I was calling this one “Here we go again”, but that’s not true. Instead let’s call it “Isn’t It Ever Going To Stop?”

Politics, I mean. Everyone I know is going slowly insane as the political stupidity continues here in the state.

After the craziness with the recall election a short time ago, which upped the craziness level to epic proportions in an election in which more money was spent than the entire state budget deficit for the year, I’d hoped we’d get a break, but no. I’d forgotten about the Senate race. Herb Kohl, who has been one of our representatives in the U.S. Senate for ages, is retiring, and the only reason nobody heard the contenders ranting and raving is because the special interest groups fighting over the governor’s office were making so much noise.

For those of us who thought we’d finally get a break, well, sorry, folks. Here we go again.

We have four Republicans running against each other, Neuman, Thompson, Fitzgarald, and Hudve (probably got some of those spelled wrong and you know what? I don’t care). Right now all four of them are out there cutting each other’s throats, trying to out-conservative each other, each attempting to position himself farther to the right of the other.

Now normally I enjoy watching politicians stabbing each other in the back and trying to out-lie each other without getting caught. But the level of sheer viciousness has reached the point where I can’t even answer the phone any more because something like 85% of the phone calls I get is another robo-call, and every ad on radio and television is by one of these jokers or their supporters.

Of the four of them, Thompson is probably the only one I’d like to see in office. Why? He’s just as crazy, just as much of a hypocrite as the rest of them, but at least Tommy is entertaining. True, he can’t do basic math, and he’s the main reason Wisconsin’s budget has always been a nightmare because of his habit of performing accounting tricks with the budget that would make a hedge fund manager jealous, but he’s fun to watch, and will at least provide comic relief on the morning radio shows.

On the democratic side, we have Tammy Baldwin, a pleasant, rational, logical and genuinely nice person. She has a record of compromising, working out solutions to problems, is genuinely intelligent, and really wants to help the state.

That, of course, means she is Satan Incarnate as far as the right-wing is concerned, where any sign of compromise is seen as a fatal weakness.

At the moment, the republicans are too busy trying to cut each other’s throats to have time to try to cut hers, so she’s been relatively unscathed. But once the republican primary is over, all bets are off, and I shudder to think of what they are going to do to her. The woman must have an enormous amount of courage to want to get involved in this.

Tammy is, I should also point out, the only openly gay member of the state legislature (at least as far as I know), and I’m sure that’s going to be tossed into the mix. I doubt if her opponent will mention it, but I’m equally sure that her opponent’s owners, the PACs, SIGs and extremists who own the republican party these days, will.