Businessman Dick Leinenkugel, a beer fortune heir who had been running for the Republican nomination to go up against Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), suddenly dropped out of the race over the weekend — unable to overcome opposition from conservatives over his recent tenure as state Secretary of Commerce for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
Leinenkugel had been running for only about a month, against three other businessmen: Terrence Wall, Dave Westlake and Ron Johnson. Upon dropping out, Leinenkugel endorsed Johnson. The TPM Poll Average has Feingold leading Wall, Westlake and Leinenkugel, with no polling yet available on Johnson. The GOP already missed out on its best possible recruiting opportunity for this race, when former Gov. Tommy Thompson announced that he would not run.
Leinenkugel complained that his work for Doyle had been misconstrued — that he was just attempting to work constructively in government. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:
But in a lengthy chat with the Journal Sentinel just hours before his stunning endorsement of rival Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson, Leinenkugel said he’d been painted wrongly as a moderate and said the Republican Party needed to change.
“It’s hatred, not anger,” he said of conservative talk radio. Anger, Leinenkugel said, is healthy and can be channeled into political reform, but hatred leads nowhere.
“Reasonable people” understand why a conservative businessman would go to work for government, even in a Democratic administration, he said.
