from Charlie Kirk‘s Turning Point USA.
Second of three parts.
We’re expecting an old-fashioned donnybrook at the Wisconsin Republican state convention this weekend outside Wausau, hopefully without gallows or the QAnon shaman. But you never know.
The spectrometer at Blaska Policy Werkes shows three groups jostling for power in a deeply divided party. We examined Vos-hating, election-denying Cultists in the last thrilling episode. We paraphrase Dean Vernon Wormer: Angry, paranoid, and stupid is no way to go through life, people!
The Cultists are doing battle with Republicans Loyalists who have won — and lost — their share of battles.
Sharing very little of this three-ringed Venn diagram is a faction more loyal to a third-party 501(c)3 organization. Turning Point USA was founded by Charlie Kirk, best bud of Donald Junior. It has taken over several county parties here in Wisconsin, including the more populous: Milwaukee, Dane, Brown, St. Croix, and Ozaukee — with inroads in Waukesha County. Mainly with young guys in their early 20s, like Hilario DeLeon in Milwaukee, age 23. They’re the Republican versions of the Democrats’ David Hogg — young and full of themselves.
More brag than do?
The well respected Wis-dot-Politics tears the cover off Turning Point’s boasts that it was a major player in state politics. “You wouldn’t know it from the group’s independent expenditure report,” the on-line service reports.
Turning Point, which posted a stream of pictures on social media showing out-of-state employees chasing ballots in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, reported spending just $44,780 helping conservative Brad Schimel. None of it was for staff expenses. And it certainly didn’t include expenses for a “war room” that one Turning Point staffer tweeted about on April 1 before the vote showed liberal Susan Crawford had bested conservative Brad Schimel by 10 points. — Wis.Politics
However, a campaign finance expert tells the Werkes that Turning Point’s employee money was spent from its 501(c)4 side, which does not report. WisPolitics said various Turning Point officers refused comment, including Brandon Maly, also in his early 20s. Maly is Turning Point’s paid Midwest field manager and chairs the Dane County GOP.
Of Turning Point, a veteran Republican political operative told the Werkes, “During the Trump campaign, they never came through. [Elon Musk’s] America PAC took them over last fall. They were supposed to share data with the RNC like America PAC does but they never held their end of bargain. On April 1 they were calling asking for data from the party, all the while trashing our data.”
Several sources tell the Policy Werkes that Maly is gunning for Brian Schimming’s job as state party chairman. Mr. Maly issued this non-denial to The Werkes:
“I really don’t know how to answer this question. I have been hearing this as well. It’s funny how the rumor mill spins and the person accused in the rumor is the last to know. I’ll be making an announcement of sorts at some point soon.”
By any means necessary
“Turning Point does some good things for the Republican party and the conservative movement, especially with younger voters,” the Kewaunee County Republican chairman conceded to Wisconsin Right Now. “However, it is not a very well-kept secret that Turning Point and its allies want to gain control of RPW, and it appears to me that they may be willing to do so by any means necessary.”
Schimel lost by 10 percentage points, statewide. Loyalists observe that Schimel managed only 18.3% of the vote in populous Dane County — worse than the 20.7% that Tim Michels got in 2022 and a rounding error to the 18.0% that Dan Kelly managed in the 2023 court race. (Hellz bellz: Blaska took 30.1% in a Madison-wide school board race under former chairman Scott Grabins.) The Kewaunee chairman finds the same results in Milwaukee and Brown Counties.
Dane County’s Brandon Maly defeated Scott Grabins two years ago with a promise to do better than Michels and Kelly in Dane County. The Maly regime raising an impressive $800,000+ over his first two-year term — with little to show for it. Maly’s team was re-elected in March over a slate of election-denying Cultists. His vice president resigned recently, citing factional in-fighting.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Arizona is Turning Point USA’s home base. Kewaunee chairman Kirt Johnson notes that the home of John McCain and Barry Goldwater now sends two Democrats to the U.S. Senate and is governed by a Democrat — the latter defeating Cultist Kari Lake yet again.
3 responses to “The WI GOP is fighting off a coup”
The cultists vs the dinosaurs, a story old as history.
Keep breathing and take some baby aspirin.
Would 100-proof whiskey work?
With Loomer saying that Dementia Don taking that $400,000,000 plane was a bad thing you now know the end of the GOP is near. Are the days of the WHQVC network numbered?