Dave Magnum, nee Dave Weiss, has issued ten press releases since August, and eight of them (eight!) have dealt with the logistics of having debates. Mr. Magnum wants to make sure the citizens of the 2nd District know where he stands on important issues like “Magnum proposes debate schedule” and “Magnum offers detailed debate plan”.

Well, the first of six debates between Magnum and Tammy Baldwin took place yesterday. The report from the Capital Times, entitled “Magnum parades his ‘moderate’ credentials”, opens with coverage of the goofiest political declaration since Joe Lieberman parlayed a fifth-place primary finish into a “three-way tie for third”:

Republican congressional candidate Dave Magnum tried so hard to be moderate during a debate with Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin on international issues Sunday on the rather liberal University of Wisconsin campus that at one point he called himself a “moderate Democrat.”

Magnum also felt the need to assert that he is “not George Bush, and George Bush is not the future.” Oh, and Donald Rumsfeld should resign, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the war in Iraq was a bad idea.

Since he has previously indicated a desire to run a substantive, issue-based campaign (presumably about issues other than where to hold some debates), I decided to look up where Magnum stands on the issues. It’s not an easy task, since his campaign website doesn’t mention of any of the things that have dominated our political discourse for the past two years. Nothing on Social Security. Nothing on Medicare Part D. Nothing on Iraq. Nothing about habeas corpus (although in the debate he announced the “moderate” position of favoring a sunset provision for torture). Nothing about tax cuts. Nothing about fiscal responsibility. It was not always thus.

Back in 2004, when the Republicans were not down 23 points in the polls, and when George Bush’s approval ratings were not in the 30s, Dave Magnum didn’t feel the need to separate himself so much from the President. He was in favor of privatizing Social Security. He supported George Bush’s rejection of new stem-cell research. He supported the elimination of the estate tax. He opposed a woman’s right to choose in almost all cases. He supported the war in Iraq. He blamed the Republican budget deficits on “the recession”. He was a conventional George Bush Republican.

Again, Dave Magnum, “moderate” (he says so himself!), wanted to privatize Social Security.

If I had to sell that pig in a poke to the good folks of the Wisconsin 2nd, I’d probably want to talk about debate schedules, too.

Posted by Ben Brothers at 9:21 pm, 9 October 2006 and filed under Madison News, Wisconsin News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.