Venturing Out of My “Comfort” Zone

I know I haven’t blogged in a long time, so this will be a pretty raw post for my return to the cheddarsphere… but I hope that you will stay with it through the end, watch the video below, and take some time to really think about it.

Those readers who have seen my posts in the past know that I’m a Bible-believing Christian with an interest in politics.  I like to post about personalities and economic issues, but when push comes to shove, the things nearest to my heart are the so-called “social issues” like abortion (cue the five readers of this blog hitting “BACK” on their browser).

That is why this video from Ray Comfort, a New Zealander living in California, hit me hard.  I hope you will watch it because it will change the way you view the world – and the abortion issue.  If you don’t have time, here is the gist of it…

We in America kill babies – lots of them.  We do it because it’s convenient and, hey, they’re not really human anyway, right, especially if they’re only three months along? Well, Hitler killed Jews – lots of them.  He did it because he thought they were less than human – just like we think of unborn children. Do you think it was wrong for Hitler to kill Jews? And if so, how can you then sanction the destruction of 53 million American children over the past 35 years?

But Ray Comfort does the issue a lot more justice than I can.  Please, watch the video (warning: there is some graphic holocaust imagery).

2010: How did I do?

A little over a year ago, I offered a set of predictions for 2010.  Being a fan of accountability, I wanted to see how I did and publish the results.

RIGHT: Republicans will win back a majority in the State Senate…

WRONG/RIGHT: …with Ed Thompson and Leah Vukmir delivering majority-status…

RIGHT: Van Waangard shocks John Lehman…

WRONG: Pat Kreitlow soundly defeats Terry Moulton 53-47…

VERY WRONG: …Russ Decker survives the scare of his political lifetime, defeating Pam Galloway by less than 500 votes.

UBER WRONG: Republicans will be less successful in the State Assembly due to Brett Davis’ decision to run for Lieutenant Governor.  Ultimately, Davis’ decision will cause Assembly Republicans to fall one single seat short of a majority, 50-49.

WRONG: …Assembly Republicans will lose at least two more incumbents.

NOT EVEN CLOSE: Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan narrowly holds his top post despite an effort from disaffected Assembly Democrats to depose him.  (Just wow.)

WRONG (but almost right): Assembly Upset Special - Republican Vicki Milbrath defeats incumbent Andy Jorgensen.

RIGHT: Dawn Marie Sass’ nepotism scandal costs her the election. Republican (fill in the blank) takes her down easily.

RIGHT: Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen cruises to victory with nearly 60% of the vote.

RIGHT: Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann ignores the long odds against him and stays in the race until the primary, where he is soundly defeated by Scott Walker – as expected.

RIGHT: Neumann does not run as an independent and endorses Walker after the primary.

WRONG: Walker limps into the general election campaign where state Democrats unleash a negative TV ad assault that will make the Jim Doyle/Greater Wisconsin Committee smear campaign against Mark Green in 2006 look like ads for the Girl Scouts of America.  Walker out-hustles Democrat Tom Barrett on the ground but is simply unable to counter the $20 million TV raping, and Barrett wins the race for governor.

WRONG: Team Pelosi sustains a substantial, but manageable, loss of about 25 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Only 38 seats off.)

WRONGEST OF ALL: Roger Roth out-works the 75 other Republicans running in the primary to replace Congressman Steve Kagen and pulls out a surprisingly wide margin of victory.  Roth puts the race on the national radar but Democrats, consumed with other priority races, overlook it until the very end – when it is too late.  Roth, not the polarizing figure that John Gard was, pulls out a 53-47 win against Kagen.

BASICALLY WRONG: State Senator Dan Kapanke loses the interest of national Republicans as missteps and sloppiness doom him to a disappointing finish, and Ron Kind holds the 3rd district easily – but not quite reaching 60%.

WAY WRONG: Russ Feingold easily beats Terrence Wall for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.

RIGHT/WRONG: Overall, the GOP will disappoint in its efforts to retake substantial ground in the U.S. Senate. Republicans will score some high-profile wins as against long-time incumbents (such as Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas) and some encouraging holds (Rob Portman in Ohio), but will only gain two or three seats overall – barely enough to sustain a filibuster. (GOP gains in the U.S. Senate should have been at or near 10.  Gaining six seats was nice, but a huge disappointment.)

End of a Fascinating Week

I knew my mental state would be a mess after Tuesday’s primary elections, so I wanted to take a few days off to let things sink in.  I wanted to offer some observations as we enter the general election campaign…

- Scott Walker – There’s no way I want four more years of Jim Doyle, so I’m a Walker guy now.  I was disappointed that Mark Neumann lost, and I could feel a strong move in the final weekend that late breakers were going for Walker.  Had the election been a week earlier, things may have been different.  It just seemed like Neumann peaked a week early.

- Ron Johnson – Johnson, let it be known, is my new man-crush.  85 percent was a strong showing in the primary, even against a non-serious candidate like Dave Westlake.  I never took to Westlake; maybe it was his ad several months ago announcing phase three of his campaign, which was to stop raising campaign funds except off of “I AM DAVE WESTLAKE” t-shirt sales.  Anyhow, the U.S. Senate – and the GOP establishment – is in need of someone like Johnson with absolutely no political experience and a strictly private sector pedigree.

- Rebecca Kleefisch – This was, perhaps, the most disappointing result of the night.  While I appreciate Kleefisch’s overt support for Christian values, I got the feeling that she was using them as a tool to get votes for her campaign for Lieutenant Governor.  I wasn’t comfortable with that.  Further, I was not impressed with her discussion of issues.  She campaigned as the most conservative Republican in the race, and I am shamed that GOP voters took that at face value, didn’t ask tough questions of her (like they did of Brett Davis), and nominated her overwhelmingly.  Kleefisch has strong potential to become a sideshow in the fall campaign and, at some point, the Walker campaign will have to spend precious news cycles addressing something she said – or a relationship she endangered.  I thought Davis or Dave Ross would have been just fine – and would have been qualified to run the state should Walker become incapacitated or leave office.  I do not have that confidence with Kleefisch, a news reader.

- Reid Ribble – Terri McCormick didn’t win, and that is good.  Ribble has some potential, but the book has largely yet to be written on him.  The next few weeks will tell us a lot.

- Sean Duffy – After Johnson, Duffy is my next biggest man-crush.  His first ad was one of the best of the cycle thus far.  It is going to be hard for Democrats to catch a break in the 7th with a milquetoast candidate like Julie Lassa.  A lengthy post on this race is coming in the near future.

- Legislative Races – Looking statewide, there were no real surprises in state legislative primaries.  Perhaps the most interesting result was Frank Lasee’s big victory in the 1st Senate District.  Some time ago, I flatly stated that he would lose if nominated (I said the same about Dave Hutchison).  However, the way this cycle has unfolded, I no longer expect that to be the case.  Democrat Monk Elmer has been highly overrated and unimpressive thus far, and Lasee’s primary campaign was far more impressive than those he ran when he was in the Assembly.  He should hold the seat easily in November.

The next six weeks are going to be awesome.

Campaign Committees: Buyer Beware

In this election cycle of discontent, much ire has been directed at the various legislative campaign committees.

The complaints are wide-ranging and ubiquitous, especially on the right.  ”The NRSC and NRCC are supporting a bunch of RINO liberals…”  ”They’re fighting to protect liberal or otherwise unacceptable GOP incumbents…”  The list goes on.

At the risk of sounding like an establishment apparatchik, I believe this criticism is entirely unwarranted.

The people leveling these criticisms – generally conservatives with an ideological profile similar to mine – need to understand exactly what these groups are.

First and foremost, they are designed and administered by incumbent politicians – to protect incumbent politicians. Their second priority – NOT their first – is to expand the size of their conference.

Incumbents are asked – if not required – to kick in a lot of campaign cash in order to fund these organizations.  Yes, these groups also bring in individual donations – but their bread-and-butter is the dues and other funds – including PAC – received and raised by individual conference members.

While it may well be “wrong” to support a lousy incumbent like Lisa Murkowski, Joe Miller and his supporters – and conservatives raising concerns over NRSC’s involvement in ballot counting in Alaska – need to understand that Murkowski is an investor in the NRSC.  How, then, is it wrong for NRSC to come in and provide certain services for their investor, Murkowski?

I would argue that it would be profoundly and morally wrong for NRSC to NOT aid Murkowski until it is known for absolute certain that she has lost.  After all, Murkowski is a part-owner of NRSC.  She is entitled to its help.

So that’s the conundrum.  Surely, many conservatives have given money to the NRSC thinking their dough would be spent to elect conservatives.  But that’s not what campaign committees are about, and a simple review of their finance reports reveals that.

Rather, conservatives should approach their campaign contributions like they do their home, automobile and stock purchases – by first doing their research and then acting accordingly.

Terri McCormick: No Friend of the Taxpayer

Part two in my series on Terri McCormick’s voting record and governing philosophy delves into McCormick’s record on spending.  McCormick, as you probably know, is running for the 8^th Congressional District as a libertarian/conservative Republican.

TABOR

The proposed Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) would have codified in the state constitution a requirement that state and local units of government keep spending increases in line with increases in property value (or inflation) within their jurisdiction.  Any increase out of that boundary would have to be approved by voters in a referendum.

A very important issue for conservatism, I supported TABOR and wish it would have passed.  In fact, had Wisconsin had the foresight to pass and maintain real constitutional spending controls, one could easily argue that we would not be facing the $2.7 billion deficit predicament we’re in today as a state.

TABOR, despite all of the demonization from government interests, unions and Wisconsin’s tax-taking class, would have directly empowered the individual voter to determine the size of their government and the magnitude of their tax increase over the year or biennium ahead.

Such a proposal was considered and received a vote in the State Legislature in 2006.  It failed miserably – and Terri McCormick voted against it twice.

Two versions of TABOR (re-branded as the “Taxpayer Protection Amendment” in 2005) were considered by the State Assembly.  The first version (failed miserably) would have capped state and local spending, and the second (passed narrowly) would have capped state government spending only.

Most elected officials are not disposed to bravery – I think we know that – and local elected officials become very obnoxious when someone approaches their ox (or fiefdom) with a tight-fitting corset.  So I can even understand how a legislator could vote no on the first one.

But why not limit state spending?  Why not give voters an opportunity to weigh in on state spending?  I wonder what the folks over at the Republican Liberty Caucus would think about this very un-libertarian vote.

Despite all of this, McCormick is casting herself as a spending hawk.  I believe that is dishonest.

McCormick Voted for Every Budget

McCormick served in the Assembly for six years.  In that time, she managed to vote for all thee of the budgets that were enacted during her term – along with a truly abysmal budget repair bill in 2001.  This is hardly the mark of a maverick.

So, what did McCormick vote for in these budget packages?

In 2001, she voted for a 77-cent per pack cigarette tax increase.

She also voted in favor of a $112 million increase in the Stewardship program, one of the most wasteful and profligate programs in Madison’s portfolio.  Stewardship uses the government purchase of private property to do a number of great things – like preserving beautiful lands for future generations and then prohibiting those generations from accessing them, taking valuable land off of the tax rolls and depriving local governments of legitimate revenue, and generally expanding the size and reach of the tentacles of government.  Making matters worse, every penny of this $112 million was borrowed – making hollow any commitment to reducing long-term debt.

McCormick even favored the much maligned and boldly stupid securitization of Wisconsin’s share of the tobacco settlement.

I just want Terri McCormick to be honest with 8th CD Republican primary voters about her true governing philosophy.  She claims to be an anti-establishment conservative, but the votes she took (three budgets, a budget repair bill and anti-TABOR) are all about preserving the status quo.  She has no credibility to call herself any sort of maverick or renegade.

And a libertarian she most assuredly is not.

Will the real Terri McCormick please step forward?

I have been skeptical of Terri McCormick’s congressional ambitions ever since they started in 2006.

Back then, I wondered if she truly believed she had a shot at taking down John Gard – or if she was just trying to blow up his chances of winning a general against Steve Kagen by poisoning the well in Appleton so badly that a Gard victory would become a demographic impossibility.  She succeeded tremendously.

But McCormick didn’t go away when Gard did.  In 2010, she’s back – and she’s remade herself as a small-“l” libertarian candidate of the TEA party right.

Is this an honest representation of her governing philosophy?  I would argue that it is not.  Luckily, McCormick served in the legislature for several years in the early 2000’s and left a voting record for us to examine.

On her website, McCormick states the following in regard to alternative energy:

The ultimate goal of reducing energy costs, eliminating dependence on foreign oil, and increasing efficiency for the consumer can only occur with less government intervention, more competition, and fewer taxes on producers.

I agree.  However, her voting record tells a different story.   On December 13, 2005, at 6:52 p.m., Assembly Representative Terri McCormick voted in favor of Assembly Bill 15, legislation that, if enacted, would have resulted in a statewide 10% ethanol mandate on 87 octane gasoline.

I don’t need to explain that government mandates like this one are not a particularly libertarian position.  But this is a particularly egregious mandate considering the economics of ethanol, an industry whose lack of economic viability has been laid bare over the last few years.  Consider what the REAL libertarians at Reason Magazine said about ethanol in 2007:

Evaluating the scientific and economic claims being made for bioethanol can be vexing, but a few urgent questions come to mind: if bioethanol is such a good energy deal, why must refiners and consumers be forced to use it? Again, if it’s such a great idea economically, why does the federal government offer a tax credit of 51 cents per gallon for blending ethanol into gasoline?

All mandates are bad, but ethanol mandates are worse than bad.  McCormick should be forced to account for her support of this ethanol mandate – and the Republican Liberty Caucus should explain why they support a candidate with such an egregious blemish on her record.

I think I’ve made it clear that I am a big-tent Republican.  Conservatives simply cannot win elections and govern without the consent of the political center.  But it is important for candidates to honestly represent their worldview when campaigning.  Bait-and-switch politics is partly responsible for the crisis of political confidence plaguing our state and country today, and that’s why it is important to expose duplicitous rhetoric like McCormick’s.

Ethanol isn’t McCormick’s only problem with Republican primary voters.  She also has serious problems when it comes to taxes, spending, and life issues.  More on that – soon – in a future edition.

Assembly Democrats and the Manitowoc Effect

Glad someone else picked up on the fact that the “Republican” candidate in Manitowoc County’s 25th Assembly District was an AFSCME ringer.

Now, Andrew Wisniewski has been officially removed from the ballot in that race.  I’m glad, because I’ve always liked Bob Ziegelbauer.

I’m also glad because Assembly Democrats must be feeling a little bit of Jeff Wood deja vu in reverse.

Ziegelbauer’s departure from the Democratic Party, like Wood’s from the GOP in 2008, could prove to be the deciding factor in the disappearance of the Democratic Assembly majority this year.  It means that Republicans need only to pick up two seats in order to force a 49-49 tie in the Assembly, with conservative Ziegelbauer holding the keys to the majority.

Considering the fact that he was essentially run out of the party that he’s been loyal to for his entire life, I like the chances of Ziegelbauer voting Republican for Speaker in 2011.

The Assembly GOP road to a majority looked nearly impossible a year ago.  Even as national sentiment began to shift against Barack Obama and Democrats in general, no one really gave Jeff Fitzgerald much of a shot at picking up enough seats to win a majority.

But the whole dynamic has been flipped on its head, and any objective analysis has to give the Assembly GOP an even shot at winning back the majority – especially with a now-guaranteed Ziegelbauer win.

As I said before, Republicans really only need to pick up two seats.  But first, they should write off the Brett Davis seat in Dane/Green County and not bother wasting the time and resources to retain a seat where Obama won something like 60 percent.  That means they have to find three seats somewhere else.

In November 2009, I laid out a series of seats in that the GOP needed to target in its efforts to rewrite their Assembly map.  Two of those seats will now be open and should be golden pickup opportunities (with 2006 Van Hollen district %):

Tom Nelson (Kaukauna) – 53.4%

Mary Hubler (Rice Lake) – 47.9%

In a wave year where Democratic turnout in Wisconsin may be catastrophically depressed, Republicans should be favored to win both seats, leaving one more pickup needed.  The next best candidates are a handful of incumbents occupying GOP territory:

Ted Zigmunt (Two Rivers) – 55.5%

Amy Sue Vruwink (Milladore) – 52.5%

Andy Jorgensen (Fort Atkinson) – 52.3%

Tony Staskunas (West Allis) – 51.9%

Peggy Krusick (Milwaukee) – 51.5%

Marlin Schneider (Wisconsin Rapids) – 51.3%

Phil Garthwaite (Dickeyville) – 51.0%

In this group, it is difficult to see how Zigmunt survives, even though he will likely be paired against a weak GOP candidate.  Heck, even Mark Green won this district with 52.7%, although I concede that AD-2 was within Green’s Green Bay home base.

Aside from Zigmunt, my sources in Marshfield claim that Vruwink is in trouble, although I need to see some polling data to believe that.  I do not expect a strong challenge against Andy Jorgensen although, as a child of the 2006-08 Democratic wave, he’s never truly been tested.  His well-connected challenger, Vicki Milbrath, could be one of those unexpected winners on Election Day if 2010 proves to be truly catastrophic for Democrats.  Besides, this district has a strong (although fading) GOP tradition.

I believe Tony Staskunas could be in for a surprise.  With a probable Scott Walker general election candidacy, I am expecting higher GOP numbers in this district, which neighbors Walker’s Wauwatosa power base.  That is a big problem for Staskunas.

I also expect Marlin Schneider to have an extremely difficult race, and Travis Tranel will be far more formidable on a playing field tilted in his favor against Phil Garthwaite – another 2006er who’s never been fire-tested.

And there are still more that must be considered extremely vulnerable at this particular epoch of time:

Fred Clark (Baraboo) – 49.8%

Penny Bernard Schaber (Appleton) – 48.8%

Mark Radcliffe (Black River Falls) – 48.7%

Steve Hilgenberg (Dodgeville) – 48.4% – OPEN

Terry Van Akkeren (Sheboygan) – 48.1% (desperately wounded and vulnerable)

Kim Hixson (Whitewater) – 44.3%

Each of these districts have at least one Republican challenger approaching tier 1 – or a grievously wounded incumbent, such as is the case with Van Akkeren.  It is plausible that 1-2 of these will flip, too.

There is little doubt that Assembly Republicans will pick up seats (the ones they’re defending, except for Davis, are much less competitive than those being defended by the Democrats).  At the end of the day, the Manitowoc Effect may have no impact, but I believe there is at least a 20% chance that Bob Ziegelbauer will pick the next Assembly Speaker, and that is something that deserves some discussion.