It’s the weirdest story in Wisconsin politics right now, and among the least covered.
Tony Evers can’t stand his own lieutenant governor, Sara Rodriguez. Well, either one of them, if you count Mandela Barnes. But let’s focus on Rodriguez because Rodriguez and Evers’ office spent part of this week throwing shade at each other.
Evers hasn’t endorsed his current OR his former number 2. That seems like a story. Maybe instead of parsing Derrick Van Orden’s videos, the media should deploy their investigative armies to figure out: Why?
We’ve tried. We’ve heard theories. Most of them trail back to Evers’ powerful chief of staff Maggie Gau, and her allegedly very close friend, spokesperson Britt Cudaback. Everyone thinks they’re controlling the shots anyway, and, well, this one feels kinda personal. It’s widely believed in political circles that Evers wants Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley to replace him as governor.
The Evers-Rodriguez feud appears to be a simmering-beneath-the-surface one that bubbles over here or there through passive-aggressive swipes. One envisions Gau and Cudaback taking a break from concocting folksy expletives for Evers’ tweets to come up with a way to jab Rodriguez without making it COMPLETELY OBVIOUS.
Except it is.
Examples:
On April 16, Rodriguez said at an event that she “felt challenged with the level of communication that was coming out of the governor’s office” when she was briefly a state rep.
Shade!
WISN noted: “Rodriguez’s campaign said her approach would require a different strategy, adding she had ‘deep respect for Gov. Evers and his leadership over the past six years navigating a hostile Republican legislature.'” Those are passive-aggressive swipes followed by praise. We see what’s going on here.
This came in the same rambling comments in which Rodriguez infamously said she wants to craft budgets “behind a curtain,” which earned her condemnation from fellow Democrats, as well as Republican Tom Tiffany, who promised transparency.
That comment by Rodriguez (who later seemed to imply her gaffes are because she’s a nurse, not a politico) makes us wonder whether Evers doesn’t like Rodriguez because she’s not ready for primetime, except he seems okay with Crowley, who once said on video to a Milwaukee civic leader, “I’m going to continue wearing my Mickey Mouse sweatshirts and hoodies just for you so we can have a good time and hopefully you’ll be able to take me to Disney World with all the great things you’re doing here in our community.”
Needless to say, this Rodriguez shade did not get past the Gau-Cudaback-Evers’ cabal. “A spokesperson for Evers said while they can’t speak to how familiar Rodriguez is with the governor’s budget process, ‘Being a legislator is not the same as being the governor of the state,’ adding the governor’s job is to prepare a budget for the entire state ‘regardless of what community they live in, who their legislator is, or who they voted for in the last election,'” WISN reported.
“When Gov. Evers prepares his state budgets, it’s a thoughtful, laborious and intensive process — and it should be,” a spokesperson for Evers said to WISN. “Some people may suggest that’s ‘too conciliatory,’ but Gov. Evers, who remains the most popular elected official in the state, calls it ‘getting shit done.'”
“Some people.”
It’s not the first time this has happened. In January, WLUK-TV reported, “Wisconsin Gov. Evers casts doubt on his lieutenant governor’s ICE proposal.”
Shade! Actually, that one’s more of a direct hit. “Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is questioning whether a proposal from his own lieutenant governor to ban federal immigration enforcement actions around courthouses, schools, day cares and other locations can, or should, be done,” WLUK-TV reported.
Under the bus Rodriguez went again.
Remember that governors don’t pick their lieutenant governors. Evers was stuck with Rodriguez.
It all got off to a bad start when Rodriguez jumped the gun on Evers’ retirement. “Her launch video was posted to YouTube a full week before Evers’ announcement,” Dan O’Donnell noted.
“First, she said Evers gave her a heads-up that he wasn’t running. Then, when he directly contradicted that in an interview last week, she changed her tune and parroted his insistence that she found out at the same time as the rest of his cabinet. When a reporter challenged this assertion by pointing out that her video was posted.”
