J.B. Van Hollen's Makeover

I predicted yesterday that the Van Hollen camp would work to paint Kathleen Falk as nothing more than a far left "Madison liberal," and it didn't take them long to start in on the task.

Brian Fraley, a conservative blogger and Van Hollen aide, got the ball rolling yesterday with a post that tells us what Falk is not: a prosecutor.

So what is she?

A Van Hollen press conference later in the day filled us in: "an activist." And not just any activist, but "an environmental activist."

This calculated smear fits right in with Van Hollen's attempt to make the AG election into a binary of law enforcement (himself) vs. politics (Falk). It's a shift from his primary race against Bucher, where he chose instead to focus on getting as far to the right as possible on the issues.

Back in the primary race, he told Republican voters that terrorist training is taking place in the state, that he would do the most to stop illegal immigration, that abortion is comparable to homicide, and that he is the only candidate in the race who supports concealed carry and restricting public access to lists of people who carry concealed weapons.

In other words, he wanted everyone to know he was the purest conservative in the race.

Now, interestingly, he wants the general voters to think of him as simply an enforcer of the law, not an ideologue, because it's his opponent who supposedly has the political agenda.

It's quite a turn around, and it's ultimately one that will fall woefully short. Fifty days is hardly enough time to convince a smart Wisconsin public that 14 years as Assistant Attorney General doesn't make Falk qualified for the position of Attorney General.

To be sure, Falk is qualified for AG and beyond. As the moderate conservative Recess Supervisor recently surmised: "Kathy Falk is potentially the most formidable statewide candidate the Democrats have on the ballot this fall. If Republicans don't beat her now, she'll be moving into the Executive Residence sometime in the next four to eight years. Falk is pragmatic, does her homework, stands her ground, is tough without seeming bitchy. In other words, she's the kind of candidate that Wisconsin will lap up."

This is a big race for the GOP in more ways than one. And it's going to take a lot more than a thinly veiled makeover to win.

UPDATE: Cory Liebmann wonders which J.B. Van Hollen we'll see in the general election. Just a hint, he doesn't think it'll be the same one voters saw in the primary.

LATE UPDATE: It should be noted in all this talk of who's more experienced in the AG race that the AG's office actually does nothing on the front lines of crime-fighting. The criminal investigation unit in the state DOJ is aimed at supporting local law enforcement agencies, not replacing them.

As Marquette University Law Professor Scott Moss puts it: "The DA is Batman in the Batmobile. The attorney general is Alfred running the bat cave."

This very much undermines Van Hollen's charge that Falk is not a criminal prosecutor. While it may play as a cute soundbite with some people at first, the fact that Falk hasn't prosecuted anyone in a criminal case means very little for the role of AG.

And after serving as executive for the second-largest county in the state for nearly a decade, the reality is that Falk has significantly more management experience than Van Hollen, which is really the key ingredient for the AG post.

EVEN LATER UPDATE: WMC, the state's biggest lobby, has picked up on the "environmental activist" label for Falk. I haven't seen the corporate interests this excitable since TABOR died...for the second time.