Belling flunks Wis. history

Mark Belling, gloating in a column in the Milwaukee Post:

It isn't just that Scott Walker and Ron Johnson won the races for governor and Senate. The likelihood is that they will serve multiple terms. The last elected sitting governor to lose was Alexander Wiley in 1962. (Scott McCallum and Marty Schreiber were unelected, having ascended to governor after a resignation.) In the Senate, the only Wisconsin incumbents to lose in more than a half-century are Gaylord Nelson in 1980 and Bob Kasten in 1992 and even they served multiple terms.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

The last incumbent governor to lose a re-election bid was Tony Earl, in 1986. Belling was on the radio in Madison then, but appears to have no recollection.

Alexander Wiley was certainly not the last sitting governor to lose, in any case, since he never served as governor.

Wiley was a long-time Senator, however, who lost his seat in 1962 to Gaylord Nelson.

When someone starts a column with three glaring errors, it makes it difficult to take anything that follows seriously.

Maybe one of his friends in the new State Capitol majority could send Belling a Wisconsin Blue Book.

Cross-posted at Uppity Wisconsin.