Wisconsin politics was boring as hell in 2010. Tommy Thompson refused to run against Russ Feingold for the U.S. Senate. The tears streaming down the faces of Feingold’s supporters in Middleton became election night’s top story, and the symbolism behind Sen. Ron Johnson’s status as a “plastics manufacturer” was a snort-worthy summation to the mundane stupidity of the entire affair.

Liberals were disengaged and didn’t even care when Scott Walker put his hand on the Bible in January. Tea Party revolution or not – no one in the national press wanted to know what was happening in Madison after much more interesting things happened in Nevada, Delaware and Ohio.

Obviously, much has changed since then. One thing has not: The candidates Wisconsin regularly offers for public office are some of the most dull and uncreative in the nation. Walker is a deeply flawed governor who, despite his good personal manners, has manufactured the political destruction of a once-stable state.

Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk signed a Faustian pact with the state’s unions that makes it clear she has forgotten that liberals care about issues beyond collective bargaining. Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, is easily the most likeable candidate in the field, but her rural background makes her too distant from manufacturing and metropolitan progressivism to truly convince voters in Milwaukee and Madison she can tackle Walker. Secretary of State Doug La Follette only can claim one significant accomplishment in his political career and consistently runs on the coattails of The Greatest Wisconsinite Who Ever Lived, with whom he shares a surname.

And then there’s Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a good man who just can’t get people involved enough and certainly isn’t capable of defending himself. He’s too conservative. He’s too liberal. He’s too boring. He’s too humble for not bragging enough about how he got his ass kicked to solve a conflict at the Wisconsin State Fair. He’s the Mitt Romney of Wisconsin politics.

After all of the work that went into 2011’s protests, liberals deserve better than the candidates they have been dealt in the recall election. And when the election is over, everyone will realize how Wisconsin squandered an opportunity to bring a truly transformational figure to heal the state’s wounds.

Thanks a lot, Russ.

Ryan Rainey ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and Latin American studies.