Can’t just flip on the switch for president and governor!
The bloodied corpse of the 2022 mid-term election is laying on the stainless steel slab and Wisconsin Republicans, like those nationwide, are conducting an autopsy — when they aren’t engaged in backbiting and recriminations.
Ron Johnson won re-election to a third six-year U.S. Senate term by a single percentage point. (The term limit people are very quiet today.) Michels under-performed his fellow statewide Republican by 68,674 votes. Some of RoJo’s voters likely crossed over to Evers, who beat Michels by 90,460.
STATEWIDE
Ron Johnson* (R)
1,336,878 — 50.5%
Mandela Barnes (D)
1,310,429 — 49.5%
→ Margin: 26,449
Tony Evers* (D)
1,358,664 — 51.2%
Tim Michels (R)
1,268,204 — 47.8%
→ Margin: 90,460
DANE COUNTY
Ron Johnson* (R)
68,228 — 22.7%
Mandela Barnes (D)
231,818 — 77.1%
→ Margin: 163,590
Tony Evers* (D)
236,577 — 78.6%
Tim Michels (R)
62,300 — 20.7%
→ Margin: 174,277
As the numbers show, both Republicans got creamed by a margin of six digits in dark blue Dane County, where an astounding 80.4% of eligible voters cast ballots. Statewide, voter turnout was 56.7%.
Those stark numbers suggest to Republican thinkers (we do have some) that maybe the state party should not give up on greater Madison. “We chose to ignore it because we believed we could make up the difference up north,” says one analyst (whom I don’t have permission to quote by name). “Math is a stubborn thing. There aren’t enough votes up north to make up a 173,000 vote deficit.” The election pro continued:
“If we ever want to win the governorship we need a total make-over on our strategy in Dane County.
“Dane County is the fastest growing county in Wisconsin and the GOP continuously gets slaughtered there. The only way to fix that is to invest in the ground and air war over a sustained period in Dane County rather than ignoring it and hoping to make up the difference someplace else. We don’t need to win Dane County to win statewide, but we do need 30% – 35% instead of 22% – 23%.
Talk the issues
Blaska ran for school board in 2019 on a platform of student safety and school discipline. Got 30.1% of the vote. By contrast, Michels got only 13%. If he had achieved the same 30%, he would have 44,614 votes — 25,702 votes MORE than he got Tuesday 11/08/22.
That’s just City of Madison, which now accounts for approximately 46% of Dane County’s population and far more intransigently liberal. But this County Board is, once again, under building its jail — not because of cost but due to Woke ideology. That decision:
“Threatens the health, life, and safety of those living, working and volunteering in the CCB for the foreseeable future.”
— Sheriff Kalvin Barrett, Democrat
Newspapers no longer report on Assembly races here. Too many of them. Same with County Board and Madison Common Council. Instead, they give you three softball questions like “Why are you best qualified?” and print the first 250 words of the candidate’s gibberish. Same with the League of (Liberal) Women Voters.
Yet AGAIN THIS YEAR our legislative candidates did NOT respond to published questionnaires! That is a big ‘F-bomb you!‘ to the voter. Elections are about winning hearts and minds.
We have the meats issues
Madison is busy renaming its schools from the terrible Founders, like Jefferson and Madison. Getting rid of honors classes because of “disproportionality.” Defunded school resource police officers. Now eliminating Time Out rooms. “Equity.” Actively teaching CRT. Fired a school principal who promised reform. (Read & Weep.) Yet many of those frustrated parents voted Tony Evers, who is trying to block the schoolhouse door to prevent students from leaving for better schools. Which takes us to next April.
We’ve got 2 school board seats up next April on the same ballot as state supreme court. Madison has a mayoral race and all 20 alders. Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway told police to stand down during the 2020 riots that toppled statues of an abolitionist who gave his life fighting slavery in the Civil War. Her challenger led the school board when it defunded police.
→ A conservative or moderate could draw a straight line between those policies and the Democrat(ic) party.
Can’t say that Republicans have given up entirely on Dane County. They’ve done a decent job of filling out the state legislative races here in for a second straight cycle. Dane County GOP chairman Scott Grabins has done a bang-up job. Running a Republican for sheriff was great. But Anthony Hamilton got the same 23% the statewide Republicans did. Act 10 wasn’t the magic elixir Scott Walker promised.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: To a great extent, crazy and stupid beat us. Election Denialism beat us. Mike Gableman, Tim Ramthun, the Pillow Guy, Roger Stone, Proud Boys, and the QAnon Shaman killed us in Dane County. Mandela Barnes was scarier than Ron Johnson; Tim Michels was scarier than soft-serve ice cream Tony Evers.
Local government can be the seedbed for state and national office. In recent years, the Dane County Board sent Tammy Baldwin, Therese Berceau, Mark Pocan, Mark Miller — and Republicans Lyman Anderson and Rick Skindrud — to the state legislature and beyond. Conservatives controlled the board from 1992 to 1996. Tommy Thompson WON Dane County in 1994. Scott Klug, R-Madison, served in Congress throughout the 1990s. None were Timothy Ramthuns.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
I think that what any conservative candidate has to do is point out the simple fact that here in Dane County we are building a house of cards on a bed of quick sand.
On every level of government, we are spending way to much money to prop up perfectly able people that have been given no real reason to go out and get a job and contribute to society.
As I see it, the problem with Dane County is that many in it are members of the “Entitlement Class”. Many of those believe that they don’t have to pay for anything.
For example, the whole idea of paying for some students college tuition example is just crazy. Why should I as a guy who has worked with his hands for a living for some 46 years pay for somebody to get a masters degree in basket weaving?
Too many people in Dane County, especially those in Madison suck off the government teat. (And if you think that the use of the word “teat” is crude, try milking cows as I did when I was younger). I have come to think that they see the source of their income and benefits as provided by the government as some sort of a mystical entity that will never let them down.
There will come a day of reckoning; the day of reckoning will come!
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The 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality lies inside the nearly impermeable Tofu Curtain (H/T GOOD DOG HAPPY MAN), successfully walling it off from much of what’s considered the Rational Thought of a fact-based Universe.
It continues to misrepresent Act 10, which is wildly popular outside its LaLaLoopyLoonyLeftyLand confines.
It continues to issue hilariously inane, spittle-flecked slobberings like the reverse peristaltic lamentations after GWB and DJT were elected: “How could that happen, I don’t know anyone who voted for them.”
It continues to whimper inconsolably about the dangers of One-Party Rule, and this laughably from the Deep Blue shadows of the CommonSENSELESS Council, the Dane County Board, and the MMSD board.
If there’s a shortage of anything here (other than a clue, personal responsibility, isolation from a fact-based Reality, and diversity of World View, et al), it’s self-awareness!
Don’t look for THAT to change anytime soon.
The Gotch
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Blaksa says:
“To a great extent, crazy and stupid beat us. Election Denialism beat us. Mike Gableman, Tim Ramthun, the Pillow Guy, Roger Stone, Proud Boys, and the QAnon Shaman killed us in Dane County.”
The WI GOP made a conscious decision to hire Michael Gableman and his long-running clown show. For a whole year, Wisconsin voters were shown exactly where the GOP (and Tim Michels) stands on honesty, integrity and democracy.
Gableman is Wisconsin’s official stand-in for Ramthum, Pilow guy et.al.
Consequently, Evers beat Michels by 3.4% – three times the margin he had over Scott Walker.
Perhaps the “brilliant” Gableman will be just as helpful for the upcoming WI Supreme Court race.
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Madison is nothing but a Commie $hiteHole of Useless ( GOV’T “WORKERS” ) aka Parasites Sucking Off The Taxpayers Who Actually PRODUCE A VIABLE PRODUCT OR SERVICE FOR SOCIETY!!
These Thieves Slobbering At The TAX $$$$$ TROUGH WILL ALWAYS VOTE FOR THEIR EASY $$$$$!!
Fact Is We Will Never Beat The Handout Socialist aka SANTA CLAUS Because The American Lib Is A L.A.Z.Y UNPRODUCTIVE ANCHOR DRAGGING AMERICA INTO A TITANIC BLACK HOLE ABYSS OF FAILURE N DESTRUCTION!!
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I think republicans need to do what democrats have been doing for years. First, you have to claim you are a democrat. Second, you have to say you support all the left wing causes. Third, you vote exactly opposite of what you ran on. And fourth, when you run for reelection you say you never did the things you did when voted in the first time.
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The really big question that the gop must deal with is if their members are on team vampire or team werewolf. The entire Georgia election now hinges on that one issue. I know that this is part of the republican fact- based universe and must be put to the voters to consider. I can only hope the people of Georgia give this issue the attention it rightfully deserves. Your party’s future depends on it.
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The really big question that despicable Lefty must deal with is if their members are on Team Phat Blimp Election Denier–Tank Abrams or Team Wife Beater–Raphael Warlock (sic).
Wait a minute.
They’re both on the same team…Team Despicable Lefty.
Never mind.
The Gotch
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