As sure as the sun rises in the East, it was predictable that John Nichols, after last week's electoral carnage, would posit that if only his friend Barbara Lawton had been the Democratic candidate for governor, she and Russ Feingold both would have won.
I am not making this up. If you must, you can read it yourself.
Nichols blames the party bosses for her getting out of the race, but she's never said what caused her sudden and surprising decision. If there was ever a year to challenge the "bosses," whoever they are, this would have been it. Instead, she just faded away.
Whatever her reason, it doesn't seem likely that a candidate who couldn't even make it to the starting gate could have won this very rough race.
More likely, what she could have accomplished was to make Chuck Chvala and Ed Garvey feel better about their races for governor, when they got 33% and 40% of the vote respectively (Garvey with Lawton on the ticket), because in all likelihood she would have done worse.
Nichols is a smart guy with a blind spot when it comes to Lawton. Maybe he can persuade her to run for something else in 2012. Good luck with that.