Tiffany and Crowley walk a tightrope

Their friends are keeping the candidates awake at night.

Poor old Warren Harding, plagued by the Teapot Dome and other scandals, said his enemies he could deal with. It was his friends who kept him walking the floor at night. The two gents running for governor of Wisconsin could sympathize. 

The last thing Tom Tiffany needs right now, a month before judgement day, are reminders of the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021. So why are his Republican counterparts in the U.S. Senate making a hero/martyr of Trump prosecutor Jack Smith?

In a desperate parody of blame shifting, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) sprung his own trap by trying to prove Smith perjured himself for denying he visited Atlanta — during which he maybe could have colluded with Fani Willis, then also prosecuting Trump. Oops! That “Hawks” NBA basketball game he supposedly attended two years ago turned out to be the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s team, a game played in Maryland, not Georgia.

But Jack Smith is the “dirtbag?” When the facts won’t cooperate, resort to invective.

Hong walks the DEI talk

The last thing David Crowley needs is to be joined at the hip to that walking caricature of Woke, WI State Rep. Francesca Hong (Democratic Socialist-Madison). But there she is, telling voters in places like Beloit, Oshkosh, and Stevens Point that Democrats are for they and them — not you. (Thanksgiving is for us “colonizers.”)

Bernie bro John Nichols supplied Tiffany with more fodder by headlining “Francesca Hong is rallying vital support for Crowley.” Like all socialists and most Democrats, Hong promises a Big Rock Candy Mountain of more free stuff like “a $20-an-hour minimum wage and renewed support for unions, fully funded education, guaranteed paid leave for workers, universal childcare, expanded and improved BadgerCare.”

Comrade John chose not to mention the stuff that sank Democrats two years ago: open borders, defunded police, gender dysphoria, climate alarmism, catch & release, nine-month abortion, racial reparations & quotas, settler guilt, mandated face masks, and Hamas defenses — hellz bellz, socialism itself.

Crowley’s dilemma is he cannot afford to alienate Hong’s collectivists, who have embedded themselves into his party like the plague bacillus of Lenin to Finland Station, of which Winston Churchill spoke. One-third of Democrats now identify as socialists. No Sister Souljah moment for candidate Crowley!

→ Twice as many now say Crowley is “very liberal.” Among all registered voters: Crowley 46%, Tiffany 45%. Trump job approval declines to 38%, disapproval now 60%— Marquette poll

→ Why Democrats keep losing working class voters

TDS works both ways

Nor can Tiffany disavow Trump’s lies — MAGA election deniers have taken over several Republican county parties. Their defense of the stolen election hoax is increasingly desperate after almost two years of Trump administration futile spelunking. It’s this President’s weapons of mass destruction. And his polling popularity is more underwater than Tiffany’s airplane.

Yes, the FBI placed eyes and ears amid the insurrectionists that disgraceful day. As they should! Trump expects his minions believe that HIS federal agents forced the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other chum-hungry chumps — against their will — to trash the Capitol and batter police officers. Blaming the fire department for the arsonists, in other words. (We remember when a good conspiracy theory required some measure of credibility.)

Blaska’s Bottom Line: OI’ Sparky, our Eisenhower-era mainframe computer, predicts that Crowley, while saddled with Hong (the little firebrand nearly won the nomination) will not share the same stage or screen. Bernie, A.O.C., and Hasan Piker are persona non grata. Likewise, Tiffany will keep Trump at arm’s length just as Tammy Baldwin avoided a wounded Joe Biden two years ago in Madison.

Can they pull it off?