By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY  RICE LAKE, Wis.  For Dave Schultz, a postal worker who chose his career for the job security and pension, it wasn't his own concerns that brought him to the Barron County Fairgrounds on a recent weekend. It was his son, who graduated from college earlier this year and can't find work. It was the friends whom Schultz sees "just scraping by."  So, when the local Republican Party decided to throw its first rally here in six years, Schultz reported for duty at the Barron County Fairgrounds as a volunteer. "This is the first election I've been active," he says. His chief motivation? "The economy is, by far."  Job anxieties have gone viral this year, unnerving even relatively secure Americans such as Schultz, and threatening to remake the political landscape in relatively prosperous states such as this one. The unemployment rate in Wisconsin is nearly two percentage points below the nation's and where President Obama won by 14 percentage points two years ago.  This year, state Democrats are struggling to hang onto the governor's seat that Jim Doyle is leaving after eight years and a congressional seat that retiring Rep. Dave Obey has occupied since 1969. Perhaps the most telling barometer of the changing political climate: Sen. Russ Feingold, a three-term Democratic incumbent, is facing what may be his most difficult campaign since he first won his seat in 1992.  "This is going to be very tough," Feingold told Miki Knezevic, a supporter at a Serbian festival in Milwaukee who asked about his re-election prospects. "The economy is bad. They might have an attitude of, 'Let's vote everybody out.' "  Wisconsin, one of a few Midwestern states that are key to Democratic and Republican hopes for not just this November but the 2012 run for the White House, is getting an extra dose of presidential attention this year. Obama was back in the state Monday for his second visit in two weeks — his fifth since becoming president.  At a Labor Day picnic in Milwaukee, the president acknowledged that the holiday dedicated to American workers was overshadowed by the numbers who have fallen from their ranks. "Eight million Americans lost their jobs in this recession," he said. "The new jobs haven't been coming fast enough."  Obama pleaded for more time to deal with jobs and the economy — ranked as the top issues facing the nation by 92% of those responding to the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. "The plain truth is, there's no silver bullet or quick fix to the problem," he told the crowd.  On paper, Wisconsin should be friendly territory for Democrats. The state's 7.8% jobless rate compares favorably with the 9.5% national average. Wisconsin now is the nation's leading manufacturing state, with more than 15% of its workforce making products ranging from cheese to high-tech medical devices. It's the corporate home to motorcycle maker Harley Davidson and outboard motor company Mercury Marine.  Yet Wisconsin is a politically fickle state. It has given the nation Robert La Follette, a former governor and icon of the progressive movement, as well as Joe McCarthy, the senator who became infamous for his Communist witch hunts during the 1950s. This year, the state has emerged as a key battleground for both parties.  Republicans here think they have a chance to take over not only Feingold's seat, but also the governorship, the U.S. House seat that has been in Democratic hands for 41 years, and at least one chamber of the state Legislature. Local party stalwarts say there are signs of the kind of political tsunami that swept Republicans into power in Congress in 1994, and back out again in 2006. This year, Republicans think the tide is turning in their favor.  At Rice Lake, where the local Republican Party couldn't even pull together a rally two years ago, about 200 people showed up to hear party candidates. State Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus told the crowd that the Nov. 2 elections will bring "the biggest and greatest Republican victory in the history of Wisconsin."  Democrats don't deny the threat. Even Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a six-term Democrat who won her 2008 race with 69% of the vote, expects "some adjustment of the margin in a year like this.  "These are real races," Baldwin says. "The recession is deep. People are hurting. Sometimes that leads to voting with emotion."  Baldwin's district includes communities with Wisconsin's lowest and highest unemployment rates. At one end of the spectrum, the booming university town of Madison, part of a metro area with a jobless rate of 5.6%. An hour's drive south is Beloit, an old industrial town where 16% of the residents are out of work.  In Janesville, where Feingold grew up and where he marked the traditional kickoff of the fall campaign season by marching in the local Labor Day parade instead of joining Obama in Milwaukee, General Motors shuttered a 90-year-old auto assembly plant two months after Obama's election.  Hard luck living next door to prosperity creates a ripple effect that transmits anxiety to voters who haven't been touched by the recession, politicians of both parties say.  "People say, 'I saw my neighbor, I saw my relative lose his house. Am I next?' " says Sean Duffy, a Republican running for Obey's House seat. "They're stressed."  That mood makes it difficult for even successful Wisconsin companies, says the state's retiring Democratic governor. Buying a Harley Hog or a Mercury outboard motor is a decision uncertain consumers can afford to put off, Doyle notes: "People can say, 'I can wait till next year.' "  'Remember who put us in this position'  In states already hit by decades of manufacturing job losses, Republicans see opportunities in the economic angst.  "There's something pretty significant in this cycle going on in the Great Lakes," says former national Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie. He is trying this year to help his party increase its influence on the congressional and state legislative redistricting process, which occurs after every Census. In Wisconsin, as in most states, the redrawing of district lines is controlled by governors and state legislatures.  Gillespie said his party has a chance of winning governor's seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, and taking control of state legislative chambers in all of those states, as well as in Indiana. The nation's industrial heartland had been returning to its Democratic roots in recent elections, but Gillespie says the nation's sputtering economy and persistently high unemployment rate create an opening for the Republican Party.  "Clearly it's a region that's been affected very adversely by the economy and so the party out of power benefits in that regard," he says. "Because the party in power is held responsible."  Democrats argue that the economic woes are problems they didn't create and are trying to fix.  "Remember who put us in this position," Feingold says. He contends the problems were created not during the 20 months Obama has been in office but during the eight previous years under President George W. Bush.  The senator argues that Obama's economic stimulus package, which passed Congress with mostly Democratic votes, helped bring Wisconsin's unemployment rate down from a peak of 8.9% in July 2009 to 7.8% a year later. "The Democrats and Obama are trying and Republicans just aren't interested he says."  The problem for Feingold and other Wisconsin Democrats: The state's unemployment rate was 5.8% in November 2008, when Obama was elected to the White House.  If the Wisconsin races are any indicator, voters this year face a stark choice about which direction to take the economy. The state Republican Party's endorsed candidates for top political offices all agree on the prescription for fixing the economy: reduced government spending, lower taxes for the "job-creating" investor class and fewer regulations on corporations.  They also want to roll back some of Obama's signature initiatives. Ron Johnson, an Oshkosh businessman running against Feingold, calls the president's health care program "the greatest single assault on our freedom in my lifetime."  Gubernatorial hopeful Scott Walker says the $810 million Obama wants to give Wisconsin to create a high-speed rail line from Milwaukee to Madison is "a boondoggle" and vows to kill the project.  "I think austerity is in," says Walker, who says he has given back $370,000 of his salary as Milwaukee County executive during the past eight years. Walker makes $129,115 a year.  The Republican candidates contend that Obama's plans to mandate health insurance coverage, tax the use of carbon-based fuels and roll back some of the Bush administration's tax cuts are creating an uncertain business climate that discourages employers from hiring. "In this country, we demonize success," says Johnson, co-founder of a company that exports medical packaging materials worldwide.  Duffy, campaigning for Obey's northern Wisconsin House seat, calls the economic stimulus "a failure." Obama and his predecessor, Bush, should have let troubled U.S. banks and automakers go bankrupt rather than bailing them out, he says. "The government has done too much," Duffy says.  Democrats say the government needs to do more to invest in the nation's manufacturing sector to create the kinds of jobs that come with middle-class salaries. "I don't want to buy stuff made elsewhere; I want to grow our exports so that we're selling to someplace else — products that say 'Made in the USA.' " Obama told his Labor Day audience in Milwaukee.  "Make it in America" also is the theme of a legislative initiative that congressional Democrats have rolled out for the election season. They're pushing legislation to provide tax breaks and other financial incentives to revive a sector that has shrunk by one-third during the past decade.  It's a theme being echoed by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who is emphasizing the work he's done to bring jobs to his community as he campaigns for governor.  "We need to make more stuff," he says.  State Sen. Julie Lassa, a Democrat hoping to hold Obey's seat for her party, is calling for Congress to cut its pay by 10% until unemployment figures turn around. Then, she says, lawmakers should take no raises until the federal budget is balanced.  Lassa sees it as a way for lawmakers to show they share the burdens weighing on their constituents.  "People are just generally concerned about their own family situation. It's either they have someone who is unemployed or know of someone or they're concerned about their own job," she says. "That concern colors everything. That's why we've got to focus on getting our economy back on track."  You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference.
WisconsinDemocrats are struggling to keep gubernatorial and congressional seats in a reflection of how job anxiety is affecting elections.