This morning, one imagines Tony Evers and Robin Vos awoke from their respective slumbers and bolted up with the same exact reaction.
“I TOLD you so, you idiots!”
Robin probably had visions of sugar plums…er Chris Kapenga’s smug mug on UpFront dancing through his head. Evers, likely wearing one of those long Victorian style sleeping caps, probably speed dialed Maggie and Britt over his grapefruit or cream of wheat, and they all chortled heartily over their lattes. I’d add hapless Devin LeMahieu into this, but he didn’t deliver his caucus so…
I would imagine others had wildly different reactions. Kelda Roys probably woke up with a migraine and railed at a consultant, raging like a Karen gone wild. The WEAC supported candidate voted down funding for public schools AND went against her party’s popular governor. Plus, her “but it would cause a deficit” blathering was exposed as total nonsense. Oops.
Same with leftist radical state Rep. Robyn Vining, who is running against moderate doctor Mike Roberts in a swing Senate race in Milwaukee/Waukesha counties. She voted against helping schools, too, when she wasn’t jumping around like a lunatic in the latest weird Sarah Godlewski video. One imagines she woke up with a headache and the sudden realization that she got this one very wrong, and it could have electoral consequence. I mean, she also voted to let government keep taxing people’s tip and overtime money and against helping disabled vets…
We will get to more of that in a moment.
I’m talking about the big Marquette poll that just came out Tuesday. It shows that a whopping 80% of Wisconsinites WANTED that failed surplus giveback deal that Robin and Tony tried so (in the words of Evers “damn”) hard to get through.
You know, the failure of which had me pulling my hair out by the roots last week, almost literally. Stick with me folks.
Only 11% opposed the deal. The rest just weren’t sure. So really almost no one in the state agrees with the judgment of Roys, Vining, Fran Hong, all senate Democrats, most Democrat governor candidates, Chris Kapenga, etc.
When the poll landed with a thud, smack and boom, it turned out that Evers, Vos, Devin LeMahieu and almost every Republican in the state Legislature (except Kapenga, Steve Nass and Rob Hutton) were RIGHT. The public wanted this deal badly.
It was also the right thing to do by the way. The state’s revenue collections are on fire right now because of strong manufacturing and tax collections. But people are hurting due to rising costs from gas, insurance, utilities and the like. So giving the people’s money back to them (and helping schools with a special ed formula that isn’t working) is the right thing to do. Even conservative school boards say it’s not working.
By the way, don’t worry about the “structural deficit” that Roys, Chris Larson, and Dianne Hesselbein are all yakking about or that it’s projected. There’s always one, and it’s always projected. The fiscal bureau never counts future revenue growth. But the average was well enough to balance the budget the last five years and revenue is on fire right now. That was just hot air to cover for the fact all Senate Democrats, most Democrat gubernatorial candidates and almost all Assembly Democrats voted against a bipartisan deal to give people’s own money back to them and schools.
The bill also would have given property tax relief to disabled veterans and disaster relief to communities. If the Marquette pollsters had told voters that, support for the bill would have risen to 95%.
The support was strong in the poll across all political lines. Republicans wanted this. Democrats wanted this. Independents wanted this.
And 73% of those polled essentially stated they will remember in November. Somewhere Robin Vos is plotting how to make sure voters in the six swing Assembly districts realize that the Republican incumbents there voted for this. Because they did.
Republicans wanted Republicans to support this. Democrats wanted Democrats to support this. Independents wanted everyone to support this. Folks in every single region of the state wanted this.
Other likely reactions this morn:
Lt. Gov. and Democrat governor candidate Sara Rodriguez probably hunkered down with consultants trying to figure out how to make people forget that she had a tepid response to her own administration’s deal that made it clear she had nothing to do with it. Because she and Evers don’t like each other. Now she will want to pretend she had something to do with it. She will continue trying to position as the state’s suburban soccer mom even though she apparently doesn’t have a clue what actual suburban soccer moms need. And, PS, Tony Evers can’t stand her. Why?
The media were sharpening their knives. The Journal Sentinel’s Molly Beck was probably envisioning her next news lede trying to blame Tom Tiffany when the truth is that all Democrat candidates except Missy Hughes crapped on the deal one way or another. Some just did it more strongly than others. And not one except Hughes lifted a finger to get it done. Mandela Barnes, David Crowley and Joel Brennan are probably hoping no one noticed that. Mandela’s consultants are probably like, “Just move on. No one will notice. Let’s get you out on another lake, stat!”
Democrat governor candidate Missy Hughes probably sprang out of bed, swung open the lace curtains to let in the sunlight, and sang joyously with the birds like Cinderella, then wondered, “since I was right, and supported this, how come I’m at 1% in the polls?”
Missy, it’s because the modern Democrat party chews and spits out moderates like you. If you start trashing Israel, support abolishing the police, shriek about wanting to release killers, and demand that violent illegal immigrants stay in this country, maybe they will come around.
Francesca Hong is stubborn, so she won’t care what the poll says. She will wake up completely clueless about that. She also won’t get that she just destroyed her messaging as the candidate who cares about restaurant workers because she voted to let government take some of their tip and overtime money. The bloom is off the rose.
Here’s who got it right, voting “yes” for the deal to pass in the Assembly. Every Republican in the Senate except Nass, Kapenga and Hutton voted for it. Every senate Democrat voted against it.
And that brings me to Tom Tiffany. He was likely dialing those high-priced consultants in DC for an emergency strategy session after eating a plate of farm eggs with plain toast and bacon. They got this one wrong. It turns out that running against the “Madison swamp” doesn’t quite work when you’re actually running against Republican legislators who were just trying to give folks their own money back. I mean, c’mon. Republicans like Pat Snyder, Clint Moses, Tyler August, Nate Gustafson, Barb Dittrich, Dan Knodl, Jim Piwowarczyk, Bob Donovan, Adam Neylon, Bob Wittke, Howard Marklein, Romaine Quinn, Julian Bradley, etc etc etc etc are the good guys. They are knocking on a LOT of doors right now and they get the pulse of the people. Listen to them.
At least he wanted to give the whole surplus back. Even though that wasn’t a wildly popular position in the poll either, it’s obviously more popular than what the Democrats want to do. They want to horde all the money for government to blow on crazy, wasteful things like new DEI task forces, government workers’ salary hikes, and “violence prevention offices” that distribute T-shirts, frisbees, and coloring books.
Luckily, a month is a lifetime in politics.
