Democrats across Wisconsin are sad indeed that former Assembly Speaker John Gard does not plan to mount a third run for the District 8 congressional seat.

Why are Democrats sad that Gard, a stalwart Republican, is not trying once more to challenge Congressman Steve Kagen, D-Appleton?

Because Gard was so beatable.

A career politician with a charisma deficit and a mean streak — he once got in a political fight with the mother of a diabetic kid — Gard was a dream foe.

The only political players who ever thought Gard was a viable candidate were party strategists who looked only at his ability to leverage his speakership and his political contacts to raise money.

Because of that, GOP insiders never quite noticed that they had a candidate in 2006 who might well have been able to hold a generally Republican seat. Former state Rep. Terri McCormick entered the primary, but was dismissed by party bosses. Gard won and McCormick went off to lecture, write books and engage in freelance activism.

Now McCormick is back in the running, having just entered the crowded GOP primary to challenge Kagen.

McCormick’s a conservative to be sure; she’s even shown some sympathy with the tea party crowd. But the former legislator has always been a maverick. Some have even referred to her as Wisconsin’s Sarah Palin.

In the best of senses, that may be true.

Like Palin in her early days, McCormick has been something of a reformer. But McCormick goes a good deal further than the Palin of today.

The Wisconsinite’s been willing to criticize GOP compromises; she’s been outspoken in her discomfort with the whole of the political process; and she’s willing to hold herself to account — promising to live by self-imposed term limits if elected.

McCormick is not a candidate who can be “managed” or “controlled.” In that sense, she’s like Kagen, an appealingly independent congressman who has held the 8th for the Democrats at least in part because of his determination to put district concerns first — even if that sometimes requires him to break with party leaders.

Kagen’s challenges to sending more troops to Afghanistan, his opposition to bad trade deals, his noisy criticisms of bank bailouts and the Chrysler bailout — which paid the auto company to shut plants and lay off U.S. workers — all mark him as a Democrat who is willing to say “no” to the White House and congressional leaders when they are wrong.

So the 8th might experience something rare in American politics: a contest between two genuine mavericks who disagree on a bunch of fundamental issues.

A Kagen/McCormick race would be exciting, maybe a bit edgy.

And that’s what Wisconsin needs.

Contests between careerists depress turnout because voters recognize that the choice is of little consequence. A contest between two engaging mavericks would be great theater, and great politics.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times, Wisconsin’s progressive daily online news source, where his column appears regularly. jnichols@madison.com

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