Wisconsin state Sen. Tim Cullen, who in December became the first Democrat to say that he would run in the state’s gubernatorial recall election if one was triggered, announced Wednesday that he will not run, after all.
This currently leaves former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk as the only declared Democratic candidate in the effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, though others may surface such as Milwaukee Mayor and 2010 Democratic nominee Tom Barrett, state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, former Congressman Steve Kagen, and others.
Jessica Arp, from the local CBS affiliate in Madison, reports that Cullen said that it would be “too uphill, too short of time” for fundraising. “I came to Madison as a centrist and found no center,” Cullen also declared. He also said that he reached out to public employee unions for support: “I was met with respectful indifference.”
A moderate Democrat, Cullen served as state Senate majority leader in the early 1980’s, and then later went on to serve as state Health and Social Services Secretary in the cabinet of Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. He then made a career in the private sector as an insurance company executive, and returned to the Senate in 2010 — just in time for the very polarized atmosphere that the state has been in for the last year.
