The 5th Senate District in Wisconsin is an ugly, vicious contest – with lots of negative ads – between incumbent Democrat Jim Sullivan and challenger Leah Vukmir. She is the incumbent Republican representative from the 14th
Assembly District, which makes up one-third of Sullivan’s senate
district. The race could be key to whether Republicans take over the
state senate, where Democrats now hold a slim 18-15 advantage.
Vukmir is the darling of talk radio and has often been a guest on the TV pundit shows of conservative talkers Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling (though the latter’s show disappeared a couple years ago). Their aggressive advocacy of Vukmir is likely to overshadow the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s quiet endorsement of Sullivan and his “common sense approach” to legislating. The JS struck
its most Solomonic tone, also even-handedly lauding Vukmir as an “able
representative” and a “Republican of strong convictions.”
I’m not sure how the newspaper drew this conclusion, but let’s just say it wasn’t shared by the many capital observers interviewed by reporter Marc Eisen in his feature on the best and worst legislators for Milwaukee Magazine.
Eisen ranked her among the 10 worst of the state’s 132 legislators. (Of
the 10, five were Democrats and five were Republicans.)
There appeared to be some agreement that Vukmir is bright and
knowledgeable about the issues. But she’s ineffective as a legislator.
Herewith are some choice excerpts from the story:
“’Vukmir should be a star but is an absolute dud,’” said one
Republican. By withholding her vote and claiming the ‘more conservative
than thou’ pose, Vukmir forced her caucus to cut deals with the
Democrats and give up more ground. ‘She just has no strategic sense,’
he despairs, adding that Vukmir is despised by most fellow Republicans.
“‘It’s all about Leah,’ grumbles a current Republican staffer.
‘Given the choice of reaching a compromise or having an issue to
campaign on, she will choose the latter.’
“Her Democratic critics, of course, love the fact that some
Republicans see Vukmir as their future. ‘They deserve her. She’s
shrill, uncompromising, ideological and personally unpleasant.’”
If nothing else, Vukmir seems able to unite people from both
parties – in their antipathy to her. Yet if the pollsters are right,
and conservatives have a bigger turnout at the polls, one of the
state’s worst legislators will be promoted to state senator.
State Treasurer’s Silliness
In my favorite example of how truly preposterous the race for state treasurer is, incumbent Dawn Marie Sass has just – hurrah! – won the endorsement of Secretary of State Douglas La Follette.
Yes, that’s right, the Democratic incumbent La Follette, who has
held this office since just after the Ice Age ended, really likes his
fellow Democrat and considers her “the hardest working treasurer I’ve
ever known.”
It is, of course, hard to be a hard working treasurer because
there is very little work to be done in this office. Ditto for the
secretary of state. The JS headline for its story was “few duties for secretary of state office.”
It’s curious, given these few duties, that it took La Follette
until Oct. 25 to get around to endorsing his fellow Democrat Sass. No
need to rush, Doug.
Still, that long delay didn’t seem to bother Dawn. “To have his endorsement is humbling,” she declared.
Both positions should have been abolished decades ago. The
treasurer’s minimal duties could be easily handled by an accountant in
the state Department of Revenue. As for the secretary of state, most of
its functions were absorbed long ago by the state elections board (now
the Government Accountability Board).
Sass’s opponent, Republican Kurt Schuller, is running on the platform of doing away with the office. (Thank you,
Kurt.) This led Sass to raise a laughable issue, that the National
Association of State Treasurers won’t hold its 2012 convention in
Milwaukee if that happens. But officials from the organization denied
this in a JS story.
The Wisconsin State Journal and Appleton Post Crescent have done editorials endorsing Schuller and pushing to eliminate the treasurer position. Mayor Tom Barrett,
the Democratic candidate for governor, has proposed eliminating both
offices at an estimated savings of $1 million annually. This is one of
the few things where his Republican opponent, Milwaukee County
Executive Scott Walker, is in agreement: He, too, wants to banish the offices.
It would take a constitutional amendment to do this, but it’s well worth the effort.
The Buzz
-Walker has announced his support of dedicated toll roads being
added to highways like I-94, which would allow access only to those car
pooling or to solo drivers willing to pay a toll. It’s a great idea: It
would help generate more tax revenue for roads, encourage car pooling
and potentially reduce congestion on highways. I’d love to see the next
governor and legislature go even further and scrap the plan to expand
I-90, which takes drivers from Madison to the Chicago area, and instead
add a toll lane each way. Ultimately this might also be the way to
expand I-43 going north from Milwaukee.
-Last week I wrote about the fact that both parties share
responsibility for the current level of government benefits. Since
then, yet another example has arisen: The Milwaukee Police and Fire
Unions have endorsed Scott Walker, not because he is tougher on crime
(or on fires, if there is such a position). Nope, they don’t like
Barrett because he has wanted to cut back the number of fire department
employees as well as certain benefits for police, and he also forced a
few days of furloughs on them. A timely column yesterday by JS writer Dan Bice
presents evidence that the unions believe Walker will be more
sympathetic to them on such issues. As I noted last week, the police
endorsements are never about law and order, always about wages and
benefits (and their opposition to the city residency rule).
-I received a well-founded protest from JS reporter Mark Johnson
about last week’s item on the article he co-wrote covering the stem
cell issue in the governor’s race. My headline (“Forget science, JS
declares”) was a cheap shot, and my commentary was overdone. Johnson
and co-writer Patrick Marley did a fine job of running down the
technical problems with adult stem cells, and why they can’t (so far)
replace embryonic stem cells. I still think it was silly to quote
Wisconsin Right to Life leader Susan Armacost as though she was
a scientific expert (offering a spurious balance to a UW professor and
actual scientist), but the problem with the story was much smaller than
my commentary suggested, and I rewrote last week’s column to reflect
this.
–Marvin Pratt, former Milwaukee common council
president and acting mayor, was hired to oversee Walker’s effort to
court African-American voters. Some council observers worry that
Barrett hasn’t been proactive enough in response. Strong support from
the black community could spell the difference as to whether Barrett
hits the magic 60 percent margin in Milwaukee County that Dems need to
win the state.
-Do you find the Journal Sentinel’s fact check stories on campaign belabored and wishy washy? The paper’s former editorial cartoonist Stuart Carlson nails this problem for NewsBuzz.
-And Pressroom Buzz weighs in on the Juan Williams controversy.
