Friday, March 30, 2018

TRUMP NOT ON BALLOT BUT VOTERS CAN SEND MESSAGE APRIL 3

By Dominique Paul Noth

Mueller memes like this are flooding the Internet
How curious that in writing columns about trickery and extremism in politics, there was enough stuff in local confusion and state elections to not even mention Donald Trump and the national Republican disaster.

But admit it, they are making Lewis Carroll proud.  The author of “Alice in Wonderland” described how the lemmings marched over a cliff following their leader.  Many Republicans know the doom they are pursuing and pursue it anyway – even as their leader flails more and more.  When Roseanne is his most convincing defender, the public realizes what a cartoon this is. The cruel reality  he took advantage of (unhappiness with government) cannot hide how bad he is at governing and how he has dragged the rest of his party with him.

The death wishes are so infectious down to  state and local politics that even the supposedly non-partisan April 3 election has become a test of our national temperature. 

Trump’s latest moves failed to deter Congress from its joy in having a president of the same majority party.  The Republicans have rushed to the cliff’s edge as he hires and fires  lawyers, hides  from the students’ massive anti-violence marches, tweets about everything else, agrees to a meeting with North Korea and then picks a national security adviser who wants to bomb the country out of existence, threatens a trade war while Wall Street ducks for cover, lets China seem more peace-loving than the US  and isolates his few remaining military advisers who once brought strange comfort to the nation.

Media insiders have actually begun betting pools about what Trump will tweet next time to distract from his Russian woes, his policy failures and international loss of US reputation. The press has amusingly noted that every time a real revelation is about to take hold, or an embarrassing interview with a sexual playmate is about to air, he hits the “look what I did”  button  on his desk, which seems immensely larger than his nuclear button.  Most recently it has been constant announcements of staff changes or how  infrastructure is just another “easy” lift being blocked by those durn Democrats.

The New York Times recently summed up the consequences of his  staff disarrangements: “The incoming national security adviser (John Bolton) has called for the swift takeover of North Korea by the South. He and the newly nominated secretary of state (Mike Pompeo) have urged withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The pick for CIA director (Gina Haspel) once oversaw interrogations in which terrorism suspects were tortured.”

Mustache famous John Bolton
It is a hard shift to the hawkish right, particularly disturbing in the choice of Bolton (whom “Game of Thrones” fans have taken to calling Night King Stache) to succeed Gen. H.R. McMasters. With his decision on steel and aluminum tariffs,  even those who like the idea express the same fears as one of Paul Ryan’s opponents,  Randy Bryce (the real IronStache),  who commented on TV that whatever the value of tariffs, this is precisely the wrong president to implement them.

No wonder many  pundits are suggesting the only solution to keep the nation out of war (Bolton in the past has recommended pre-emptive strikes against North Korea, Iran and even Cuba) is to pray that  the talkative Bolton can’t keep his mouth shut in a job where he is supposed to give Trump multiple security options.

If he says something outrageous ahead of Trump saying something outrageous, he will get fired as the president has usually done in the past. Don’t step in front of the Donald.

We are reduced to the strange game of reverse psychology to save the nation, since we doubt that Trump on his own hook has any idea how and could plunge us into despair and war.

Don’t laugh. The power of reverse psychology is also forcing the media to look at new methods of covering the president.  Many of them argue that Trump is eating up a lot more airtime (with less effect) than either Bush or Obama because of the past concept of the president as a significant, even godlike presence in American culture – what he decides bears massive impact on domestic and foreign policy. So they hang on every word – but should they with Trump?

It’s even a dilemma for the opposition party.  Democrats are not just torn between moderate and left,  they are torn in how loudly they should be pointing out Trump’s failures.  They don’t want the country to fail, since some of the blame will inevitably attach to them. But if unintentionally or not he does something they think good for the country, should they support that and hope the electorate is smart enough to discern that exception is their  reason?

The media has been lurching around trying to pretend there is good reason to suffer through – and put endlessly on the air – the meaningless press conferences Trump suddenly calls after a nasty tweet, the diatribes he rambles through, the useless series of White House press conferences where stone-faced Sarah Huckster will duck every bullet and send it back as a thoughtless sarcastic bomb.

Advice from Rachel Maddow
Reverse psychology suggests the president should be ignored or that the traditional politeness attending his presence may need some shaking up.  Some in the media are already considering that. MSNBC’S Rachel Maddow has bluntly said the media should pay attention to what he does and what is circling in around him rather than what he says. In her philosophy, ignore his claims and focus on the happenings.

The  other options to reverse  psychology are protest and vote. The young people demonstrated the power of protest in the mammoth marches for life. The youth raised a lot of positive expectations about the future, both by their actions now and their threat to vote later.

The voting doesn’t have to  wait for August primaries  and November election  to start correcting America and force the president and his minions to listen to the masses.

Ostensibly the April 3 election is non-partisan, but no one believes that.  What happens in Wisconsin  will reveal a lot about the future.

The entire state has only two contests to be concerned about.

Justice candidate Rebecca Dallet
One is electing Rebecca Dallet to the state supreme court.  She is the only acceptable  candidate, demonstrated by the desperation of the ads against her (arguing not that she let anyone go but followed the family and  prosecution’s advice in sentencing). 

She is also the first step in restoring balance to the court. 

In 2019, Shirley Abrahamson’s seat is up, and though she has not announced if she is running again, her legendary distinction will carry liberal weight.  In 2020, before the next presidential election, it is the unknown justice under the gun – Daniel Kelly, appointed by Walker to fill out David Prosser’s term.  He has never faced the voters at any level, serving mainly as litigator and conservative hired gun on gerrymandering. Dallet will be the start on turning the high court back to normalcy.

The other important vote is No on eliminating the office of state treasurer. This is simply a power grab by the executive against the state’s banker, who should be examining in a watchdog role billions of dollars in common aid to schools and libraries while also serving a key role on the commission for public lands.

The problem is the duped public thinks that eliminating any elected office, particularly one that has attracted few voters in the past, is somehow a step toward saving money. Actually it’s a step toward letting corruption loose.  Ignore the Republican stooge who has been in the office, Matt Adamczyk, who saw his job as undercutting the reasons for the office.

In better hands, the state treasurer will oversee important fiscal duties that shouldn’t be at the whim of any governor or legislature. Keep the office and elect someone who will do the job.

About the author: Noth has been  a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then as an editor for its original Green Sheet, also  for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic. He also created its Friday Weekend section and ran Sunday TV Screen magazine and Lively Arts as he became the newspaper’s senior feature editor. He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs and Internet and consumer news. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly until the paper stopped publishing in 2013. His investigative pieces and extensive commentaries are now published by several news outlets as well as his culture and politics outlets known as Dom's Domain.  He also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee. 


Wednesday, March 28, 2018

GOP LOSING ITS SOUL WHILE DEMOCRATS SEARCH FOR THEIRS

By Dominique Paul Noth

No one is sure anymore what it means to be a Republican.  Their traditional voters are even more confused. The people they hired to represent them in the state senate and assembly are swinging slightly left over here and then far right over there, clouding why they ever were sent to Madison.   Or they are simply refusing to run again, sensing a Democratic tsunami in their future.

AP Photo captures the three top state Republicans pretending to get
along -- Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald (left), Gov. Walker (middle)
and Assembly majority leader Robin Vos.
Similarly Scott Walker. Facing re-election for governor, he is suddenly putting some money into education (not as much as he took out), some money into the job market (not as much as he destroyed in Acts 10 and 44) and some nice words about Obamacare, which he spent two terms trying to strangle. 

Underneath he’s stuck in the same ruts that have driven the state to the bottom of polls on good places to live.

When he and the legislature start squabbling over details, we usually get a push further to the right than he originally wanted because of election worries.  But he goes along with his power base: Tilted higher education, tilted job training and – in a bow to Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos – an ever  higher family income level for voucher schools statewide, so that people mainly looking for a break on their private school tuition now have state government money to bolster them.

Both he and the legislature have been bollixed on issues of transportation and keep punting problems further down the road, even exploring ideas that were once anathema to the GOP but do stick it to the taxpayer – toll roads, higher gas fees. 

The concept of easing regulations, long advertised as a streamlined road for business, has mainly streamlined environmental pollution.  Food stamp recipients have been singled out as targets for reform, with programs that will cost far more than any perceived benefit.  Rules for local lakes and water, even down to piers, reward the richest landholders.  Foxconn, originally designed by Walker as an election winner, has turned into a troublesome boondoggle splitting the state between the average citizen the GOP still needs for votes and the traditional business lobbyists who never met a taxpayer handout they didn’t like.

Yet the Republicans doing this know they are facing wrath in November – if angry citizenry, including many who used to vote Republican, don’t turn complacent in anticipation that others will do the difficult lifting for house-cleaning.

Nothing new happens in politics without sweat and footwork, and there are fears that people will sit back anticipating a change rather than struggling for one. That habit of sitting back waiting for the tempest to die -- it may be what the Republicans hope for. They have in the past.

Is that why they are doubling down on bad bets? The latest moves may be the ugliest.

Former US AG Eric Holder made his mark on Wisconsin
politiics winning a lawsuit against Walker.
Clearly in fear of Democratic gains, Walker broke the state constitution to delay special elections for two open seats. It took a lawsuit by Eric Holder’s group and a decision by a judge Walker had appointed to the bench to tell him this was unconstitutional.

Now the GOP leaders in Madison set a special session to rewrite the law, which will also probably be unconstitutional.  But it may take so long moving through the courts that any election won’t take place until November, leaving the seats vacant for a year and robbing the residents of any representation in or out of session. Just like Walker wanted.

[Editor's Update: After three courts confirmed the unconstitutionality, Walker succumbed to reality and the legislature abandoned the idea of a special session.  Elections are now set for June 12.] 

Then a bill to fill in wetlands was resurrected at the last minute to benefit one Atlanta-based sand processing plant despite protests by environmentalists.

It is almost a death wish to be “hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” a truism that writers like George Bernard Shaw used to describe deliberately committing a greater offense after perpetrating another offense.  It sometimes seems the Republicans are defying the Democrats to come after them.

Historically that may be their only course – counting on the Democrats to attack each other for the right to run and then losing energy after the primaries, which this year take place in August -- way ahead of the November finale.  The theory goes that Democrats will squabble so much before picking a candidate, particularly in the crowded gubernatorial race, that their energy for voting will be dissipated.

If you look carefully you can see signs of that already. Not just bad words and strident opinions in the gubernatorial field.

The House Democrats have a fund-raising arm known as the D triple C – or DCCC, or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which describes itself as the “only political committee in the country whose principal mission is to support Democratic House candidates every step of the way.”

Or oppose them every step of the way, because the DCCC has not been hesitant –usually for sound reasons -- to choose favorites among Democrats running for House office in primaries around the nation.


DPW chair Martha Laning
This is in sharp contrast to most state organizations, such as the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW, also wisdems.org). I asked its chairman to explain its procedure and Martha Laning provided a simple sentence: “It is up to voters to decide who will best represent them and DPW stays neutral in Democratic primaries, supporting all candidates equally.”

Yet at the same time, Laning runs a grassroots organization that eagerly seeks out respectable candidates to run and this year intends to make strong showings in every state senate and assembly district.  So they may actually have favorites.

Yet Laning is sticking firmly to the neutrality policy and the DCCC doesn’t, which creates some interesting dilemmas.


Texan Laura Moser inadvertentlyhelped
by DCCC.
The DCCC’s opposition to Laura Moser in Texas’ 7th District is actually credited for her making the primary runoff in May in a very large field.  The DCCC came out against her for some past horrible statements about living in Texas, but she is also a progressive who got support from area groups and noted figures like Jim Hightower, and locals were also angry at the intrusion. That means she will face another respected candidate, Lizzie Fletcher, to then go against a Republican incumbent in November.

That’s not the only case. In Arizona the D triple C is backing Ann Kirkpatrick in that state’s 1st district, a seat she once held but is now competing for with other Democrats against a GOP incumbent.  In Pennsylvania’s 6th District,  retired fighter pilot Amy McGrath running a populist campaign on the Internet  has drawn nationwide attention but the DCCC is clearly conflicted since two other Democrats they know well are also running.

This dilemma for the DCCC often involves former Clinton and Obama figures who have the experience and often the financial edge that tempts the DCCC to jump in regardless if other Democrats are running.  Such thinking has them speaking out for Abby Finkenauer in Iowa’s 1st, Betsy Londrigan in Illinois’ 13th, and many Florida candidates ahead of primary competition.

It can be a dangerous game given how other factors beside establishment support are playing in these races.  Geographically there can also be a change in emphasis, where in one district a Bernie Sanders supported candidate appeals and others where such a candidate doesn’t.


DCCC decided to back Randy Bryce . . .
Where does Wisconsin come in?  The DPW remains neutral, but the DCCC has come down hard on the side of Randy Bryce, which has clearly upset the campaign managers for Cathy Myers. They have long been angry that Bryce has gained so much media coverage in his campaign against Paul Ryan in the 1st District.  And Bryce is clearly gaining money as well as attention, turning the contest from sure Republican to threatened Republican.


. . . which dismayed the campaign of the other  Paul Ryan opponent,
Cathy Myers.
At first the Myers campaign seemed confused about the neutrality of the DPW and then its email and Internet come-ons sowed confusion about whether the support for Bryce is local or national.  While Myers’ videos have remained focused on the GOP target, the edge of her remarks is shifting.

The campaign sometimes makes it seem she is competing against Bryce not Ryan, demanding debates quite early in the game as a way to draw attention to her effort.

The DCCC may step into other races.  One obvious one is Dan Kohl, nephew of Herb, against Republican caveman Glenn Grothman in the 6th District. This is an uphill battle by a well-heeled Democrat running in traditionally conservative counties where there is a lot of anger at the GOP for environmental and educational weaknesses.

Another case where the DCCC may care, though it hasn’t yet said, is the 7th District against Sean Duffy (and if you confuse him with Sean Hannity you are forgiven -- they are both strangers to the truth). Democrat Margaret Engebretson, a Polk County lawyer and Navy veteran, is making the sort of strong showing that has influenced the DCCC in the past, but there are multiple other Democrats anxious to take Duffy down. And in that race, the electorate seems ready to unite behind the winner.

Under the surface, there is enormous pressure on Laning and the DPW. An impatient membership or would-be membership doesn’t intend to wait for August to decide who to back, so they are pushing to speak out while Laning and company want to remain open to all.

In some ways, this is good pressure, a chafing at the bit like a spirited horse eager to bolt forward. The problem is maintaining that enthusiasm to capitalize on in November.


About the author: Noth has been  a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then as an editor for its original Green Sheet, also  for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic. He also created its Friday Weekend section and ran Sunday TV Screen magazine and Lively Arts as he became the newspaper’s senior feature editor. He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs and Internet and consumer news. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly until the paper stopped publishing in 2013. His investigative pieces and extensive commentaries are now published by several news outlets as well as his culture and politics outlets known as Dom's Domain.  He also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee. 


Sunday, March 25, 2018

SLIPPERY POLITICS START IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

By Dominique Paul Noth

Trickery has become the staple of politics on the local, state and national level – deception the public needs to know about. 

A new website attacks Abele's money campaign.
Let’s focus on the local level – Milwaukee.

There is a slippery attempt to muddy the waters from a group funded by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who throws his wealth behind responsible and irresponsible causes, leaving the hapless public to figure out which is which.

It would be nice if as county exec he valued money nearly as much as he lavishes money on his own pet peeves, but since he doesn’t -- let the taxpayer beware.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel estimates he is sinking close to a million dollars into his campaign to reshape the county board into a pliant partner via the April 3 election – backing candidates sometimes but not always friendly to his own camp mainly to demonstrate the power of his money.  

Other reliable sources have itemized about half a million so far in his expenditures against the board, much of it to out of state business that produce printed material and hire canvassers.  It took awhile but now establishment media has caught up to the trickery.

The Abele group is named LeadershipMKE, which would disappear – and probably will shortly – without being propped up by his money. As an independent expenditure committee, it must report its spending, at its own pace.

League board  member Patty Yunk attempted to talk with
Abele during a meeting he left early, protesting
his pay to park in parks idea.
The game has so angered a notable local group of citizens and activists that they are holding a noon rally March 28 under the banner The League of Progressive Seniors – and they have even produced a website to further their protest.  Their stated aim is to protect Milwaukee democracy from Abele’s money. The group’s board boasts a roster of familiar activist, union and former county worker names, including SEIU’s Bruce Colburn, Anita Johnson, Karen Royster, Stephanie Sue Stein (retired director of the county’s Department on Aging), Jan Wilberg, retired AFSCME legislative leader Patty Yunk and lawyer Jackie Boynton.

Abele’s LeadershipMKE is trying to sidestep its own noose with deceptive come-ons and misstatements about county board votes. While it dispenses Abele’s money to attack county leaders, it lists responsible and irresponsible candidates indiscriminately on its own website, from school board races to village trustees to the county board.

Some were recruited by Abele, some were not.  Some are supportive of his efforts to take more control of county government away from the county board, others are not.  

They are all mixed together in such as a way as to make the site’s recommendations unreliable. For instance I am a longtime acquaintance of Oak Creek mayoral candidate, Dan Bukiewicz, also president of the building trades council, and he is a good candidate. Yet he may be shocked as I am to find his campaign supported  – and I know Robert Hansen, running for Greenfield school board, was shocked. Supervisor Peggy West is a big supporter of Hansen who is a target of Abele’s money through the same group.  You see how screwy the connections can get.

Abele’s group has put all these candidates in a bind about whether to support or disown his campaign literature that attacks their opponents but may not reflect their own viewpoints. It’s hard to reject help from any source in the heat of a campaign – and Abele is successfully counting on that.

It’s pretty clear where Abele is putting most of his money, actually in the Oak Creek area giving a leg up to supervisor candidate James Davies over more progressive Steven Shea.  Abele has dumped more than $115,000 into that race alone.  Other big expenditures are attacking sitting supervisors West and even conservative incumbent Steve Taylor (who dared vote against an Abele appointment). 

Most interestingly he is supporting Casey Shorts against current board chair Theodore Lipscomb though Shorts entered this race on his own, as I have discussed.

Now where I disagree with Abele is on an issue that Shorts has come to believe in – that the relationship between the county exec and the county board has toxic elements that stem from Lipscomb’s hostility. 

Except every board chair has been in disputes with Abele, a relationship I once explained as approaching Abele with an olive branch and getting it flung back as a stick in the eye.

I’ve interviewed many current and past supervisors who all had similar problems with Abele’s method of running the government.  The shame is that they are sometimes supportive of his policies but it is his methods and inability to listen that raise hackles.

One of the misleading centerpieces of the LeadershipMKE website was a petition urging citizens to oppose the county board on paying to park in the parks – which ironically is the idea Abele wanted and the board helped stop. 

The board had agreed to seek revenue from park operations, thinking that meant things like beer gardens, only to have Abele promote parking meters. The board then insisted the public should be heard and the public response was negative in the extreme.

But it wasn’t just the county board that screamed. So did every leader of every municipality in the county – in other words, the people closest to the citizenry, who all had a park in their backyard as it were.  They had met with Abele a day before he announced he was withdrawing the idea.

But only sort of withdrawing.  While a Madison bill that would give Abele more powers over the board, including imposing a wheel tax and parking meters at will, was shelved earlier this year, it still lies there dormant and can be revived at any time.  It’s Abele’s bill, not the board’s, yet LeadershipMKE is trying to stir up anger at the county board for an Abele idea.

That’s one Milwaukee example of what I mean by slippery. Future columns will explore state and national games.

About the author: Noth has been  a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then as an editor for its original Green Sheet, also  for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic. He also created its Friday Weekend section and ran Sunday TV Screen magazine and Lively Arts as he became the newspaper’s senior feature editor. He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs and Internet and consumer news. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly until the paper stopped publishing in 2013. His investigative pieces and extensive commentaries are now published by several news outlets as well as his culture and politics outlets known as Dom's Domain.  He also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee. 


Thursday, March 15, 2018

ASTONISHING SUCCESS, ASTONISHING WARNING FOR DEMOCRATS

By Dominique Paul Noth


Conor Lamb's astounding victory in Pennsylvania despite
Trump's best efforts.
Trump couldn’t have entered in a stronger personal position March 10 when he held one of his patented “lock em up” rallies in the House special election, ostensibly to help Rick Saccone in the District 18 Trump had carried by 22 points.

In that bizarre stream of red meat self-praise and insults on a  Saturday night,  he could highlight his recent  tariffs on foreign steel (designed for  these Pennsylvania blue collar voters to love), a new tax bill embracing the penny-for-you dollar-for-CEO  trickle down those voters have cheered in the past,  personal diplomacy with North Korea that many find daring, nice noises of compassion on school shootings  and then standing firm with the NRA, nice noises on DACA and then blaming the Democrats for screwing up his sympathetic heart.  

Even the twitter firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  March 13 came too late to influence turnout negatively and, given the propensity of Trump voters to like his style of blunt action, would have helped rather than hurt.

Despite such an enormous wind at his back in a solid red gerrymander – some thought it solidly red for any Republican no matter what – Saccone lost. It was a squeaker but Democrat Conor Lamb was the “apparent winner” (apparent not because he doesn’t have the votes but there could be a “wing and prayer” recount).

All sorts of lessons are being drawn from this staggering loss  -- staggering personally to Trump’s image and staggering financially to the dark money that kneejerk  Republican donors have been blindly hurling at elections whenever the RNC panics, and don’t think those donors aren’t rethinking  such waste.

Candidate Lamb directly raised four times as much as Saccone in personal (and recordable) pleas, but was outspent $10.7 million to $4.7 million, mostly in outside money attack ads on the former Marine’s character and viewpoints. Certainly Trump wasted a lot of ammunition sending Don Jr. in a hair-net, Ivanka, Kellyanne Conway, Mike Pence and even Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to help.

Meanwhile, of course, some progressives were concerned by Lamb’s pointed refusal to support Nancy Pelosi as House leader, his support of gun ownership (with avid support of background checks), his personal opposition to abortion while supporting women’s rights.

But when GOP’s Paul Ryan tried to explain Lamb’s victory as a conservative win, he obviously never heard Lamb’s full-throated defense of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (programs Ryan is determined to cut), his opposition to the Trump tax bill and his embrace of not just union movements but the pension programs the GOP is also attacking.

If a candidate supports universal health care, stronger unions, no cuts to Social Security, a woman’s right to choose and is pro medical marijuana, many voters would welcome that as a new definition of conservatives. (It was also Ryan’s gigantic PAC that misfired most in attacks on Lamb’s persona.)

What the heck is meant by a big tent party if not this? Here we have a living example of a candidate who fit his community and turned them from their kneejerk Republicanism. And he checked a lot of Democratic boxes doing so.

The district will disappear in a few months as a new district map ordered by the Pennsylvania high court takes hold to end the GOP gerrymandering, likely leaving Lamb with a friendlier district to run in again in November.

But he may be helping define what are the core values that put someone inside the Democratic Party -- and what are the new or transitioning values (same sex marriage, reasons for warfare, strategies on farming and environment, no drones or some drones) Democrats disagree on as they are pulled to the left and then to the right (if those terms have any meaning these days).

During Wisconsin’s crowded campaign for governor, with 15 reasonable choices and not a JFK among them (by which I mean no one has jumped out to voters eight months ahead), I’ve talked to Bernie Sanders diehards  who are unsatisfied with candidates who don’t adopt Bernie’s precise language on health care.  Yet many of those candidates gently prefer their own terms and methods to solve the same problem.


A lesser known candidate for Wisconsin governor, former legislator
 Kelda Roys may have scored modernized points by
 not hesitating on breast-feeding in a TV ad.
I’ve talked to some that think a Democrat from Milwaukee or Madison is the kiss of death yet sneer at the “hick” views on drainage and budget wonkishness from legislators like Dana Wachs and Kathleen Vinehout. I’ve talked to some who say it better not be a woman again and others who say it better be a woman, which will perk up the ears of Vinehout and former legislator Kelda Roys.  I’ve heard others rail about the older age of most candidates yet are slowly understanding that 70 is the new 50.

I’ve talked to Democrats still upset that Bernie hasn’t registered as a Democrat– and in Wisconsin, one candidate against Scott Walker, “no labels” figure Mike McCabe is in a strange battle with the Dems over access to their data intended just for Democrats. (Is this a battle of scruples or politics?)

“Medicare for all” (Sanders language) and “steps to single payer” (a term of art some candidates  now prefer) seem a silly reason  to split party support, but there is a persnickety side to Democrats that  tend to gripe over nuances on guns, women’s rights, health care, educational approaches, immigration approaches and more. 

Should we throw people out of the party who are not vocally angry enough about Trump or outspoken enough about Black Lives Matter?  Should a Catholic whose social justice views are liberal but supports the church on abortion (but not on contraception in my experience) be drummed out of the party? Should we expect a rural voter to have the same concerns as a city voter over water, guns and immigration?

Let Trump be the one living in his own simplistic dreamland.  He and his party tried to attack Lamb on all the jaded issues -- guns, crime and Pelosi -- while Lamb focused on kitchen table issues, saying he would work with this president where he can, raising the larger question of what people are sent to D.C. to do. 

Sticking too close to Donald resulted in the devastating sea change in a district that was designed to remain Republican. But Lamb advanced by just letting Trump stew in his own ineptitudes. 

In a red region, the winning road was not to take on Trump directly but to take on the issues, to carve up his constant boasts and define just what you will do differently for your voters, not your party, in office.

In a bluer region, a different strategy may be needed, but beating up likely supporters seems particularly silly. The danger for Democrats is eating their own young.


Joe Kennedy III
This week I heard anger from Democrats at other Democrats who raised questions about the student walkouts (doubts that they would work) – and anger running the other way. Skepticism is hardly a reason to throw a friend over the cliff, especially a friend who shares your basic concerns.   

To many, the fine response to the State of the Union given by Joe Kennedy III was undone by harping on his resistance to marijuana legalization.   There is some family history there and some real internal squeamishness on his part, but is the “right view” on pot also now essential to the definition of Democrat?

Recently harsh divisions have erupted over changes to the Dodd-Frank bill in the Senate.


Elizabeth Warren
Now personally I am on Elizabeth Warren’s side on this one, that loosening controls on sizable banks could result in another financial meltdown.  But many Democrats of good standing support the help the bill gives community banks. It’s quite an argument – whether somewhat justifiable help for community banks is overloaded with handouts and deregulation for quite large banks. 

It comes at a moment of great suspicion about Republican economic thrusts in the first place – can anything good come from adjusting Dodd-Frank?  The Warren side (where I stand), including the likes of Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, suggests that if the bill was clearly going to help smaller regional banks it would not extend to the likes of such “regional” giants as SunTrust, BB&T, Citizens, M&T and BMO Financial Corp, which are openly playing around with the $50 billion threshold the bill sets.

Missouri's Claire McCaskill may be a moderate but Trump
and the GOP are working overtime to beat her.
But it’s not just known conservative Democrats like Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota or Joe Manchin of West Virginia that Warren was in a fight with.  There are about a dozen Democrats in all – some in crucial re-election races -- Virginia’s Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, Florida’s Bill Nelson and Montana’s Jon Tester.  

Yet those opponents of the Liz Warren stand –including Michael Bennett of Colorado, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and  Debbie Stabenow of Michigan  -- have now seen themselves called racists in print.  They think that’s a bit much.

But so do many Catholics who, like Lamb, support the church’s view on abortion and have found themselves branded as too extreme to be called Democrats. At a recent grassroots gathering, in fact, such viewpoints were shouted down.
Billionaires were funding Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin's opponents
even before they were chosen.

Interestingly McCaskill, Heitkamp and Nelson call their campaigns crucial to making the Senate a Democratic majority, since they are indeed facing a blitz of dark money to unseat them.  Each thinks their contest is the most important in the nation – and McCaskill is clearly under special pressure though you would think her shrewd moderation would win out in Missouri.

I would argue that the more openly progressive Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Brown of Ohio, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy of Connecticut are facing the biggest financial guns.

We are entering the period when Democrats will be out-raised on money issues but have to start digging hard into generally smaller pocketbooks to flip both Senate and House. I sense a reluctance among progressive Democrats to support the likes of McCaskill or Heitkamp who are not their ideological cup of tea in a perfect world. But obviously they are legions better than the Trumpites and women haters they are facing.

There is equal reluctance among moderate Democrats to help Liz, Bernie and Sherrod, believing their views are pulling the party too strongly to the left, where some fear the Democrats nationally can’t win.  To some outspokenness is good style and to others it is not. And such views are affecting the wallet.

This is not the time to pick and choose in some abstract chess player universe for 2018.
Beto O'Rourke may prove that Texans dislike Ted Cruz
 almost a much as the rest of the country does.

There are also new players to take a hard look at. Consider Rep. Krysten Sinema of Arizona hoping to move up to take Republican Jeff Flake’s senate seat.  She began in the Green Party, became a Blue Dog Democrat but is a huge champion of Dreamers and gay rights – so she’s gone round the barn on many issues, which may be ideal for Arizona.

There is also Beto O’Rourke, the photogenic Democrat taking on Ted Cruz and defying the NRA – in Texas! -- in a task that once seemed as unlikely as, say, Conor Lamb winning in Pennsylvania.

There will be time to argue if party labels are necessary in the first place, though right now they seem convenient at the very least and informative at the most,  except where party leaders are too stiff-necked for their own good.  But it would be shameful if the Democrats, facing the opportunity of a lifetime in federal and state races, chose this moment to break up over self-imposed litmus tests.


About the author: Noth has been  a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then as an editor for its original Green Sheet, also  for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic. He also created its Friday Weekend section and ran Sunday TV Screen magazine and Lively Arts as he became the newspaper’s senior feature editor. He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs and Internet and consumer news. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly until the paper stopped publishing in 2013. His investigative pieces and extensive commentaries are now published by several news outlets as well as his culture and politics outlets known as Dom's Domain.  He also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee.