Advice for Democrats. Stop posting about fish, talking about fish, and holding fish on camera if you don’t really know anything about fish and never fish. Gov. Tony Evers notoriously posed for the cameras once holding a fish so tightly that he looked like he was squishing its middle like a tube of Crest toothpaste. Even so, I was afraid his spindly arms might snap. Yes, Evers has quite a history with fish. Learn that lesson.
One of the funniest stories we ever wrote for Wisconsin Right Now emerged in our open records requests for the emails Evers sent and received using his nom-de-plume, Warren Spahn. It turned out that Spahn’s granddaughter really didn’t appreciate Evers masquerading as a real albeit deceased baseball hero, but other than that, the whole thing was hilarious.
Within the batch of Spahn emails, there emerged a planning document for a 2019 Evers fishing excursion in Ladysmith, ie a photo op. Now, all public officials at that level have their schedules planned out, but the meticulous almost minute-by-minute instructions made Evers sound like Charlie McCarthy, the ventriloquist dummy. The instructions even informed Evers what a fishing bobber, reel and lure are!
What Is a Fishing Bobber? Really Governor?!
A fishing bobber! They had to tell the governor of WISCONSIN what a fishing bobber is! Evers was informed that a bobber is a “device that is attached to a fishing line designed to float on top of the water.” I’m laughing as I write this. This is insane. But it’s right there on paper.
They also told him that the words angler and angling mean, “Fishing with a hook and line. Angling is another word for fishing and an angler is a person who fishes.”
Evers’ handlers, meaning his staff, also provided him with pictures of common fish so he would be able to recognize them, including a walleye, panfish, and musky (you can spell it muskie or musky by the way.)
Which brings me, of course, to Mandela Barnes and this week.
Mandela Barnes Doesn’t Know What a Musky Looks Like
On the heels of Democrats making fools of themselves trampling around dairy farms and thinking bulls can be milked, Barnes, for some unfortunate reason, moved on to fish.
He’s posting about fish (and sitting on lakes and going to dairy farms) for a reason. Tom Tiffany’s road to victory runs through rural Wisconsin if he can reignite the Trump coalition. Tiffany is quadrupling down on the rural stuff, revealing a new ad that declares that the cost of living is “udderly ridiculous.” (So far it’s working, but there’s a line where this becomes too silly. I don’t think he’s there yet, but…)
The rural stuff is clearly his strength, and so some consultant is telling Barnes and the other Dems, “We concede no turf. Anyone know a dairy farm we can show up at?” Then they’re turning to an intern and ordering, “Go online and get me a graphic of a fish.”
It’s a desperate or calculated pandering for the rural vote, but to use a cliche, the problem is the Democrats are mostly city folk who are fish out of water in rural Wisconsin… they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. They’re running around Pride parades in rainbow body suits and then trying to convince us they’ve actually milked cows.
This actually ends up playing to Tiffany’s favor because he actually was raised on a farm and he even drove tour boats through a northern flowage, so I’m quite sure he’s fished. We haven’t had such a rural governor candidate since Tommy Thompson. And he doesn’t strike me as a fisherman either. But Tom Tiffany does. This is a welcome respite from unrelatable Republican candidates with mansions in other states. It makes it interesting.
It all went south when Barnes, undeterred by the cow-milk hooey, posted a graphic on social media of a supposed musky and declared, “The Wisconin Way.”
There were two problems with this graphic. 1. He spelled Wisconsin wrong (Did he go to the Learing Center?) 2. No one thought it looked like a musky at all.
He then doubled down and announced that it was a “cartoon musky, go fishing sometime!” And reposted the graphic with all of the fins identified. When you’re explaining you’re losing, and now Mandela Barnes’ official account was spending precious time pointing out a cartoon fish’s an*l and pelvic fins. You really could not make this up.
I usually Catch Gobies
It turns out Wisconsin is filled with fish experts. And they thought it looked like a barracuda or just “slop.”
He is the co-founder of Wisconsin Right Now, so I can vouch for the fact that probably 99% of the time, Jim is likely thinking about fish. What kind of a lure to use. About the time he caught a 46-inch musky with his daughter Jenna at Lake of the Woods or whatever it was. That photo of him holding a musky correctly. He’s also on the Assembly Committee on Sporting Heritage. In April, he declared, “I’m so glad this is getting the attention it deserves and that musky fishermen and guides are banding together to reverse the opener back. I’ll introduce legislation in January to make sure it happens.” He may dispute me dubbing him the Musky Expert of Wisconsin, but close enough.I sent Piwowarczyk the Mandela musky graphic and asked him whether it looked like a musky.
“No,” he responded.
I tried to get another quote out of him, but he was too busy fixing his son Luke’s transmission.
On social media, folks were a lot more elaborative. They let Barnes have it.
“That is a Barracuda! Do some research!”
“Video of Mandela catching a musky would be helpful here.”
“You’re a cartoon campaign.”
“The colors are wrong. So is the barring. Also the gills. Amateurs.”
“Jesse, your AI slop doesn’t look like a musky.” (Did you know Mandela’s real name is Jesse?)
“Muskies are not blue. Where tf u fishin’?”
“I’ve cut Muskies and barracudas. That’s a barracuda. They don’t reside in Wisconsin.”
“Can we milk it?”
It turns out the Barnes’ musky cartoon exists in Adobe under the search for musky fish. But that doesn’t make it better. A true Wisconsin fisherman would have taken one look and said, nah, and used something else. Maybe a photo of him actually holding a real musky.
Look. There are plenty of more important things to hit Barnes on, like once lying about his resume, losing it on camera, and declaring releasing inmates from prison is sexy. The list goes on. And on. The fish graphic led to a page that declared Barnes wants to get rid of Act 10 and “tax the rich!”
But this is not immaterial.
The Democrats should worry that this narrative will start to stick. Like John Kerry calling Lambeau Lambert Field back in the day, the problem isn’t just lack of knowledge – it’s inauthenticity.
I believe Barnes has caught an actual musky as much as I believe Tom Tiffany will wear a rainbow bodysuit to the next Pride parade. Sorry for putting that image in your heads over dinner.
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