Extremes win primary elections.
Your irascible Head Groundskeeper is steepling his fingers like Mr. Burns in The Simpsons over the prospect that Kirk Bangstad, the deranged microbrewer from Minocqua, might enter the Democrat primary for Wisconsin governor. Bangstad is the nut case offering free beer for anyone who finishes the job started at the White House correspondents’ dinner. The proverbial strunz in the party’s punchbowl!
Democrats hoping to avoid another Kamala catastrophe are squeezing their worry beads against Francesca Hong emerging from the gang of nine (Bangstad would make ten) candidates with a bare plurality. Among the seven who could be said to be serious candidates, 15% would be enough to secure the nomination.
State Rep. Hong is every bit as daffy as Bangstad — just not criminally so. The young lady (age 37) checks all the boxes for a downtown Madison progressive socialist: climate hysteria, boys in the girls room, open borders, defund police, DEI, expensive new government programs, kowtowing to the teachers union, “from the river to the sea.”
No surprise, then, that presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany’s team regards Mizz Hong as the “very probable nominee” whose “combination of grassroots momentum [and] unapologetically progressive ideology … makes her uniquely dangerous in the general election,” according to a campaign memo leaked to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That is how Trump-deranged are Democrats these days. Except for Bangstad and Hong, the other candidates are just more circumspect.
Candidates of the body snatchers
Nationally, Democrats are recruiting progressives disguised as lobster men, seminary students, and — in Wisconsin’s third congressional district, a (briefly) short-order waitress — professional party worker Rebecca Cooke. (“Spotting phonies“) The essential Ross Douthat describes the imposters this way:
Politicians as distinct as Graham Platner, Gavin Newsom, James Talarico, and Abigail Spanberger … are primarily image-based. The theory is always: What if we had the same basic policy orientation that makes moderates distrust us, except that this time we’ll talk like a bearded oyster farmer … or like Trump himself on a social media bender … or like a sunny youth pastor … or like a former C.I.A. officer?
Enter the mischief maker
State GOP chairman Brian Schimming was well received at Saturday’s Lincoln-Reagan Day dinner at Madison’s Monona Terrace, and deservedly so. Said he liked where the party sat: united around Tom Tiffany (whose speech wowed even this RINO) — not fractured as were Republicans during the last governor’s race. Some of us have not gotten over how certain party poobahs pushed aside our Becky Kleefisch in the mistaken impression that Tim Michels’ money would prevail, despite the candidate.
Enter mischief maker John Nichols. Before we proceed, let this former courtier attest that he ripped from the entrance to the Revenue Building on Rimrock Road the state-issued, official government portrait of Tommy Thompson. Since 2001 it has held pride of place in Stately Blaska Manor’s hallway of honor.
But Comrade Nichols put up a piece in Sunday’s fish wrap asking whether, at age 84, Tommy is too old to run for governor. The Capital Times associate editor and Bernie Bro answers with a resounding NEVER!
Understand, that in his 14 years as governor, from 1987 to 2001, The Capital Times never had a good word to say about Tommy. We know because, depending on the year, this scribbler worked for one or the other. Nichols’ piece is a false flag in Hong’s service.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Sure enough, Tommy is up on social media asking if voters still love him. We do love you, Tommy — as a dutch uncle, not as a candidate. Work Wisconsin for Tom Tiffany like you did Dane County when we elected a conservative county board!
As for Rep. Hong, Francesca would not be the first flawed candidate to survive a scrum of primary election candidates. Donald Trump 2016 comes to mind. But Hong is the real deal and sometimes, authenticity wins. She only dares say out loud what the party really thinks. Like Kirk Bangstad.
Leave a Reply to Kent ClarkCancel reply