| January 2007: Letter from Jim and Cheryl |
Cheryl and I want to express our deepest thanks for your steadfast support during last year’s campaign. This campaign was not easy given the Democrat tide and without your financial and volunteer efforts, it would not have been as successful. We both hope you had a very blessed Christmas and wish you the best for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007. This letter is NOT a fundraising appeal, but a report to you. The fundraising will come later, as I have registered the Sensenbrenner Committee for the 2008 election. The best: I was re-elected with the largest number of votes cast for ANY Congressman in the nation elected by district (two elected statewide had more). This was despite my winning percentage dropping from 67% to 62% and is a tribute to your efforts in targeting Republicans and getting out the vote. The phone calls you made identifying Republicans allowed me to send highly targeted motivational mailings to friendly voters and then place automated calls reminding them of the stakes in this election. We also made our fundraising targets to pay for these activities and to make significant financial contributions to the Republican Party of Wisconsin and to Republican Congressional candidates in targeted districts (including the 8th District vacated by Mark Green). My biggest disappointment was that Republicans could not keep our Congressional majorities despite these efforts. The bad: The 5th District has become significantly more Democrat. Mark Green received only 59% of the 5th District vote, compared with President Bush’s 63% in 2004. Jim Doyle and my opponent, Bryan Kennedy, carried the Milwaukee County part of the 5th District and there have been marked reductions in the Republican vote in parts of the 5th outside of Milwaukee County. The drop in the GOP vote in Wauwatosa and West Allis caused Tom Reynolds’ defeat for the State Senate and the totals in the North Shore and southern Ozaukee County make Alberta Darling the Dem’s top target for 2008. These totals confirm what my professional pollster has told me, that the trends in the 5th District are going against Republicans. My committee did polls in May and September 2006 and compared those results against one done in May 2004. These polls show a noticeable erosion of those who call themselves Republicans, only a small increase in those who call themselves Democrats, and a jump in whose who call themselves Independents. There are two reasons why Republicans did so poorly nationally, which have been confirmed by these polls. The biggest reason is that independent voters in districts like ours went from 2-1 Republican in 2004 to 2-1 Democrat in 2006. If we are to reverse the Democrat trend, we must address both causes. The first cause was the war in Iraq. Americans don’t want us to withdraw, but have questioned the management of the war by the Bush Administration. I think the President has received the message and hope that a better game plan becomes apparent – and soon. The second was that the Republican Congress lost its way with overspending, earmarks and pork barrel projects and poor management. I believe that I was able to set myself apart from this cancer by voting against the fraud-laced Hurricane Katrina funding (Remember how the Dems and Journal-Sentinel attacked me for this at the time?), as well as voting against the highway bill which funded the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska and my support for a line-item veto. I’ll continue to attack this type of deficit causing spending this year. The ugly: The Democrat base in the 5th District has awakened after sleeping for 25-30 years. The Waukesha County Democrat chairman credits aggressive use of ‘free press” through press releases and letters to the editor for the election of a Democrat Mayor in Waukesha. The Dems continued these attacks during the fall election against both Mark Green and me. While I send out my share of press releases, Republicans did not aggressively respond to what Democrat volunteers and union officials did in our local press. The Democrats have also started disrupting town meetings and other open forums by Republican elected officials, inviting the media to attend in order to give them free coverage. Unless Republicans come to vigorously rebut what the opposition is saying, we will continue to have them use the media to get their message across without Republicans contesting the Dem’s outrageous claims. The future: If Republicans are to reverse this trend and to stop Democrats from picking away at the most Republican part of Wisconsin, we all must be active 24 months of each election cycle. It will no longer be enough to “get in gear” the 3-6 months before an election as it will be hard to get Republican voters who drift away back into the fold. I look forward to working with each of you to rebuild following this election. The stakes are high; because if we can’t deliver the votes we have in past elections, Wisconsin is stuck with the Doyles and Feingolds for years to come. We are Republicans because we stand for better government and Wisconsin values-based conservative principles. Let’s work together to show people that our principles and candidates are the way to go. Happy New Year, F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR. |
The Sensenbrenner Committee
P. O. Box 575
Brookfield, WI 53005
