As much as it pains conservatives to admit, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has consistently been the state’s most popular politician; regularly approaching or topping 50% in job performance and personal favorability polls while leading Republican leaders and other Democrats often struggle to hit the 40s. One would think in a pivotal election year in which Dems are perceived to be the frontrunners, they would embrace the longtime face of their party and cruise to victory on the strength of the goodwill he has built with voters.
One would think that but, come on, these are Wisconsin Democrats! When have they ever done the rational thing? Nearly every single prominent figure in the party has bent over backwards not to just slam the budget surplus deal Evers reached with Republican legislative leaders, but to attack him personally and bend over backwards to kill it.
Which they did. And then taunted Evers over it.
The bizarre and nearly unprecedented public spectacle began almost immediately after Evers announced the agreement, with Democrat Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein pronouncing, “From my perspective, there is no deal.”
This was a clear signal to all legislative Democrats that opposition to it was mandatory, and one by one they all fell in line…with increasingly hostile press releases and tweets.
Rep. Francesca Hong, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, came out swinging against what she called a “backroom deal” and “payday loan taken out at the expense of our children, our infrastructure, our economy, and our future.”
Sen. Kelda Roys, a fellow gubernatorial candidate, blasted the proposal as “the height of fiscal irresponsibility” that “blows nearly a billion dollars on an election year gimmick to send out rebates.”
When told of this comment, Evers literally laughed out loud and fired back at not just Roys, but pretty much his entire party.
“Making that comment right off the bat is indicating that she’s not going to support it,” he told WISN-TV’s Matt Smith. “If she’s not going to support it, my question would be how do you run for governor of the state of Wisconsin and say to your schools ‘well you know this money–up 42% to 50% for special education–I’m against that?’ That’s a tough one to run against.”
Perhaps, but Dems are sure going to try—running against Evers himself as well as his policies. Rep. Tip McGuire signaled as much when showed up to vote on the surplus deal wearing a tie festooned with ducks “in honor of the three lame ducks that brought us here today.”
This was of course a dig at retiring Republican leaders Robin Vos and Devin LeMahieu, but it was also a pointed, personal attack on Evers and a personal message to him that his time as the leader of his party is now over. Not when he leaves office in January. Now.
It should also be a pointed message to voters that these Democrats are not bland empty suits occasionally willing to work with Republicans instead of hysterically branding them Nazis: These are far-left revolutionaries willing to tear down everything—including their own party—to seize control of what they believe to be rightfully theirs: Your money.
Ultimately, that’s why Democrats dumped Evers; because he dared to return a substantial portion of Wisconsin’s projected $2.2 billion structural budget surplus to taxpayers instead of saving it for them to hoard for themselves and dole out as they see fit when they win power this November.
They are firmly convinced that they will, in fact, win and thus see it as a grave, unforgivable betrayal that Evers would dare to negotiate with Republicans directly and not include Democrat leaders (who would undoubtedly ruin any potential deal with ridiculous demands).
Roys made this point explicitly, saying that the deal Evers struck “squander[s] the ability of a new Democratic majority to make the long-overdue investments in our kids that they deserve.” Translation: “This is our money, Tony, not yours. Now get out of the way so we can squander it.”
As popular as Evers is with voters, this new generation of Democrats now sees him as an obstacle standing between them and power and, like all such obstacles, he needed to be eliminated.
Killing his final major policy push—which he also saw as a way to cement his legacy as “the education governor” with one last massive giveaway to public schools—was a very public way of telling him that his reign is over and the socialists are in control: Of the Democratic Party today and of Wisconsin in November.
The only thing that can stop them is an electorate that rejects their insatiable lust for power and a Republican Party that unites as its opponent fractures. And they had better unite, because this opponent is ruthless, heartless, and, as this week’s mutiny against Evers proves, limitless in what it is willing to do to win.
