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“At the end of these three, four years of working together, who knows, maybe we’ll need four more,” said Doyle, the keynote speaker at the Democratic State Convention.
He cited research in stem cells and renewable fuels, as well as efforts toward making college more affordable, as issues that might require his continued stewardship if they are to succeed and endure.
Doyle defeated former U.S. Rep. Mark Green last November.
Sen. Russ Feingold, who also spoke Friday evening, took the new Democratic Congress to task for failing in its mandate from voters to end the Iraq war.
“This Congress is Democratic because America wants this Iraq folly to end,” he told the cheering crowd, announced at about 770 people. “We can hold Republicans responsible for much. But on Iraq, we have ourselves to blame in part.”
He said Democrats who initially voted for a bill containing a timeline for troop withdrawal lost their will after the White House pushed back.
“I’m a little startled, out of 535 members of Congress, that I became the leading critic of the Iraq war from day one,” he said.
Feingold called on his party to show the courage to do what it takes to end the war, especially the freshmen senators he said were elected only for their stated opposition to the war.
Although Wisconsin is expected to be a crucial battleground in the 2008 election, the Democratic presidential candidates were notably absent from the convention.
Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois passed on the opportunity to address the state’s Democratic base. Clinton was in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Obama was in Minnesota, and both were scheduled to be at an Orlando, Fla., conference Saturday for Latino elected officials, according to spokespeople for their campaigns.
Clinton’s campaign received a boost from state Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton, who in her remarks endorsed Clinton to a lukewarm response.
Obama’s campaign said the senator’s schedule didn’t permit an appearance but he was committed to the Badger State.
Joe Wineke, the state party chair, said he was surprised that no presidential hopefuls attended, even though all were invited, but he noted with a shrug that the Wisconsin primary next Feb. 19 will be after a number of other states’ votes.
“If you’re not one of the February fifth states, no one’s paying attention,” he said.
Wisconsin was among the most tightly contested states in each of the last two presidential elections.
The state’s 10 electoral votes in 2004 went to Democrat John Kerry (50 percent of the vote) who beat President Bush (49 percent) by 11,813 votes.
Four years earlier Democrat Al Gore won by fewer than 6,000 votes over Bush.
Other convention speakers included U.S. Reps. Steve Kagen and Gwen Moore, who both railed against the war, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who called Bush’s tenure “the most damaging presidency in American history.”
“We can use our frustration and our anger to mend, to heal, to cleanse,” Baldwin said. “This is not the time to back down — it’s the time to mobilize.”
Sen. Herb Kohl was scheduled to speak Saturday.
