Mark Neumann - Senate Announcement

It's official. Well, not really official quite yet.

It should be official at 8:45 this morning.

On Sunday, Mark Neumann announced that he has an announcement to make today.

Although Politico reported that Neumann would be running for the U.S. Senate, Neumann wouldn't confirm the story.

However, a Neumann consultant did confirm that Neumann would announce his candidacy on Monday.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Former congressman Mark Neumann said Sunday he would announce on Monday his plans for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.).

"We are clearly going to announce a decision on Monday," Neumann said in a brief telephone interview.

Neumann declined to comment on a Politico story that said he planned to jump into the race and would make the announcement at 8:45 a.m. on Charlie Sykes' show on WTMJ-AM (620).

Neumann, who lost a Republican primary last year against Scott Walker in the race for governor, confirmed he would make an appearance in the studio Monday morning about his political future.

Tim Cogswell, a GOP consultant working with Neumann, told Politico that Neumann would confirm his candidacy on Sykes' show.

"He will confirm his run and I expect we will have a more formal announcement later," Cogswell told Politico. "I think this was a big decision for him. I think this was a really big jump for him after having lost to Scott Walker."

...Assuming Neumann enters the race, he would be the first to formally announce for the seat, which is up for election in 2012.

Neumann lost to Scott Walker in the Republican primary in 2010. So what?

Plenty of candidates lose a race and go on to be elected to office.

Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan come to mind.

...Earlier this month, former Gov. Tommy Thompson announced the co-chairmen of his campaign, an indication he was moving ahead and planned to run. Thompson's co-chairmen are Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Jim Klauser, a longtime aide and adviser to Thompson.

Other possible GOP candidates besides Thompson and Neumann include Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), Sen. Frank Lasee (R-De Pere) and former state Sen. Ted Kanavas.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Madison, U.S. Rep. Ron Kind of La Crosse and former U.S. Rep Steve Kagen of Appleton are close to making decisions on whether to run for Kohl's seat.

The Republican possibilities are dramatically better than the pool of potential Dem candidates.

Tammy Baldwin?

There's no way she'd win.

In order to pull off a Baldwin victory, there would need to be massive voter fraud the likes of which we've never seen in Wisconsin.

The woman is a Leftist extremist, and Wisconsin .

We are talking about filling the seat occupied by the sedate/sedated Herb Kohl.

I don't see Wisconsinites choosing someone as radical as Baldwin.

I don't think Ron Kind would do well either. He has that pesky liberal voting record in the House weighing him down.

And of course, Kagen is too strange to even be considered.

So Neumann is the first to jump in, assuming that his announcement this morning goes according to Sunday's announcement of Neumann's announcement.