it makes a lot of sense."

When pressed by the editorial board, Thompson hadn't seemed to have thought his plan through, admitting he didn't know if it would actually save the federal government any money and referring to FEHBP as the "Health Education Benefit Package." The lure of the idea, in short, is that it isn't exactly Ryan's plan, and it isn't Obamacare, and the two federal plans are quite popular. And according to Thompson, the status quo is not an option.

"So if you haven't scored it and you don't know how much it’s going to save, how do you know it's going to be a big advance?" asked one of the board members.

"Because Medicare is going broke and we have to do something about it. It's a plan," he said. "It's a plan that I believe more than likely will work."

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