Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Coming Soon - 72 County Strategy!



By Jeff Simpson

A year ago, the Wisconsin Democratic party and their chairman Mike Tate unveiled a "new" strategy called the "72 County Strategy", which would help them take back the great state of Wisconsin(emphasis mine). 

The Democratic Party if Wisconsin is laying out its strategy to try and regain some ground in the 2014 elections.

Party Chairman Mike Tate says Democrats are hoping to not only take back the governor’s office, but to also regain control of at least one chamber of the state Legislature. He’s hoping the party’s 72 county strategy will help make that happen. Tate says the DPW plans to recruit 1,000 “community captains,” who will know how many votes are needed in their neighborhood and town to bring in Democratic wins.

AUDIO: DPW chair Mike Tate (:12)

Tate says it’s not just about winning at the top of the ticket. He says the party wants to make sure voters heading to the polls also know about the candidates running for the state Assembly and Senate, so they go in to vote knowing about those races.

Tate says they also want to end the practice of writing off seats traditionally held by Republicans. That includes providing more support for candidates mounting a serious challenge in those districts. Tate says “never again, will someone come forward to mount a strong challenge in a tough seat and not have the support of the state party behind them.”

The problem with the 72 county strategy, is it either has yet to be enacted or they are having a hard time with the numbers.   Today was filing day and of the 99 Assembly districts in Wisconsin, the Democrats completely forgot about 26 of them!

On the flip side, the republicans have let 20 seats go unchallenged.  That means our districts have been gerrymandered to badly, and the two party system is so lazy and corrupt, that 46 Assembly districts will have no choice on the ballot.   That is roughly 2,641,648 Wisconsinites who were left without a choice.

The most extreme right wing government in a left of center politically state, and we could not find 26 people, pulled from local boards, etc... to throw their hat the in ring?

In simpler terms, there are now 26 districts in WI, where the republican candidate is running unopposed.   26 districts, where the republican candidate could say something like "some girls rape easy" on November 1st and on February 1st, be writing legislation banning abortion services amongst women who are raped. 


In a race where you need 50 seats to win a majority, the Democrats handed the republicans a 26-20 head start.   That leaves 53 seats where the people in a district have a choice, (granted some have more of a race than others),  which means they have to finish 30-23 to have the majority.  


Apparently, I need a refresher course on what the 72 County Strategy means, because right now it seems to be a 53 county strategy.  I also would like it explained to me, exactly what we pay the party chair to do? 

Maybe, if the Democratic party, had spent their time recruiting candidates, instead of trying to ward off challenges to the party picked governor's ticket, we would have been able to fill a few more slots! 

A good question to ask at the convention this weekend, is why is a 26% failure rate acceptable?

Another is, when will this 72 County Strategy actually start?





8 comments:

  1. It is my understanding that the DPW has been attempting to dispatch and place 72 brand spanking new interns, (little or no experience) one into each of the county parties until Nov.

    Neat way to keep any county based or grass-roots initiatives from sprouting or minimally to report to headquarters any local goings-on the boss would want to know about and of course for aspiring politicos to "burnish," their resumes'.

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    1. You are more right than you know.
      This is designed to support the insiders who have no real loyalty to the Party Platform.
      The GO AWAY sign has been out to anyone else for some time now.

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  2. I have not renewed our membership since 1997 and do not intend to either. I was a devote Democrat for many years but, that came to a stop with the LOVE of one person with her own agenda. Now they can go take a flying, well you know the saying.

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  3. Here in the 25th asm a cabal of all the supposedly Dem top office holders including Mayor Nickels engaged in a campaign to eject me from the party. Two of them either openly supported Walker and Act 10 or another Republican candidate in the last election cycle. It seems that my great sin was in calling them out on that.
    Despite that none of them opted to challenge Tittl or recruit another alternative to Tittl. We have met the enemy and he is us...

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  4. Peter Barca and his team are responsible for finding candidates for the Assembly, not Mike Tate. Likewise Chris Larson recruits for the Senate. The Party's job is to provide a backbone for candidates up and down the ticket.

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    1. Thanks for that bit of info, which means two other individuals have some explaining to do. I am not deaf to pleas that resources may need to be focused toward maximum potential gains, but foregoing even minimally 26 Assembly districts doesn't do much for the left leaning voters that are likely crying for a crumb of acknowledgement of their existence.

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  5. So just another case of political window-dressing for public consumption and reassurance for the faithful. Lovely.

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