Zephyr Teachout Teaches A Progressive Lesson

By Jeff Simpson  

One of my favorite candidates, who ran on the national level was Zephyr Teachout, who unfortunately lost her election for Congress.   She was a favorite of the Progressives, and was the first candidate Bernie Sanders endorsed.    She was such a power player, that the Hillary team worked hard to get her/intimidate her, from endorsing Senator Sanders!

Ms. Teachout recently gave a great interview where she discussed her campaign and the recent election.  

What went wrong:

Our district went from Obama winning by six points to Trump winning by over seven points, so it was basically a 13-point swing. We thought it was going to be close. I have reason to believe that my opponent thought it was going to be close. I think the biggest factor was Trump’s win or Clinton’s loss, whichever way you want to put it.

One thing that I hadn’t really thought through was just how unappealing a candidate Mitt Romney was in an area like this. Mitt Romney represents this Brahmin East Coast elite insider, and maybe for some people Romney and Clinton are in the same category—part of an elite political infrastructure that has very little to say to the farmers and small business owners in our district. Swimming against that tide—I met so few people who were not in Democratic committees who had any excitement for Hillary Clinton, and I met a lot of people who despised her.

Who Does She Support for DNC Chair(and a keen observation of the Republican Party(emphasis mine)): 

I am a big supporter of Keith Ellison. He himself has run races and increased turnout every single time, so he knows what it is to run in a serious way, in a way that [former Labor Secretary] Thomas Perez does not. When I was running, when I went to D.C., Keith was one of the few people who just started with questions instead of answers. “What are the dynamics, what are the issues, what do people care about?” The first question from far too many others was, “How much is it going to cost you and what’s the polling?”

One of the things that I found running a rural district is that people didn’t necessarily know what Democrats stood for at all. In a down-ballot race you’re breathing through a straw to communicate with people—you can communicate two or three things at most. But I assume that because of that D next to my name, people know that I also stand for public education, Social Security, investing in infrastructure. What I found was that the D was kind of confused because leaders in our party support privatizing schools, leaders in our party have supported offshoring jobs. I think that people really start with a question mark for the Democratic Party and that really hurts all of our candidates. Nobody has a question about what Keith stands for.

Yes that is a problem everywhere.  

In the Tony Evers race, its very important that we re-elect Superintendent Evers, but he makes it hard on us when he brings pro-voucher people into his campaign.   Just as Ms. Teachout points out, Tony Evers hired Brad Wojciechowski, as his finance director.   Brad's only experience in education, is working for Milwaukee School Board candidate Bruce Thompson, who is described as one of the biggest pro voucher supporters in the city, 

What do we stand for if the best candidate we have to choose from litters his staff with voucher supporters?   Is there no line in the sand for us to draw?  Or are we as progressives supposed to go to the ballot booth every time and say "Thank you sir may i have another" as we continue to be forced to vote for the candidate who keeps reaching out to the right wing extreme to prove bipartisanship?

At some point we need to get back to having someone who stands for the middle class, public education and doing the right thing for all of Wisconsin.  And doing so unapologetically!  Then we can start energizing the people in WI who have been beat down for years now, and are desperate for a Champion and a Leader.     

I was hoping it was Tony, but until he learns the lessons and picks up the signals that are being sent, we are going to have to do this ourselves!  

SO please despite the missteps, and poor hires, please vote for Tony Evers on February 21(the other choices are that bad) and then lets regroup and start turning our state around!   

We need to get to a point where when we leave our families for hours on end fighting for a candidate to get elected, they are fighting for us also!    We need to know that being a progressive/liberal means you have a core set of beliefs that are set in stone and you will fight for them no matter what!     

Bias On The Bench

By Jeff Simpson

Bruce Thompson had a very interesting piece in UrbanMilwaukee about our radical Supreme Court.

In each of these cases, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ended up ignoring the constitution—federal, state, or both. Its Imani decision accomplished the remarkable feat of violating both constitutions. Its residency requirement decision guts the Wisconsin Constitution’s home rule amendment. Its Doe II decision substituted its judgment for that of the US Supreme Court by saying that regulating coordination between candidates violated the US Constitution. This has become a very odd court indeed.

I think that Mr. Thompson has given them too much credit.  To say that our Wisconsin Supreme Court is radical, is to imply that they truly have a set of standards and beliefs and a moral compas that aligns with the right wing in our state.  I think we know from their actions that just is not true.

I believe a better term would be incompetent or even hyper partisan or bought and paid for.  After Wisconsin elected Mike Gableman, I thought it was safe to say that he was the most incompetent person ever elected to the Supreme Court in our state or probably any state.  

Then like so many other times in the Republic of Fitzwalkerstan, I was yet again surprised by the depths we could go when Wisconsin elected known bigot Jessica Bradley.

I hesitate to even say this is as low as we can get, I am scared to see what they can do next that will surprise me.  

As crazy and incompetent as they are, they know where their bread is buttered.  Justice David "Ike Turner" Prosser will be retiring soon and in typical right wing politician fashion, he has still not paid his bills that he accumulated trying to stop a recount of his last election.  

The GOP is stepping in to help him retire his years old debt.  However it is not just the WISGOP doing it, in a huge bit of irony, it is Danny Morse, a fundraiser from the "Friends of Scott Walker" organization(membership is extremely limited).  

Of course Mr. Walker has his own fair share of debt that he ran up on the backs of Wisconsin taxpayers and is in absolutely no hurry to pay off.  

To be fair though, anyone who has paid attention the last six years, knows that there is no bigger "friend of Scott Walker" than Dave Prosser.   Without his cover and rubber stamp, Walker would have had to actually govern.  

Sorry for putting that thought into your head!