Seems doubtful, strangely enough – Democrats have won Wisconsin in every presidential election since 1984. Those exit polls from last week’s election come off as rigged to benefit the Democrats – they skewed seven points for Barrett – and they had Obama up seven on Romney.

Which means it’s a neck-and-neck race.

Wisconsin’s electric power grid operates in large measure as a result of coal power, with two-thirds of the state’s electricity coming from coal. And the Obama administration, through the EPA, has crippled the coal power industry – such that nationally some 13 percent of the coal power generation in the country is due to go offline this summer. In Wisconsin, three coal power units are already set to go offline this year thanks to the EPA.

Meaning if there’s an unseasonably hot summer it’s entirely possible there might be brownouts in Wisconsin – or at least rate spikes. Independent voters suffering from brownouts, sweating in the dark in an election year or taking a major hit to their disposable income in order to keep the AC blowing might be a bit less likely to vote for the incumbent president being blamed for said brownouts or rate spikes.

Particularly when they’ve already seen this on their TV’s…

The Romney camp needs to descend on Wisconsin with a concentration of resources. It would be smart not to spend the next five months shellacking Obama with negative ads; voters there got enough of that with the recall election. Talk about policy and economics would be sufficient for now.

But Wisconsin is winnable for the GOP. Very winnable.