The bonkers Wisconsin Democrat Primary for governor is starting to resemble The Gong Show. At this point, I really need the Wisconsin Democrat primary to stop. I’m going to break a rib if I keep laughing this hard.
If you’re too young to remember that 1970s-era classic talent show, it featured Chuck Barris and B-List celebs smacking a large gong when an amateur’s act bombed. A reader made this analogy first. Some acts were honored as “so-bad-it’s-good” performances, and winners received a Golden Gong. So who got gonged in the most bizarre governor’s race in state history?
The “so-bad-it’s-good” award goes to steely Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez. I still can’t quite figure out her campaign finance catastrophe. Where did Kara Spencer go? What was the motive? Why couldn’t they figure out the numbers even after ALL that? Maybe it was Mrs. Peacock with the wrench in the library. How the hell do I know.
Gong!
David Crowley’s scandal made me think of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, who was an entertaining regular on The Gong Show. It was quite a performance. In case you missed it, NBC News broke the story that Crowley, the establishment pick, allegedly was involved in a crazy X page called, drumroll please…Dirt McGirk. Which I kept accidentally thinking was Dirk McGirt. No. DIRT. He won’t survive this.
Calling it now. He’ll have to drop out again. It’s a new record. Maybe they can bring Sara back. It’s like musical chairs. I just hope Dirt doesn’t end up on Kelda’s lap. Actually Joel’s might be weirder.
Gong!
I learned from The Hollywood Reporter that Barris “began doing bizarre things on camera, such as walking around busting up studio flats and screaming.” All observers of the Wisconsin Democrat primary know the feeling.
There are three problems here for Crowley. 1) the page is chock full of political stink bombs; 2) did Crowley lie about it? and 3) he wasn’t already lighting the room on fire, and it’s 20 days before the election. This is better than a comedy improv show at The Corners.
Even more hilariously, the Dirt McGirk page is STILL LIVE, which means people like me and Dan O’Donnell could trawl through it. It took me 64 screenshots to capture it all.
‘Dirty Dave’
Crowley wants us to believe he barely posted on it. Other people did that. His campaign only admitted to some paternity drama posts; ie the stuff they had to because it matches his life (I guess he thought a kid was his, but it wasn’t or something. TMI. I don’t need to know all this about governor candidates.) His campaign told NBC that like 10 to 12 people used the page to promote some troubled club, but there aren’t many posts about the club, he won’t name most of the other people, the page contains a selfie of Crowley and shares of his personal page (now labeled county executive), and there’s a post referring to the author as “Dirty Dave.” Oops. Another post calls the author Dave and “black as* dude.” Oh, my. (Read the Dirt McGirk posts here, if you must.)
What is happening?! If politicians are going to use a nom de plume, at least pick a lovely old baseball player like Tony Evers did. Come to think of it, he survived that controversy (which we broke), because he chose the name of a 1950s-1960s Milwaukee Braves hero (Warren Spahn). My dad, who grew up in Milwaukee, always says Warren was beloved because he intermingled with the community, showing up at Little League or whatever just like a regular guy. My dad used to collect old baseball cards that might be worth a fortune today, but my grandpa, a reporter, threw them out. For whatever it’s worth. Or pick a cool, suave name like Pierre Delecto (Mitt Romney.) A prominent person locally once masqueraded as the Irish movie director John Ford. James Comey was Reinhold Niebuhr.
In contrast, the dirt-gate page bears a memorable handle that the Urban Dictionary describes as “a girl, usually a hick and or some sort of trash who can be seen: Riding in muddy trucks while wearing a rebel cap, chewing tabacco, scratching their (removed by me)/rubbing her (removed by me) in the dirt after (removed by me) in the bushes, flaunting a dirty thong, or possess any other feature one may feel is ‘dirty.’ The McGirk is just a cool ending.”
Don’t worry. I don’t understand it either, but that’s literally what it says.
One imagines what went down when PR flack Britt Cudaback had to inform the Gov that he just endorsed Dirt McGirk. “What did he write?” Evers probably asked, as he sipped on a glass of chamomile tea, clutching a fidget spinner to calm down.
Not sure how Clark Kent lookalike Britt explained that the burner’s posts involve lace wigs, “boinking,” “Evo Kenievo,” and douches. I doubt Evers knows what any of that is. Hey at least people gave him high marks in the new Marquette poll.
“At the hood bar, ya dig?” says another Dirt post. “Where’s the bong, bong, man?” Some of the posts just hit on women. My favorite post is about a woman’s toes looking like macaroni shells.
It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up, dude. If you wrote it, just say you were a lot dumber in college, and we might get that, as we were all a lot dumber in college, although there are a LOT of insane comments to explain away here. Like scads of them. I mean, he had two choices if he actually wrote this stuff (which he denies.) Either lie or admit writing such gems as, “I need a ‘suga mama.’ #drunktweet.” The page whined about having a history of being ignored or “forgetable.” And that’s not even the worst stuff.
As NBC noted, there are offensive comments about race, gay people, and Barack Obama. Basically, every liberal protected class. If he’d only trashed Republicans, he might have survived this.
Luckily, Twitter didn’t exist when I was in college so the most you’ll get on me are a few orange swimsuit photos on a beach along the Turkish Riviera, and they’re tucked inside an old photo album somewhere in my mom’s attic.
Campaign Advice
In the last column, I kindly gave some campaign 101 advice; please keep Republican candidates off crazy podcasts. Well, here’s some more obvious advice. Before you announce your statewide campaign, please scrub any and all crazy social media pages (hint: people always forget old MySpace and Pinterest pages.)
There is a shrewd campaign operative strategy to plant opposition research in national media so it boomerangs back into the sometimes sleepy state press. If NBC reports it, how can the State Journal not report on Dirt McGirk?
Who will be gonged next?
As if Evers wasn’t having a bad enough day, a new Marquette poll came out and showed anti-capitalist nut Fran Hong leading the primary. I’d like to gong her, but Tom Tiffany can defeat her, and win the Golden Gong to save our state, so it’s probably smarter to cross over on Aug. 11 and vote her through.
The Democrat establishment is in a real pickle. The only candidate in striking distance to Hong is Mandela Barnes, who once banned ratchets from a lingerie bash. He’s really the desperate Dems’ only play to stop the socialist invasion. Hong’s allegiance is to DSA, which wants to draft a new U.S. Constitution. She probably wants to abolish Democrats.
Successful campaigns focus on building stuff positively like promising hope and change. All of this abolish stuff is very negative.
One wonders if Dem leaders know stuff about Barnes that we don’t. Why else aren’t they trying to shore him up?
If that oppo drops next, they’re toast. By nightfall, Hong, clad in a weird crayon blue jumper, was agitating an angry crowd against the police because they shot a supervision absconding felon who cut a cop with a knife, per the chief. At this rate, we might as well make “peaceful protest leader” Khalil Coleman governor. For a time, he was all the liberal media and Democrat politician rage in Milwaukee. Until we exposed his adulation of Gangster Disciple chieftain Larry Hoover after Coleman showed up at a mob scene where a cop’s house was shot at by another guy. Tammy Baldwin’s Milwaukee office director accompanied him to our interview.
Is he still in prison in Kentucky for allegedly getting a juvenile to rob the wrong house? Oh well, maybe he can propose the next state budget from his cell. At this point, why not?
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