Drip. Drip. Drip.

"It's worse than Chinese water torture," one loyalist said. "He has to find a way to get ahead of the story. Otherwise, this will be happening every other month - or every other week."

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Another day, another story questioning the cause for and timing of donations to Governor Doyle.

Again this isn't about legality, it's about public perception. It's about how team Doyle acts. Proactive? Reactive? Three years of sloppy messaging and press relations appear to be coming back to bite this governor.

The mainstream journalists smell blood in the water now. This is a terrible development for team Doyle. Pretty hard for Joe Wineke to claim that Spivak and Bice are Republican investigators.

But nothing would surprise me.