Marketplace of Ideas Blog

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel decided to give equal time to braying … uh, Democrats in their coverage of John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s appearance in Green Bay Thursday.

At each stop, the message was similar: We will reform Washington and fix the economy.

And Obama and running mate Joe Biden will tax the economy into a recession.

That view, of course, is hotly contested by Obama and a host of Democrats, including Gov. Jim Doyle and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who campaigned in the state this week on behalf of Obama.

Both argued that McCain and Palin are out of touch on the economy and that their policies mirror those of President Bush — not the change the two promised in Green Bay.

“He can utter the word change all he wants,” Doyle said of McCain. “But he has a record to deal with — [one] totally supportive of Bush financially.”

Notice, first, that Doyle’s quote didn’t really challenge McCain’s and Palin’s assertion about taxing “the economy into a recession.”

Doyle has a record to deal with, too — the record of our state’s lagging the national average in personal income and personal income growth, thanks in large part to Democrats’ refusing to cut state taxes.

No change there.