The following editorial is appearing in the Lake Mills Leader. The editorial is an example of something we have seen time and again in Rae's campaign: People from a wide variety of political perspectives are fed up with our what's going on in Washington and are uniting to support Rae.

Vogeler, Magnum Get Our Nods for Congress

How do you begin to clean the current mess in Washington, D.C.? You begin by replacing ineffective incumbents with principled people who will bring a fresh perspective to the Capitol.

Area voters have the opportunity to send a clear message that business as usual will not be tolerated any more by casting their votes for Rae Vogeler for U.S. Senate and Dave Magnum for the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 7.

Vogeler, who is the Wisconsin Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Democrat Herb Kohl, is a thoughtful progressive in the same mold as three of the individuals who have occupied this particular seat in the United States Senate. We're specifically talking about Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr., his son Robert M. La Follette Jr. and William Proxmire. Unlike Kohl, who is nobody's senator but his own, they were giants in the U.S. Senate who always put the public's interest first.

While we disagree with Vogeler's stated platform on a number of key issues, at least she has a platform you can agree or disagree with. That puts her head and shoulders above of either Kohl or Republican candidate Robert Gerald Lorge who has run an insipid campaign and couldn't even get the GOP's endorsement even though he was the only announced Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Vogeler is also right on a number of issues. Among them are her principled positions to protect our increasingly fragile environment, fully fund veterans' benefits and break the country's addiction to oil by increasing research and funding to find clean, renewable sources of energy.

Cleaning up the mess in Washington will not be easy, but sending Vogeler to the U.S. Senate would be a good start.

The second step area voters should take to clean up the mess in Washington is to vote for Dave Magnum to represent us as our representative in the Second Congressional District.

One of our endorsement criteria is whether a candidate cares about our area. And if that were the only criteria we used Magnum would win hands down. During the last two years, the Pardeeville Republican has been in Lake Mills more than a dozen times. That's in stark contrast to incumbent Rep. Tammy Baldwin's two official appearances, one during the summer of 2005 and the other just this past weekend when she spent a whole hour visiting several Main Street businesses.

But there are many more reasons for our endorsement other than Magnum spending quality time in the area.

The biggest: We believe Magnum will be far more effective from day one in getting things done than Baldwin has ever been as our congresswoman.

Baldwin has been in office for eight years and an independent non-partisan survey study ranked her in 424th place out of 438 congressmen and congresswomen in influence and effectiveness. In response, Baldwin blamed her poor ranking on being a member of the minority party in the House of Representatives and on partisan gridlock. That excuse might hold up if it weren't for the fact that the same survey ranked Wisconsin's Seventh District representative, Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wausau) as the ninth most influential and effective member of the House. Worse yet for Baldwin, is the fact that a key former Baldwin staffer was on the board of the organization, Knowlegis, that did the ranking.

During the course of the campaign Magnum has also laid out detailed programs that can garner bipartisan support to lower the costs of healthcare and provide more coverage to the growing number of Americans who have none; increase the security of our borders; and provide our troops serving overseas with the protective equipment they need. The only thing Baldwin has been right on during the course (of the campaign) is the need for change on Nov. 7. It happens with Magnum.