Mandela Barnes has some things he’d like to get off his chest, and he was firing fastballs across the corner of the plate. Most of those things are about Democrats. Including the guy he backed up when he was lieutenant governor.
The former lieutenant governor, who dropped out of this year’s race for governor under questionable circumstances, sat down for an hour and a half with the Milwaukee-based Part Time Opinions podcast. With nothing left to run for, he did what politicians almost never do. He said what he thinks.
HE STARTED WITH HIS OLD RUNNING MATE
“Tony Evers would not have gotten elected if I was not on that ticket,” Barnes said. “People didn’t know who Tony was.”
Then it got better.
“I can’t tell you how many press conferences I had to step in and start talking because he couldn’t, he froze up,” Barnes said. “He froze up speak to an issue.”
He added, helpfully, “This isn’t a knock.” He just wanted you to know it’s “documented.”
So to recap: According to the man who stood next to him for four years, Wisconsin’s governor would go “full Biden,” locking up at the podium during his first term, between 2019 and 2022, and his number two had to jump in. Republicans spent years saying Evers was a caretaker who let staff and allies drive the bus. They didn’t expect the guy in the passenger seat to confirm it on a podcast.
Why now? Barnes guessed Evers withheld his support out of “hurt feelings” from 2022, when Barnes ran for U.S. Senate instead of running for reelection with him. Nothing says party unity like Barnes airing it out over a microphone.
THE REPUBLICAN WHO HAD HIS BACK
The best part of the interview might be who Barnes says actually showed up for him when things went bad.
It wasn’t Democrats. Barnes says he raised about $10 million for other candidates in 2024 when he wasn’t even on the ballot. When he needed help, “I didn’t get a call,” he said. “Where the [expletive] y’all at?”
“You wouldn’t even be in office if it wasn’t for me,” he said of the people he’d helped.
Instead, he said his “strongest soldier” was a Republican columnist. This was a woman who, by his own account, spent her whole career “on my ass,” asking things like whether Mandela Barnes has a driver’s license. When the Journal Sentinel ran its story on his personal life, which Barnes calls a “hit piece” written with “the most extreme bias I have ever seen,” she was “online waging war for me on my behalf.”
“She hates my guts,” Barnes said. And still she defended him when his own team ghosted him.
Some lessons are hard to learn. Here’s an easy one: conservatives will at least tell you to your face what they think of you.
“I can’t tell you how many press conferences I had to step in and start talking because he couldn’t; he froze up.”
WHAT ABOUT CROWLEY?
When asked about the Democratic nominee for governor, David Crowley, Barnes offered the warmest endorsement he could muster.
“He’s our Democratic nominee for governor.”
That was it. That’s not an endorsement; that’s just a fact of life. He added that he’s not in a “rah go team” mood.
He went on to say there was “a whole lot of shady stuff that went on in that primary,” that people had been “making up like just blatant lies,” and that if he told everything he knew he’d be closer to a “burn it all down” move. “I ain’t about to be collateral damage,” he said. He also said he felt “thrown under the bus” once the money came in.
Asked if he’d get back into politics, Barnes said: “Right now, I feel like causing havoc.”
He also isn’t helping turnout. He says the people he talks to are approaching this election with a shrug. “All right, well, I guess I got to vote,” he said. “We shouldn’t be in that place.” He compared it to 2016, when voters felt stuck picking “the less of two evils.”
I guess I got to vote. Put that in a Crowley fundraising email.
MILWAUKEE CITY HALL CATCHES STRAYS
Barnes didn’t spare his hometown either. Asked about Milwaukee’s city leadership, he gave a one-word review: “trash.” He said he’s known the mayor since before he was mayor, and asked, “What are we doing here, buddy?”
When the hosts asked whether things are better now than when Tom Barrett was mayor, the answer was “same.”
He also said too many Democratic leaders are “blowing in the wind” without “deeply held beliefs,” and that they’re scared to take a stand because “I lose this base of donors.” He even said wealthy interests “are also dictating Democratic politics.”
Republicans have been saying a lot of this for years. It just sounds different coming from the guy who was on the Democratic ticket multiple times.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Barnes says the shackles are off and he can dance now. Good for him. For a party trying to get excited about Crowley three weeks out, though, Barnes just took a torch to his campaign.
