Mike Gousha has been a busy man for the past few weeks.

Like an accountant during tax season, a snow plow driver after a blizzard or a retail store manager the day after Thanksgiving, Gousha -- who is a special contributing anchor / reporter at Channel 12, where he hosts "UPFRONT with Mike Gousha," and a Distinguished Fellow in Law and Public Policy at Marquette University Law School -- has been busy covering the upcoming election.

On the Sunday edition of "UPFRONT," which aired at 9 a.m. and will be repeated at 11 p.m. on Channel 12, Gousha spoke with Reince Priebus, the Republican Party State Chair, and Phil Walzak, the Wisconsin Communications Chair of the Barack Obama campaign in Wisconsin about last-minute efforts by both parties. He also spoke to Kevin Kennedy of the Government Accountability Board about what to expect at polling places.

OnMilwaukee.com visited with Gousha last month to get his thoughts on the election:

OnMilwaukee.com: No matter what happens, this has been a pretty amazing election cycle, hasn't it?

Mike Gousha: It really has. They are talking about record turnouts. I think people are really focused. I think some people, frankly, are a little tired of it.

OMC: In the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry defeated George Bush in Wisconsin by the narrowest of margins (0.4 percent). This time, most experts expect Obama to win the state race by a comfortable margin. How has that evolved?

MG: It has been interesting. It's has been kind of a cycle for Obama. He started off in the beginning of the summer doing very well in Wisconsin. The first poll I saw had him up by about 11 points. Then, it kept tightening and tightening. It kept getting within the margin of about two or three points. Obama was still leading, but it was within the margin of error.

I think what happened (after that) was the economy, in a nutshell, with the uncertainty of the financial markets. With the number of folks filing for unemployment going up and the price of gas. People were just not comfortable with their situation. As long as the conversation was about the economy, I think that worked to Obama's advantage and against John McCain.

OMC: If you look back to a year ago, it seemed like the Iraq War was going to be the major issue of this campaign. Are you surprised how that has not been the case?

MG: You're really going back to 1992, when the motto for the Clinton campaign was "It's the economy, stupid." You know what? That's what it is again. A year ago, people were focused on Iraq. How long are we going to be there? Is it going the way we expected to go? How are we going to get our troops home?

Now, that is an issue that has moved to the background. It is very much about what are we going to do to get the economy going here.

OMC: As someone who moderated the Democratic debate in 2004, what did you think about the debates this time around?

MG: The formats left me baffled at times. I like when you have more exchanges and more back and forth. (In the second, "town hall" debate), you basically got campaign talking points. You did not get answers to questions.

OMC: How frustrating is that for a moderator?

MG: When you negotiate these deals, the campaigns are adamant. We want this. We want that. We will not have this. We will not have that. Everybody agrees to it, then they throw the rules out the window when it begins.

The one that baffled me the most was the vice presidential debate. I did not understand the format for that.

OMC: One of the more memorable moments in Wisconsin during this election season was John McCain's appearance in Waukesha, where the crowd seemed angry and challenged him. That got national coverage, especially when it was repeated right after that in Minnesota. What did you think about that?

MG: I think what you saw in that audience, you saw people who were frustrated. They knew the campaign was not where it needed to be at that moment in time. I think it put the candidate in an awkward position. I think this is something that he's wrestling with. How do I handle this anger and frustration and sometimes untrue claims about his opponent? I think John McCain was put in a tough situation.