Hey, Wisconsin, I'm really, really sorry. I feel just terrible. See, Brett Hulsey is my fault.

He's running around the state threatening to hand out little KKK hoods as I type this and, like most of you, I just cannot. I cannot even.

I know what you're thinking. In your mind you're doing that scene from "Good Will Hunting" where Robin Williams talks Matt Damon off the ledge with "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." Nice try, but it really is on me.

Last fall, after Mary Burke – a moderate corporate Democrat who seems nice enough – started her campaign for governor, I thought somebody should challenge her from the left. I figured it would be good for her and good for the party. The 2008 Democratic presidential primary, while overlong, was helpful in getting our messages to general election voters and in proving the Obama team's mettle before the big show in November.

For a while last year, it looked like state senator Kathleen Vinehout, herself not exactly a raging leftist, would be Burke's primary challenger. But then Vinehout fell victim to winter (and not wearing a seatbelt), so for a while there, it was looking like nobody else would step up, and it would have to be me.

That's right, I considered, almost kinda sorta seriously, offering a primary challenge to Burke's left. I knew it could be done, and done thoughtfully. Beyond Burke's statements vaguely in favor of liberal causes, there is a lot of room for a platform calling not just for the rollback of the Republicans' recent agenda (Act 10, voter ID, gutting school education), but for moving beyond that: single-payer health care reform like Vermont, higher minimum wage like Seattle, demand-side jobs bills rather than tax giveaways. I'd even go crazy and push hard for legal same-sex marriage like in that well-known hotbed of marxism, Iowa.

And I would totally fivethirtyeight.com my campaign, using the good data that are out there about not just the efficacy but the popularity of these issues as the centerpiece of my run. Sociologists have long known that people tend to believe that their neighbors are more conservative than their neighbors really are, and so they try to moderate their actions to fit in (a recent example is here: both Protestants and Catholics think the vast majority of people in their faiths oppose same-sex marriage, but that's not true!). I'd ask Wisconsin to live up to its potential, and I'd try to run that campaign from the best season of "The West Wing," when President Bartlett gets elected by being the smart, classy one in the race.

Brett Hulsey is not running that kind of campaign. Instead, he's ordered a Gimmick of the Week package from the back pages of a comic book, advertised there next to the Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Specs. So far Hulsey has toured the state handing out fake checks, dressed up like "Confederate General Bass Ackwards," and in a moment pulled directly from the worst season of "The West Wing," considered sending a chicken-suited supporter to taunt Burke about her not wanting to debate him. His Twitter feed has turned into Selfie Central, with the candidate's gap-toothed smile turning up in front of anyone or anything holding still enough to be caught on cameraphone.

And because of all that, I doubt anyone can tell you a single position Hulsey's taken on a major issue. I know I had to pause while writing this paragraph to google and see whether there's anyone working backstage at Hulsey's Bad Decision Theater. (This was a challenge; a search for "Brett Hulsey governor" put his campaign website pretty low on the first page of results, below news reports about his antics.) Yeah, there's something, but nothing revolutionary, nothing to distinguish him from Burke, even.

So this is where we are. In a week when the state GOP held its state convention, where the secessionists and nullificationist crazies had their moment in the sun, Democrats could have offered a substantive debate over the future of Wisconsin. Instead we got Brett: Cultural Learnings of Campaign for Make Benefit Glorious State of Fitzwalkerstan, and enough fodder for six months of "both sides do it" reporting about the fringes.

And, guys, I'm sorry I let that happen. Never again.