FLIPPING ASSEMBLY SEEMS UNLIKELY TILL YOU MEET THE REPLACEMENTS

By Dominique Paul Noth

"The Cheese Lady" as she is known is taking on Joe
Sanfelippo in an Assembly race.

In November around the state, virtually all the established GOP incumbents in the legislature are being seriously challenged and not just on anti-Trump grounds or anti-GOP state machinery grounds, though those factors are weaved in.

Much of the change is about sense and sensibility.

Once -- and to a disturbing degree even today -- residents didn’t even know the names, duties and policies of those representing them in the Madison legislature.  The Republicans and many Democrats had long counted on a kneejerk vote for the R or D. But there is a newfound interest from the electorate, many of whom never previously voted, in how state government affects our lives. 

Turns out its impact is quite serious and long time. Turns out that Wisconsinites ARE interested in what has long been dismissed as legislative sausage-making.

A recent previous article examined why Julie Henszey has such a good chance in the Milwaukee area Senate District 5. 

Now it’s time to look at several of those flippable Assembly seats -- and let’s start with all three nestled within Senate District 5. All three could quickly leave Republican ranks. The quality of the Democratic candidates is making all the races tight.

Dennis McBride

Assembly District 13 – Probably the most civil race in Wisconsin given the personalities running. Republican incumbent Ron Hutton is pleasant if not effectual. But his Democratic foe is well known and quite effective – Dennis McBride, a longtime alderman and once head of the Tosa Common Council who stepped down to run for this seat.

He is known for getting things done and for me he carries a mighty name. I worked with his parents now memorialized in the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame – Ray McBride at The Journal and Toni at the Sentinel. His older brother, Joseph, is a film critic and professor whose early books I reviewed decades ago and who will return to prominence in November when Orson Welles’ long-delayed “Other Side of the Wind” – in which the youthful Joe has a role – leaves film festivals for Netflix.  His sister, Genevieve, is an author and professor married to a former colleague.

Dennis is well known in the Tosa community as a huge supporter of public education and has promised the media that he will run against Hutton “as friends who disagree and focus on issues.”  The district sweeps up a good portion of Milwaukee County.

Robyn Vining

Assembly District 14 – Many think this is the Democrats’ best chance for a pickup though it stretches from Waukesha County into the Milwaukee area, again with Tosa as a key.  The Democrat, Robyn Vining, is a noted photographer, community organizer and Tosa mother of the year heavily supported by other Milwaukee legislators.

She may also be blessed in her Republican opponent -- Matt Adamczyk, notorious even in his own party for trying to kill the state treasurer office he occupied (the public ferociously voted to keep it in August) and he also helped fire Gaylord Nelson’s daughter for her work on climate change.

Hardly an endearing record in this community.

Assembly District 15 – A West Allis surprise may await the well-heeled Republican, Joe Sanfelippo, who has already suffered the loss of his Milwaukee taxicab monopoly and is trying to accomplish in the state legislature the divisive governmental ideas he had attempted on the Milwaukee County Board. This may come down to his money vs. her personality.

He is facing Lillian Cheesman, who laughingly ignores the lack of a final”e” in her name and has acquiesced to being known as the Cheese Lady.   Her website is also wisconsinlikescheese.com.

But she is a talented lawyer and former prosecutor who has also represented the little guy in lawsuits. On her role as legislator for a district spreading from Waukesha County through West Allis, she is dead serious on why she is more important to the voters than Sanfelippo has been.

“We have a number of mid to low income voters who have been neglected on such issues as health care and basic economic security,” she told me in an interview. “We need more Democrats to make changes in our health care delivery system. “

Democratic advisers think the race is hers to win “if she keeps attacking the doors and talking the basic issues.” 

Assembly District 84 – “Pound the doors”  is the same advice in many other area races, such as Erica Flynn in Assembly District 84 (those numerics can confuse you – this is actually right next door in New Berlin and Greenfield to Henszey’s race.)

Erica Flynn aims to beat Mike Kuglitch

I only know Flynn as a peppy voice eager to chat on the phone. A project manager who worked in China before earning a degree in International Studies in Michigan,  she has gone through Emerge Wisconsin training and hears the same anger at the doors about a do-nothing party (in this case the incumbent she aims to beat, Mike Kuglitch).

“The voters in his district, and I’ve met a bunch, are tired of what’s going on in the Republican party right now,” she said. 

Gabriel Gomez

Assembly District 21 -- Further south in Oak Creek area District 21, the progressive sparkplug is burly bearded Gabriel Gomez who hardly fits the stereotype (of mainly women running on the Democratic side). 

In fact, he is trying to knock off the woman who has been serving as (many say) the GOP’s token Latino, Jessie Rodriguez, for two terms.

“Token Latino” sounds harsh but her heritage has been victimized in private by fellow male Republican colleagues when they are not acting self-satisfied in her being their lone Latino representative.

Her victories in District 21 have been a little confusing since so few contacted know anything she’s done for this district. She is best known as a voucher school advocate in a community that has little to do with such schools and is happy with its public education, except when Republicans like her take away their money. But she did have a lot of network voucher money to tap.  

Gomez has wrapped himself around family community and service issues. He makes friends easily and what these friends see is “a thinker who generates positive ideas for the future.”   Listen to the story of his life from one of them. 

“He's just a fantastic guy,” says a regular soccer buddy. “His family fled the dictatorship in Argentina, ended up in a Kibbutz in Israel, made their way to the United States, where Gabe served as a US Marine, got an MBA from UWM, created a wonderful family of his own in South Milwaukee, and where his daughter just started at Stanford. He deserves all the credit in the world, but you look at Gabe's life and it also makes you proud of this country.” 

In all these assembly races, when you talk to the actual voters, you sense a personal identification with those running on the Democratic side, even among those not engaged by assembly contests in the past.  This may be politics but it is also something deeper.

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 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.  

SENATE DISTRICT 5 SIGNALS DISASTER SWEEPING DOWN ON STATE GOP

By Dominique Paul Noth

An outdoor lover in her heart,  Julie Henszey expects to add another
seat to her vision of Wisconsin  --  the Madison senate in November.

Two years ago, Wisconsin Republicans could not conceive the reality they are facing this November in the state legislature elections, which may well shift control of one or both chambers to the Democrats.

They had believed that their 2011 gerrymandering of assembly and senate districts would remain successful in perpetuity – the sophisticated packing that lumped Democrats into a few expected  districts and cracked together Republican enclaves in once “swing” districts the GOP wanted to keep under their control.  In several cases their new boundary lines carefully eliminated some natural opponents the GOP feared.

Combine incumbent Republican legislators with the nasty ads and traditional get out their GOP state machinery and the Republicans felt they were sitting in a tub of butter, swimming happily toward permanent rule of local politics.

Expectations are changing. Where one Republican strategist scoffingly assured me in 2015 his party was “nibbling away at the edges of Milwaukee County,” today he realizes the nibbling is being returned in abundance -- including in the surrounding WOW counties (Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha).

Even worse for Scott Walker’s GOP, voters are starting to pay attention to state legislative races where the party used to rely on public indifference – voters who didn’t even know who was running and chose the R or the D after the name as some sort of validation of competence.

Today most of the Ds running are hardly party insiders. They were drawn out of their college educated and locally involved private lives by a desire to enter public service on their own terms --   small donations, volunteers door to door, bread and butter issues, amazingly asking the voters what their platforms should be.

Lawyers, small business owners, hikers, sports buddies, they are more like your concerned neighbors than politicians, because that is what they are. They believe that in a democracy you can translate common sense ideas into state legislation – a talent too many of today’s politicians have lost.

These new energetic candidates fashion their campaigns around Democratic principles but it is a big tent party and they range across it from moderate to liberal, asking the electorate to help them shape their platform. To no one’s surprise, the public’s issues are precisely the ones Walker’s camp has ignored (until now when he feels threatened at the polls) -- health care, education, environment, roads, living wage.

Some of this unnatural weakening of once impenetrable gerrymandering is the natural migration of more Democratic households and more diverse families into what was long a lily white flight environment.  Did the GOP truly think people would scoot away forever from urban centers like Milwaukee and Madison?

Some change is blunt defiance of the party in power. Much of it comes down to neglect of the local voice whatever the color of the household or the family’s legacy politics. Now even in rural and certainly in suburban markets, Democratic neighborhoods have increased as have active younger progressives and entrepreneurs. There are legions more independent thinkers that both parties must cater to.  Some say this is the year of the women but the Democrats are also putting heavy attention on the black and Hispanic communities and younger voters.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett recalled at a Sept. 24 campaign event for Senate District 5 that more than 25 years ago he was its senator in Madison!  That may seem impossible but it was way before the gridlock of gerrymandering and partisanship. Even then, Barrett loved to jog the neighborhoods (“I walk now”) and remembered how “the closer ring of suburbs around the city like Wauwatosa and Elm Grove contained lots of Democrats.”  Today, Barrett noted happily, that sense of “lots” of citizens eager to get involved has expanded westward. 

The district now includes Brookfield, Elm Grove, Wauwatosa, West Allis, New Berlin, much of Greenfield and slivers of Milwaukee  

The Democrat making surprising inroads today in District 5 is a lean cool drink of spring water compared to the district’s recent heavy-handed GOP thumpers.

Julie Henszey

Julie Henszey is an outdoor adventure guide, mother of two grown children, corporate trainer, former librarian with a gentle intelligent touch at the doors.  Her big issue is something the Madison legislature can do much more about – “investing in our education system and our kids, from pre-kindergarten all the way through the University of Wisconsin system.” She represents a quiet attentive campaign style the district responds to.

She approaches the job as what she is – a long distance runner who intends to carry marathon commitment to Madison. “My goal is to talk to every single voter,” she says – unrealistic, perhaps, but perfectly fitting her indefatigable style.  

Republicans had hoped that this was their safe domain when they encouraged that state senator Leah Vukmir to take on Tammy Baldwin for US senate, a move that is looking even more dismaying for the GOP as Baldwin gains strength – and every vote for Baldwin in SD5 is clearly a vote for Henszey.

Henszey  not only stands to win an important state  senate seat and shift control of that chamber to the Democrats --  her victory would be a much deserved extra nail in the coffin for  the wicked witch of the state’s ALEC steering committee, Vukmir, if she cannot even deliver her own community. 

And if Henszey wins, add The End to Rep. Dale Kooyenga.  The GOP, not knowing the troublesome reputation of this representative, also hoped this would be a natural step up to the senate for him forgetting how he voted for seven years in lock step with Walker to cut health care, messed around with Milwaukee K-12, ripped down campaign signs he didn’t like and generally behaved like the ultimate arrogant career politician (which he is but now pretends he never was, hoping voters will forget all those years obeying Scott Walker).

“Julie’s eating him alive at the doors. She’s waking up the whole community to what service could mean.”  So commented several state legislators who are helping out on her door to door campaign.

They are among many political insiders who wonder why the media has not been paying much attention to what is happening in this district.  Perhaps the pundits believed that any community that could elect Vukmir would never step over to the rational side.  They misunderstand how much these citizens have been waiting for a candidate who will work, not for her own advance, but for them.

NEXT ARTICLE: MILWAUKEE AREA ASSEMBLY RACES THAT CAN FLIP TO DEMOCRATS

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 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.  

WOULD TEAM OF RIVALS APPROACH BEAT WALKER?

By Dominique Paul Noth

When Tony Evers handily beat seven opponents in the Aug. 14 Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor (a two to one margin), several of the bigger vote getters may not have come close but they were younger and ferociously progressive, which brought them donations, media attention and slivers of votes.

Mandela Barnes and Tony Evers at joint Madison campaign event

Since Aug. 14, polls taken during the primary race that put Evers four points ahead of Walker now have him slightly ahead or even, actually a good sign months ahead of Nov. 6.

Though these  polls in methodology seem to favor older voters and landlines, it was also clear that the dust from Aug. 14 has not yet settled and that all the progressive forces, extreme and moderate, will have to knit together to defeat Walker’s superior money, which is already whitewashing the harm his policies have done to Wisconsin.

Now campaign operatives, in exploring how best to win, wonder if Evers should be borrowing from Barack Obama by way of Abraham Lincoln – assembling a “team of rivals” to knit the side together and carry the message in rallies across the state.

The current situation raises an interesting dilemma for Evers campaign staff, since even the recent polls reflect growing disfavor with Walker’s weakening of public education, clearly an Evers strength that scares the state GOP machine. Yet there still in not the degree of uniformity and enthusiasm behind Evers that Democrats were counting on. 

So Evers campaign is attacking the biggest first problem – pointing out that their candidate is no pushover despite his image as a “nice guy” and his calmer, more measured approach to tackling the state’s enormous problems.

The voters clearly respected his proven bureaucratic talents in winning three previous statewide elections for superintendent of schools – against a powerful GOP machine. His ability to stymie his opposition hardly makes him a milquetoast but confirm he’s an intelligent and committed fighter.  The voters are now learning more about that, thanks to his campaign ads -- how time and again he has thwarted whatever he has been able to thwart in the GOP attack on public school funding.

Walker’s TV ads continue to use Evers congeniality against him -- pushing how Evers praised Walker for returning some of the money he had removed from school funding.  It’s hard to conceive that Evers should have ignored even a clear desperation move by Walker  to return some of the millions he had cut. Better to ask why Walker is suddenly trying to pretend to be an Evers style nice guy on education, healthcare, the environment and other issues he neglected.

Other Walker ads lie about Evers on the pornography front – since porn is an automatic hot campaign issue for Republicans when not looking in the mirror.  But it was Evers who led a rewrite of a state law that had tied his hands with a teacher who looked at porn on a school computer but never showed it to children.  Thanks to Evers, even the act of looking is grounds for dismissal, yet Walker who wouldn’t do this is now attacking Evers for following the law and then ignoring how Evers helped change it.

All this proves the desperation of Walker’s defense – he’s a governor who admittedly fears Evers and a blue wave.

So the campaign’s first order of business is to remind voters what the primary vote demonstrated – that Evers’ stubborn but genial commitment to progressive causes is the face most voters want to see applied by state Democrats, even if a more aggressive tone attracted some followers

Evers himself is trim and gaunt, like a long distance runner. I have covered him for years, knowing how intelligently he weighs problems before addressing and how quietly he speaks when finding solutions.  He loathes how voucher and charter schools are funded at the expense of public schools but as head of the Department of Public Instruction, he cherished the students and whatever teacher made gains.

Does that mean he can’t falsely promise to stop Foxconn in its tracks, as other candidates did?  Does that mean he can’t reverse Act 10 upon assuming office? Does that mean he can’t instantly turn around the policies hurting the environment? Does that mean he can’t promise Medicare for all by a wave of his hand rather than intense work on whatever legislature emerges in November? 

Yup, that’s what it means – and a good thing that he is not even tempted to overpromise.

So combustible has become the political environment that the old Wisconsin ideal of working on problems without vitriol seems passé.  We live in a world where many voters like to pretend they were not influenced by a drumbeat of false advertising claims from the governor’s dark money  about how well off the state is.  It’s much like national voters want to pretend that the diet of National Enquirer headlines about Hillary in the supermarket checkout aisles had absolutely no influence on their attitudes.

It is an atmosphere where some progressives fear that a step by step approach to problems signals weakness rather than strength.  This atmosphere plus Walker’s vastly superior dark money make Evers’ race an uphill climb. So is it time for an active “team of rivals” strategy?

This was a famous example of cooperation when Lincoln and then Obama combined their thinking with their party opponents for the same office – seeking the best of ideas from all camps.

The danger in a campaign is how openly you do this.  Obviously there are some candidates you would be cautious to tap because of their age or their own cultivated image of independence.  Obviously Evers may already have good people in mind to seed his future cabinet with.

But there clearly are public camps, generational concerns and mutual goals to talk about. 

And some alliances will automatically happen. For instance, Evers’ team makes clear the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, will be a close ally, treated far differently than Walker has in dismissing his own lieutenant governor to unimportant meetings and treated far more closely than Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle treated Barbara Lawton, who could have been a stronger political ally if he had given her space.

Barnes has earned a fighting reputation, not only from his service in the legislature but in his willingness a few years ago to take on as an underdog a Democratic senator he felt was not nearly progressive enough for the Milwaukee  African American community they served.

Barnes thus has a high reputation among the forces most Democrats want activated in this contest – and Evers clearly knows and embraces that influence. It should also be noted that Barnes is an expert on the incarceration problem that Evers has expressed concern about, so he would be a natural leader in prison reform.

This is hardly the only natural area of alliance particularly when looking at the primary’s younger candidates. The team of rivals is something all sides should be cleaving together. 

In second place in the primary, largely because of union support,  was Mahlon Mitchell, president of the state firefighter union who seems a natural partner for Evers in workforce development.  The third place candidate, former legislator Kelda Roys who came up fast on the outside because of her feminist appeal, shares Evers passion for education and many of his ideas for health services.  

Dana Wachs, the  legislator who left the race to back Evers,  also has a following. He has been an outspoken opponent of Foxconn and a natural voice in economic development.  Another representative who abandoned her seat to run for governor, Kathleen Vinehout, is a walking encyclopedia of how government works and should work.

All such candidates are going to work for Evers anyway, but openly weaving  them together after the primary will underscore the collaboration.  And consultation – working together --  is Evers style.

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 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.  

MINISTERING TO VOTERS IN MILWAUKEE SHERIFF’S RACE

By Dominique Paul Noth

You can’t blame the public for being confused about just who the acting sheriff really is, since his dual life has not been much explained in the media.

Most big endorsements are choosing Earnell Lucas.

Yet Milwaukee County voters are being asked August 14 to choose among this undersheriff, one other deputy running and the Democratic Party’s enthusiastic recommendation for a clean slate for the county – Earnell Lucas, a former district captain in the Milwaukee police department who was picked by Bud Selig to run national security for professional baseball for the last 16 years and has been campaigning for this county position for over a year.

The current “sheriff” was chosen in April by Gov. Scott Walker to remain in the office until the general election.  He inherited the job from escaping (retiring) sheriff David Clarke, who became an infamous right-wing media tool in the last few years – and at first some at the county were glad just to see a friendlier face.  Anyone would have been a welcome change in emphasis from Clarke who had clearly hoped to get an immediate job in the Trump administration (but to this point has proved too toxic even for them.) 

Sure enough,  Richard Schmidt started his reign by promising a cleanup at the county detention facility, where death and brutality charges had been blamed on how Clarke’s department ran the place. Even the second in command seemed a breath of fresh air despite concerns of how he had dutifully for years followed Clarke’s orders on the House of Correction.

But last April, Schmidt said he felt “blindsided” when he was blamed by Clarke for being in charge of day to day operations at the Milwaukee County Jail – and by implication responsible for the horrors there. Yet in the same Journal Sentinel story he still felt “Clarke was a good leader” who had done “some very good things, such as cleaning up the lakefront.”

Acting Sheriff Richard Schmidt

The swiftness to forgive the boss who had promoted him to second in command can be viewed as too submissive.  Or philosophically based if you listen to his sermons. Or somewhat unsettling, depending on where you stand on both Christianity and how the US Constitution lets you fight back against governmental tyranny. 

Certainly Schmidt’s views pale in comparison to the credentials and proven integrity of Lucas who was Third District commander when he left the Milwaukee police force to take on security concerns for major league baseball and its 75 million fans. Imagine how many diverse temperaments he had to handle in that job!

Lucas campaigning with
 Sen. Tammy  Baldwin.

Lucas has more than promised a clean slate.  He has outlined specific law enforcement policies welcoming all citizens while prioritizing budget concerns, which have been one of Schmidt’s messy spendthrift inheritances from Clarke.

The outlined program and his engaging personality have brought Lucas dozens of notable endorsements including US Rep. Gwen Moore and DA John Chisholm.  Maybe it was  his independent streak that also brought mystification when one of Clarke’s famous foes, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, appeared less interested in how well the taxpayer money would now be handled under Lucas than in who will be more obedient to Abele’s authority.

The media has now become intrigued and frankly puzzled why Clarke-hater Abele is using both his money and his political arm, Leadership MKE, to put such weight behind Schmidt.  Pundits openly speculated that Abele is seeking the most pliable candidate -- and that led them to wonder why Gov. Walker decided to let Schmidt continue in the sheriff’s role in the first place, when strong candidates, including Lucas, had applied for the job.

There is another factor that public knows little about and the media is reluctant to talk about for historic reasons of separation of church and state.  Fundamentalists may claim the media doesn’t care about such fairness, but it does. The Constitution and freedom of belief generally stand in the way of jumping too harshly on personal religious beliefs in the public arena. Schmidt is a veteran pastor but do his religious views matter in a political contest?

I’ve listened to a number of his sermons and interviewed the sheriff and many people I know at Milwaukee County.  All agreed with his statement to me. “Never once in my 32 years with the department has anyone ever claimed my religious beliefs played a part in what I do,” Schmidt said.  “The First Amendment allows everyone religious freedom.  In those beliefs I treat every single person with respect.”

But his sermons are something voters should take time to know about. A deeper understanding emerges when we explore the motors operating the brain that wants the sheriff’s job permanently. 

Schmidt concedes that he has worked to keep his sheriff’s life and his pastoral reach somewhat separate.  Online at the county his resume builds up his law enforcement credentials and his summer seminars at Quantico and the like (made available by the FBI to educate many in local law enforcement).  That could just be smart politics, inflating a work resume when running for office.

But not included in his official online county resume is his extensive preaching career.  In his own online site and sermons, he subordinates his law credentials to his divinity degrees (mainly several online programs, a defunct college and treks to Israel). 

In the pulpit his double life is openly part of the material, since he was an associate pastor when he joined the Milwaukee sheriff’s department. “I think there’s been some misunderstanding about comments I’ve made” when people discuss if one role is more important than the other, he said.  “I’ve proved over 32 years I don’t skew things. “

But you should sample his sermons online, delivered in a soothing conversationalist Midwest  voice with sudden bursts of passion and titles like Institutions Ordained by God, End-Times Prophecy, Why Christians Love Israel, Sheep & Goat Judgment, Christian Ethics in a Secular Society, Halloween and the Occult (dating back to 2014) and Barriers Against Crime (2015).

Several, discussing his law enforcement role in prophetic teachings, urge first responders to be fair to all comers and “do what is right” but that right is clearly determined by believing the truth as it is found in the Scriptures rather than the law and that heaven is open only to “all believers in Christ . . . not of good works.”

“Being a good person will not work,” he warns from the pulpit. “The sequence is we trust Christ, then we do the good works.”  

Like a basic civics teacher, he discusses the First Amendment in “Examining Cultural Christianity” but then he warns that “we’re gagging the Gospel” in concern about what the Supreme Court allows and doesn’t. Pointing to a passage in Romans, he reminds listeners that God has allowed secular authorities to exist, so “I want to be cautious in how I respond to government authorities. Certain governmental people have positional authority over me.”  This is deference to the chain of command when you consider his current county situation. “We have to be sensitive about working not preaching.”

In one recent sermon, “The Apocalyptic One World System,” he attempts to explain just who gets to heaven, why it is so selective and . . . well,   you may leave a bit confused.  Apparently the Bible points to one religious economic and political system coming from the Rapture, and heaven is reserved for those who died in Christ first and only then to selected subsets of the Satanic Trinity. 

How civil law relates to that or how even such science as carbon dating relates in the daily world are not explained, since Schmidt insists on literal interpretation of the Bible – meaning  that the Earth dates back only  to 4,000 B.C.  He constantly cites biblical verse that simply doesn’t say what he says it does – at least not without dense elaborate interpretation. A simply phrase in Ecclesiastics (“Look to Israel”) becomes an injunction for the Apocalypse.

Schmidt preaches a variation on fundamental Christianity.  Divinity scholars contacted call his beliefs “Dispensational Premillennialism,” a mouthful they relate to an “outdated 19th century system.” Modern voters have a right to evaluate the full person. 

Schmidt also admits he was going to retire completely from the sheriff’s department once Clarke retired -- until Walker appointed him rather than selecting among many candidates.  Now on August 14 the voters have to decide who will be the new sheriff.

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 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.  

WEEDING DOWN GOVERNOR CANDIDATES – MY FINAL TWO

By Dominique Paul Noth

Surprisingly I am coming down to two quite different candidates in age and appeal for governor because final attention to them would clarify what the public really wants.

Forget the myth! There is no Bernie clone in race for
governor to replace Walker.

Right now there’s puzzlement.  Voters may want to get rid of Gov. Scott Walker, but they have not paid much attention to the large slate of candidate vying  to beat him – eight right now, coming down to only one winner Aug. 14, which is way too  early for a deciding primary for the  Nov. 6 election.  (That’s one reason for the lack of interest, not a time of year folks think of politics while Trump makes everyone want to hide under the covers from the news).

There are many weird attempts to winnow the field ahead of the electorate doing so.  Wisconsin Broadcasters gave up its idea of choosing the top four from  a Marquette poll and Wisconsin Choice, an amalgam of progressive left groups, continues it unscientific poll  push from 10 to 4 to 1 though everyone had a pretty good idea of who would win with that sponsorship.

None of those efforts, or mine, eliminate the possibility that a large portion of anti-Walker voters will wake up on Aug. 15 and say “Oops,” surprised they only have one Democratic choice, and it might not even be a Democrat!

There is internal division partly dating from the Hillary-Bernie wars and largely dealing with arguments about the nature of real progressivism -- civility versus in your face, personal appeal versus proven ability, age versus experience.  Under the anger looms a political reality:   The candidate must pull heavily from established older Democratic voters and urban strongholds while appealing   to the younger crowd and to rural communities – a pretty large task in this environment made harsher by current events.

On paper all the candidates talk an exciting game of change.  But none has caught fire and Democrats do like to squabble among themselves.  So there will be no universal choice.

And none frankly is the knight on horseback that voters seem to lean to – that was Carter, Reagan, Clinton, even the second Bush and Obama and -- many would add, holding their nose -- Trump. All were viewed as outsiders riding in to clean up D.C.  Are people looking for something similar for the stables of Madison?  If so, they should start with the dynamic realities of legislative races where there is a lot of action that could bolster Democratic voters for governor – whatever the final choice.

Walker’s failures and snarky behavior are amply recorded, though there is even more to say about the horrors of his environmental record. It is amusing how what he once regarded as the centerpiece of his re-election has backfired – Foxconn.

He will always  have more money than his opponent, but enough money to compete will be there for the Democrat after Aug. 14 no matter who wins, so let’s put cash on hand aside as a reason for choice.

Clay feet, individual quirks that may be misread and riddles about what a new governor can really do and what the candidates say – those will be the deciding factors.

One of the candidates whose mixture of clay feet and quirks took him off my list is Mike McCabe, the no-labels blue jeans guy who on the stump is the most effective talking populist in the race and rightly puts ideas ahead of labels.  Those are mighty plusses that have led some in the rank and file to back him even while established party leaders express doubts.  Would he be a uniter in office and would his ability match his uplifting rhetoric?

McCabe has refused to say he will back whatever Democrat emerges. He won’t become a Democrat yet he wants access to the party database. Before running nonpartisan watchdog groups on government he served as legislative aide to three Republicans in the Assembly while speaking articulately about what Wisconsin lacks in good government.

Some see that as Bernie Sanders Lite, but Sanders had a 30 year record in Congress that no Democrat questions, even if he insists on remaining a Democratic Socialist. There still are Sanders supporters around who think he would have won what Hillary lost, which is wishful thinking that may tempt them to swoon similarly over McCabe.

McCabe has no such record of accomplishment in government service, particularly in terms of winning over legislative colleagues – an essential skill in a governor.  Many looking at this race have longed to me for someone with independent credentials, even a business background to ride in to the rescue.  Most of those are no longer in the running – Andy Gronik has pulled out; Josh Pade is cripplingly unknown. McCabe is the known outsider left, which is appealing in abstract but not when it comes to running a state team.

Winning image does not always translate into ability – a similar problem affects Mahlon Mitchell, whom I have covered for years and personally like. He is handsome and affable, but he comes up poorly in how he handles ideas in a clinch compared to other candidates.  His union supporters will quickly move to another.

Despite some fans at age 72, Mayor Andy Soglin is still too much a Madison phenom to even pretend to the Bernie throne.

Another I personally like and find extremely knowledgeable about state government didn’t make my list – Rep. Kathleen Vinehout. Her folksy “gosh all gee” style is more appealing in rural communities.  I don’t think her mixture of clay feet and personal opinions can survive statewide – though I get angry at intense feminists saying someone who personally opposes abortion but believes in other women’s rights (Vinehout) is automatically disqualified.  How dare they?  I know a hell of a lot of progressives that demeans.  Vinehout also has a cautious rural outlook on gun issues, which is another factor that will keep many urban Democrats away from her personality.

Also harmed by his past experience as lawyer for the conservative Milwaukee archdiocese (now belatedly embracing the issues of social justice) is Matt Flynn, a solid veteran Democrat with the best shock of hair of anyone running.  His support years ago of many notable Democrats has led them to back him out of loyalty and his platform is detailed and appealing to millenials as well as fellow 70 year olds.

As lawyer he is probably being overly attacked for how child-abusing priests were shipped to other districts – he argues he did a lot to stop that. But his job to save the church money in settlements was to constantly pepper victims of abuse about details and finances – and those victims have long memories and strong media connections. Dodge he might, but this issue has legs that incapacitate his chances with voters.

Flynn has put legalizing marijuana at the top of his list, emphasizing personal use while the winning argument is about incarceration, and he is over promising on getting rid of Foxconn, which many want gone but realists prefer cutting back rather than pretending it is reversible. He also strikes many voters I talked to as aloof in manner, which may be part of their lingering desire for a firebrand.

Tony Evers on the campaign trail.

Though he threw a perfectly timed “damn” at Walker, which seemed out of character, Tony Evers isn’t running as a firebrand but as a well-known experienced leader who has worked with both sides while retaining progressive credentials. He hates the way voucher schools are funded but he cherishes their students.  He has detailed how to cut down the “financial travesty” known as Foxconn and how to bolster education – and I believe his attention to nuance will have legs.

He is being beat up a bit as “the old white guy in the race” (at 66!) but his stubbornness and ability are well known statewide, where he  has won the state school superintendent race three times.  I had also been seriously looking at Dana Wachs as a heartier echo of Evers’ ideas, but he withdrew to endorse Evers.

Kelda Roys talking education with a voter.

So Evers is on my top list along with one of the youngest candidates in the race, Kelda Roys, a former state legislature and youthful-looking mother who has leapt up on the outside in the race through personal appeal and a very astute platform on what she would do as governor. She displays the know-how.   Kelda’s problem is not young voters who like her positions but older voters who may doubt she has the maturity and are still burned by picking an unknown woman (Mary Burke) the last time.

But I admit I’m impressed – even more than the selling point of letting the younger generation have a chance at the helm. She has grown mightily in style from her previous fumbling race against Rep. Mark Pocan and she would be a strong contrast to Walker in debates while Evers would be a familiar contrast.  The two are quite different but they jump to the top of my list. 

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 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.  

HOW BEST TO FLING WALKER’S CHILDISH BRIBE BACK IN HIS FACE

By Dominique Paul Noth

In a blatant ploy to buy votes for his re-election, Gov. Scott Walker signed a law in April that will give parents of young children $100 per-child cash rebate just in time to make them feel good about him -- if they apply by July 2 to get the money later in the summer, along with a one-week tax holiday in August on school supplies.  Sneaky Scott, loading up the pitiful goodies just before the November election.

An estimated 600,000 Wisconsin families could see the largesse from these two tax programs, some $137 million in all that will not be better spent directly on schools but try to make Walker look like a child-friendly governor.  It is such a raw attempt to buy favor and votes that many families are casting around to find a better use.

An educator friend has the best idea of how to turn the tables on Walker.

Families should take the $100 per child and give the money to their favorite local Democratic candidate to help turn the state’s education slump around and defeat Walker in the bargain.  Change the legislature and the governor -- and educational needs will start to be met!

It’s one of the few times that the cavalier way Walker has used state taxpayer money for his own image-stroking can be turned around and pointedly used to  tell him to go away. It is rightly being called Walker’s Folly – giving citizens ammunition to vote his gang out of office with his own misuse of our money. 

Trump (with Pence) may display Harleys but he sure shrugged off
promises to American workers.

There is, alas, no such simple turnaround with most of what the conservative elites are doing to cripple democratic norms.  And that has turned out to be particularly true about their own tax bill. They’ve made it a living breathing example of why trickle down doesn’t work – especially when no controls are put on greed. 

The main problem was giving most of the money to the wealthy who already have it and doing very little for the struggling workers.  All those words about how good businesses leaders would elevate Main Street along with Wall Street rather than line their own pockets are now exposed as a farce.

The tax bill dropped the corporate tax rate from 31% to 25% but according to many news sources, the corporate preference was to use that windfall not for workers but for stock buybacks –   $178 billion in the first three months of 2018 while hourly earnings for American workers averaged a 67 cent increase.

Trump and the GOP had touted the tax bill as good news for the American worker, but again and again companies have decided not to invest in their home workforces or expand them, or even improve their facilities – all of which could be accomplished, and the public was told it would be, by lowering the corporate tax rate. Instead, the tax bill has mainly resulted in using profits to benefit shareholders and continue to outsource jobs.

The picture postcard for this behavior is a Milwaukee landmark company – Harley Davidson. Whatever pride Wisconsin felt when its motorcycles were displayed on the White House lawn and Trump spake wonderful words about the company have now vanished.  Harley has taken its tax profit to reward shareholders – announcing a dividend and a stock buyback of 15 million shares – and close its Kansas City plant, throwing 800 out of work while claiming it was adding 450 various jobs in York, Pennsylvania, a loss of 350 jobs if you are keeping count.

The Steelworkers and machinists of Harley are keeping even better count, pointing to a new Harley facility about to open in Thailand as well as a plant in India to increase the company’s international fleet.  There is also a plant in Brazil. 

Though Harley spokesmen insist in press releases that opening a plant in Thailand had no impact on the Kansas City decision to close down, for which the unions had no warning, Harley workers dispute that, as Kansas City machinist Richard Pence did in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal: “Part of my job is being moved to York, but the other part is going to Bangkok.” 

In 2017 Harley and two unions representing production employees terminated their 22-year partnership, so Harley felt under no legal compulsion to tell the workers they were losing their jobs.

Machinist President Robert Martinez Jr.

Others in Wisconsin have long memories of broken promises, as when then House Speaker Paul Ryan traveled to the Harley-Davidson plant in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, in 2017 to preview the Republican tax bill as a way to “keep jobs here in America.” 

IAM President (International Association of Machinists) Robert Martinez Jr. even  sent a letter this March  to the White House asking Trump to save the Kansas City facility where “for decades, hard-working machinists have devoted their lives to making high-quality, American-made products for Harley.”

Asked to elaborate, Martinez said simply, “America’s working men and women deserve better than being thrown out onto the street.”    He clearly wants to hold Trump’s feet to the fire of his campaign pledges.

But Harley is hardly alone in seeing the tax bill as a way to line CEO  pockets and shaft the worker, both blue collar and middle class.   Other companies that have gone the stock buyback route rather than elevate its US workforce: Alphabet (Google’s parenting company), Cisco, Wells Fargo, Pepsi and many more.

Walker’s Folly may give voters a chance to fling his cash back in his face to help opponents, but curing the corporate behavior over the tax bill requires careful strategizing about what sort of votes will right the ship.

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 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.