Ask anyone on the unemployment line and they'll tell you--it's tough finding work these days.

        So why are Democrats having such a hard time finding someone to be their candidate for Wisconsin Governor in 2012?

        The only one to formally announce was the person who's a heart beat away from the gig right now, Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton.    I say "was" because she shockingly dropped out of the race Monday afternoon, citing family reasons.    No one seems to know just what she means by that, and Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel bloggers say she was actively campaigning as late as this past weekend.

        What changed?

        A true family crisis might've truly surfaced and if so, good luck and God bless.     The cynical side of me says she more than likely had a change of heart after seeing Monday morning's piece by J/S columnist Dan Bice which said that the White House is pushing Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to enter the fray.   Is it a coincidence that Lawton pulled the chute just hours after the story made print?      Wouldn't it be enough to make anyone to bail, knowing that the national leader of your party was putting his money on the other dog in the race?

        Lawton got a little traction--the endorsement of party war horse Matt Flynn and some lawmakers--but Governor Doyle went out of his way to downplay his second-in-command's qualifications for the job.    Fact is, his comments would've had to have been microwaved at "high" for ten minutes to qualify as tepid.      Lawton did, in this reporter's opinion, a less than spectacular job listing her accomplishments and qualifications for life on a higher political stage when we asked her to make a case for her candidacy during an interview on "Wisconsin's Morning News" right after she announced.    

       It's not unheard of for a Lieutenant Governor to ascend--it's happened twice in recent memory in Wisconsin.     When Patrick Lucey left Madison to become President Carter's Ambassador to Mexico in 1978 it was Milwaukee's own Martin Schreiber who moved up.     He would lose a shot at a term of his own amid the political tsunami that was Republican Lee Dreyfus 1980.       Scott McCallum got the call when Tommy Thompson left for DC as President Bush's Health and Human Services Secretary in 2001.     He would go on to lose to Doyle the following year.    

      Doyle's shocking announcement that he wouldn't seek another term was the start of this Democratic drama.       Republican Scott Walker is already working the state, lining up support and cash while running against what he's calling "the Doyle-Barrett plan of more spending, higher taxes and overreaching government."

     Maybe Walker knows something the rest of us don't, or something either Doyle or Barrett have yet to formally announce.   It's anybody's gig on the Democratic ballot, provided there's someone who wants it.