Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #150: The Rise, Fall and Crash of Francesca Hong.  Mark analyzes the ascendancy of the weird Madison Marxist and the astonishing and shocking crash of her candidacy.   Lots of other analysis in a deep dive into the Wisconsin primary including a look at Tom Tiffany's chances of beating David Crowley for Governor.

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #150: The Rise, Fall and Crash of Francesca Hong.  Mark analyzes the ascendancy of the weird Madison Marxist and the astonishing and shocking crash of her candidacy.   Lots of other analysis in a deep dive into the Wisconsin primary including a look at Tom Tiffany's chances of beating David Crowley for Governor. · The Mark Belling Podcast

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  Speaker 2: The Rise and Fall of Francesca Hag. It can be
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: dangerous to try to figure something out that no one
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  Speaker 2: expected right after it happened. Sometimes you need a little
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: bit of perspective. But we're going to do our best here.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Of course, the Democratic governor's race wasn't the only election
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: on the ballot in Tuesday's election, but it's certainly the
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: largest story, and it's one of the most interesting national
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: political stories of the year. It's also very instructive. So
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: we're going to do on today's podcast, which I guess
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: i'll call it a special podcast because it's not going
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: to be a one topic podcast, but close we're going
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: to do a deep dive under what happened in the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Tuesday Wisconsin election. For those of you not from Wisconsin,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I hope you'll find this interesting because we're probably the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: closest thing to a total swing state of any of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: the fifty states in the country. Just look at the
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: last presidential election. While Trump won Wisconsin. It was razor thin,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: just as his win in twenty sixteen was razor thin,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and for that matter, his loss in twenty twenty was
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: razor thind. We're a very evenly divided state and also
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  Speaker 2: somewhat complicated in our politics. And this whole story of
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  Speaker 2: Hong ultimately losing to a candidate who had no support
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  Speaker 2: and had dropped out of the race only a few
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  Speaker 2: weeks earlier is truly fascinating. So let's roll and get
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  Speaker 2: into it in a moment. Here. Have you ever been
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  Speaker 2: is essential, not an option. Whenever something surprising happens, you
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  Speaker 2: let people pop up and say I knew that was
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: going to happen. Now. Of course those people were nowhere
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: to be found before it happened, and nobody ever heard
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: them say that that's what was going to happen. You
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: also have people who just make stupid predictions all the time.
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  Speaker 2: They're wrong ninety nine point nine percent of the time,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: just hoping one of their idiotic predictions comes true, because
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: every now and then something nobody would expect would occur.
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  Speaker 2: But this puts into perspective how shocking Francesca Hang's loss
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  Speaker 2: and the Democratic primary was. As you probably know, you
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: can now bet on almost anything in the United States.
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  Speaker 2: The biggest of our prediction markets, there's more than one,
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  Speaker 2: but the biggest is Kelshi. Kelshi is operating in the
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  Speaker 2: state of Wisconsin. Some in the state believe that it
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  Speaker 2: is illegal. That's going to be tested in court, but
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: in the meantime you can put your money in and
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: you can wager on almost anything. They call it a
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: prediction market, which is a commodity's trade rather than gambling.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's gambling, but nonetheless it's there. And what
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  Speaker 2: Kelshi does is it will ask questions about almost anything
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  Speaker 2: that you can imagine in life, sporting events, political results,
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  Speaker 2: the inflation rate, how long before the war and I
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: ran anything in the Wisconsin governor's race. Kelshy as of
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  Speaker 2: late lasting just before the polls closed the final number,
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  Speaker 2: and it pretty much held this way for two days.
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  Speaker 2: Had a Hong with a ninety six percent chance of winning.
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  Speaker 2: That means if you would have bet on Crowley winning,
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  Speaker 2: you would have gotten about twenty three to twenty four
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  Speaker 2: times your bet. There's a little bit it's not exactly
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  Speaker 2: right on the money because there's a slight house edge
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  Speaker 2: that they build into those wagers, but anybody who shortly
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  Speaker 2: before the polls closed had bet on Crowley winning would
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  Speaker 2: have gotten a massive return. Likewise, if you would have
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: bet on Hong winning, you would have had delay about
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  Speaker 2: nine hundred and fifty dollars to win ten. That's how
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  Speaker 2: overwhelming of a favorite she was. To put it in
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  Speaker 2: further perspective, one of the biggest boxing upsets of my
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  Speaker 2: lifetime is when Mike Tyson was unbeaten at the time,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: lost to James Buster Douglas. I think that was thirty
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  Speaker 2: eight to one. That was an even longer shot than this,
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  Speaker 2: but it was considered to be almost impossible. If you
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  Speaker 2: look at these odds on Kelshy on things, when you
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  Speaker 2: see ninety six to one, they're things that are almost
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  Speaker 2: the cinch. Yet hang lost. I felt In my analysis
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  Speaker 2: of this that the efforts by the state Democrat establishment,
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  Speaker 2: in particular Tony Evers and the puppeteers who pull his
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  Speaker 2: strings Maggie Gowi's chief of staff, who by the way,
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  Speaker 2: ought to be now considered the smartest person in the
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  Speaker 2: Democrat room in the state of Wisconsin because she pulled
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  Speaker 2: this off. I felt that their attempts to come in
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  Speaker 2: and finally attack Hong and fully embrace a single candidate, Crowley,
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  Speaker 2: and raise a fortune for him in pound pound pound
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  Speaker 2: in the last two weeks of the election, I felt
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  Speaker 2: that was too little, too late. I felt this because
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  Speaker 2: they were starting with a candidate who had no support.
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  Speaker 2: Crowley and Hoong had such a massive lead in the polls.
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  Speaker 2: And also we have a two week voting period in Wisconsin,
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  Speaker 2: and Democrats have shown likely a greater tendency to early
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  Speaker 2: vote than Republicans. In fact, two candidates dropped out of
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  Speaker 2: the race after voting started. One of them dropped out
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  Speaker 2: before while mail in voting was going on, Sarah Rodriguez,
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  Speaker 2: she was out before early voting, but Mendela Barnes dropped
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  Speaker 2: out during the early voting. In other words, I felt
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  Speaker 2: that this was certainly going to take a toll on
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  Speaker 2: home because for the first time she had gone this
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  Speaker 2: entire campaign without any Democrats attacking or she wasn't criticized
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  Speaker 2: for her Marxism. They didn't even try to bring up
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  Speaker 2: the fact that, you know, there's a real chance if
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  Speaker 2: you run a communist here in the state of Wisconsin,
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  Speaker 2: you'll lose and the Republicans will win. But then that
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  Speaker 2: all changed at the last moment. I felt it was
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  Speaker 2: too late, that they didn't start it in time. I
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  Speaker 2: was clearly wrong. You can say, well, Hong almost won,
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  Speaker 2: but I'll be honest with you, I didn't think it
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  Speaker 2: would be close. I thought that Hong would win in
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  Speaker 2: the low double digits twelve thirteen, fourteen percent, but it
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  Speaker 2: was certainly hard to tell. My own belief was that
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  Speaker 2: Hong would do so well in the really leftist areas
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  Speaker 2: of the state, like say Madison, that there'd be no
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  Speaker 2: ability to just generate enough outstate anti Hong vote for
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  Speaker 2: Crowley to overcome it wrong. Tony Evers is getting all
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  Speaker 2: of them. By the way, it's remarkable here Crowley is
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  Speaker 2: getting no credit for his victory, not even from Democrats.
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  Speaker 2: They're giving all the credit to Tony Evers. Crowley's entire
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  Speaker 2: campaign the last three weeks was just following around behind Evers.
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  Speaker 2: Evers is going everywhere in the state, running all of
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  Speaker 2: these ads. Vote for David Crowley, Vote for David Crowley,
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  Speaker 2: dragging along like a little bit of a puppy dog.
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  Speaker 2: And there Crowley was. You know, this is who Tony wants.
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  Speaker 2: But I can assure you of one thing. None of
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  Speaker 2: this was Tony Evers's idea. He's not a shrewd machiavellian
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  Speaker 2: political strategist. His chief of staff, though, is she's polarizing figure.
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  Speaker 2: All five of her elbows are sharpened, if you know
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  Speaker 2: what I mean. Maggie gow She's run the governor's office
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  Speaker 2: as long as Evers has been in there. She also
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  Speaker 2: is tight with the infrastructure, the people who work in
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  Speaker 2: state government, and she's certainly smart enough to know that
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: they all would have been out of jobs if Tom
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  Speaker 2: Tiffany won. All the cabinet heads, all the people at
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  Speaker 2: the higher levels of the agency, and all the groups
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  Speaker 2: that are dependent on Democrat government government giving them money.
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  Speaker 2: So she knew that hang had to be beaten. The
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  Speaker 2: problem is Maggie Gough can't stand Sarah Rodriguez. They started
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  Speaker 2: when Sarah Rodriguez ran for lieutenant governor four years ago
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  Speaker 2: and got herself elected, got on the ticket, the two
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  Speaker 2: of them clashed. Sarah was on the just on the outs.
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  Speaker 2: So Sarah Rodriguez couldn't be endorsed by Evers because Maggie
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  Speaker 2: Gau would not want the governorship to go to Sarah Rodriguez.
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  Speaker 2: She didn't like Mendela Barnes. I don't know why, but
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  Speaker 2: she apparently doesn't like Joel Brennan, the head of the
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  Speaker 2: Greater Milwaukee Committee, who was also running. So if the
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  Speaker 2: idea that they had all along was to endorse Crowley,
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  Speaker 2: the big problem there was Crowley was going nowhere. You'd
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  Speaker 2: be endorsing a candidate in a seven CA mandate race
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  Speaker 2: who was running six. Finally, everybody bit the bullet, grit
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  Speaker 2: their teeth and endorse Sarah Rodriguez, who immediately exploded and
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: fell apart. Her campaign was in shambles a week after this,
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  Speaker 2: So there's this last minute scramble. David Crowley, who had
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  Speaker 2: already dropped out of the race because he was doing
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  Speaker 2: so terribly, was told by the Evers team get back
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  Speaker 2: in the race. We're gonna support you. We're gonna give
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  Speaker 2: you a ton of money, and Evers is gonna walk
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  Speaker 2: around the state with you. What do you have to lose?
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  Speaker 2: David and Crowley got back in. This can only happen
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: if you have a political party whose voters do as
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  Speaker 2: they are told. Now, this is one area where I
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  Speaker 2: regret missing hear what was happening, because I've been on
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: this show and my radio show before it for years
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  Speaker 2: saying Democrat voters do what they're told. They just do.
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  Speaker 2: If there's a candidate they're supposed to vote for, they
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  Speaker 2: vote for them. They were told vote for Crowley. So
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: even though almost none of them supported David Crowley only
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  Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, they listen. How else do you
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  Speaker 2: explain this? They were told to do it. And I
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: think that there were two messages that clearly resonated with them.
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  Speaker 2: One there are still a lot of Democrats for whom
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  Speaker 2: Marxism is a bridge too far. But also this message
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  Speaker 2: that Tiffany will beat Hang scared the bejeezers out of
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  Speaker 2: a lot of Democrats. They can't stand losing. It's why
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: they're so obsessed with Trump, It's why they were so
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: obsessed with Walker. Republicans handle losing by grumbling Democrats go nuts,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: so that fear motivation led them to outsource their thinking. Well,
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  Speaker 2: Tony Ivers is saying, the only way that we can
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  Speaker 2: stop hang, meaning, the only way we can stop Tiffany
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  Speaker 2: from being elected to the governor is to back Crowley.
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  Speaker 2: That worked. Let's talk now about the election results and
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: where people voted and how they voted. And I'm going
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: to tell you I've followed politics since I was a kid,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: and I don't think that there are many people in
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: the state of Wisconsin who are better at analyzing politics
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: than me. These voting results almost defy logic. Here's something
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: that happens almost always. In fact, there was an election
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: in South Carolina yesterday. They're holding that really rapid speed
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: election to replace Lindsay Graham in the United States Senate.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: South Carolina has a runoff system, so if the primary
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: winner doesn't get fifty percent of the vote, just the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: top two advance. So a bunch of Republicans that were running,
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  Speaker 2: including Lindsay Graham's sister. One of the Republicans running is
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: a congressman in South Carolina, very very conservative. He's from
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  Speaker 2: the northwestern portion of South Carolina. I think they call
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: that the PDE area. I'm not sure that, but I
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: think that's what they call it. Well, he didn't make
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the top two, but the one area of the state
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  Speaker 2: that he won is the area that he's from. Logically,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: he's the congressman from that particular part of the state,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: so that part of the state voted for him. The
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: rest of the state didn't vote. Here's a congress from
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  Speaker 2: Route there this election, No, David Crowley won a statewide election,
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  Speaker 2: even though he almost lost his own county. Crowley Milwaukee
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  Speaker 2: County by only fifteen hundred votes. He's the county executive
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: of Milwaukee County. The county executive of Milwaukee County almost
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  Speaker 2: lost Milwaukee County. If you would have looked at that,
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  Speaker 2: if you would have known before the election the Crowley
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: was only going to win Milwaukee County by fifteen hundred oneths,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: you'd say he's going to get slaughtered in the state.
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  Speaker 2: If he can't carry his own county, how's he going
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: to do in the other seventy one. Yet, even though
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Hong ran way beyond expectations in Milwaukee County, she's still
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: somehow lost Racine County, just south of Milwaukee. For those
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: of you not from Wisconsin went beg for Crowley. So
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Crowley did better south of the Milwaukee Racine line than
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: north of it, even though he's from north of it.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Now let's go one more south, Kenosha County. Kenosha and
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Racine Counties obviously have a lot in common. Hong one
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Kenosha County. Now, I try to figure things out, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I've got working theories here, but Milwaukee County is almost dead.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Even Racine County is big for Crowley, and Kenosha County
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  Speaker 2: goes for Hong. Then Dane County, Madison clearly the most
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: liberal county in the state of one of the most
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: liberal counties in the United States. It was presumed that
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Hong would carry Dan County with about seventy five eighty
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: percent of the vote. She's a radical, Madison is radical.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Hong one Dang County, but by only seven percent. She
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: didn't even get half the vote. I think it was
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: forty four to thirty seven Dan County, Hong beating Crawley,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: with the other candidates splitting the remaining nineteen percent. The
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: east side of Madison. For those of you who know Madison,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: there is the Isthmus which is where the capital is
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: two lakes that create the isthmus. The east side of Madison.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: This is the leftiest area you ever. This is like
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Greenwich Village, only it just keeps it. That's I guess
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: that's the best analogy I would give to it. I'm
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: killing you. Everybody who lives in the east side of
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Madison is a lefty. Everybody, everybody you see, well not everyone, okay,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: not everybody. Virtually everybody hang lost the east side of Madison. Now,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I never I just could not have imagined this. You
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: talk about the Kelsey thing. At ninety six percent, I
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: would have said, she carries the you said of Madison.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: You would have bought you could have been at ninety
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: nine point nine nine nine percent. She won the west
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: side of Madison, which includes the university, and she won
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the overall county, but not dominantly. Now, working theory on this,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: given that I've had to come up with, it is this.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: The people who live on the east side of Madison,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: A staggeringly high percentage of them work for state government
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: or work for the social service agencies funded by state government.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: These are the people who have the most to lose
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: if Tom Tiffany gets elected governor. In the end, if
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: you're a really lefty Madisonian who works for the state
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and it dependent on the state, and remember the state
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: government is still on work at home, do you really
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: care if it's Crowley or Hong or are you more
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: concerned that it's just it's another Democrat who continues our
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: gravy trink going. That's my theory. So when Tony Evers
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: essentially said and the Democrats essentially said, Hong's going to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: lose to Tiffany, it got the ear of these people
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: who desperately need to stay in power. The west side
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: of town, the university area there you have a lot
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: of students that are just all in for socialism, but
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: their lives aren't independent on who controls state government. Someone
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: aren't going to live in Wisconsin two or three years
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: from now other parts of the state. If you run
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: up Lake Michigan starting from Racine County, Crowley won the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: entire Lake Michigan shoreline, Kenosha County, as I said, went
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: for Hank, but Racine County, then barely Milwaukee, and then
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: all the way up. Ozaki, I think I can do this, Ozaki,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Sheboygan Manitouwak Keiwanee, and Door Counties all went for Crowley.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: All but Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Big Counties, Brown County,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Green Bay, out of Gamey County, Appleton, Winebego County, Oshkosh, Nina, Manasha.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Every one of those counties went for Hong. Anybody who
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: thinks that they can under explain that, I think is
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: either lying or it's deeply involved in who did media
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: buys it, weear or something. Why would eastern Wisconsin go
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: for Crowley but the Fox Valley go for Hong Almost
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: always those sides vote in tandem, vote together. In western Wisconsin,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Hong did well. She carried Lacrosse County and she carried
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: o'claire County. She carried Lacrosse County by a greater percentage
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: than she carried Dane County. Those again, those are university,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: big university ten thousand student universities in both Lacrosse and o'claire.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Big chunk of it. The far northwestern corner of the state,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: including the Lake superiora hang the rest of up north Crowley,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: while Hong won Dane County, the county directly south of
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: their rock that's Janesville and Beloit. Crowley, so the geography
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: point of the part of this, which is usually pretty
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: easy to figure out in an election, didn't add up
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: at all here. Next, David Crowley himself was an ineffectual
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: candidate who had no substance. This is why when seven
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: candidates were in the initial field, he was running fifth
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: or sixth. He was going back and forth with Kelderoy's
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: fighting for fifth place. Missy Hughes was always seventh. The
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: reason for this is even though he's from Milwaukee County,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: he has almost no profile here. Nobody in Milwaukee County
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: can associate him with having done anything. What's the big
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: issue in Milwaukee County that you associate with David Crowley.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: There isn't one. He's kind of like the anti Scott Walker,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: who was a very high profile county executive. He's almost
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: an African American Tom Amon who was extremely low profile
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: until the whole pension scandal came up. The one thing
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that he didn't have was a lot of apparent baggage.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Now some of that baggage did show up. There's the
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: certainly one of the things that did in Francesca hang
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: was her post on social media. There's a lot on Crowley,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't initially a parent. Crowley was using a
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: pseudonym Dirk McGirk and posting a number of things on
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: social media. Hank's things were stupid, but crowley stuff was
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: borderline vulgar. But because Crowley was doing so badly in
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the polls, nobody much paid any attention to it, And
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: there was a strategy by Hank's people, and we're going
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to get into her campaign in a moment because she
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: was ahead and she wanted to unite the party after
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: the election, she didn't do any attacking of Crowley, nothing.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So Crowley was able to emerge here as a candidate
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: who is almost a mannequin of a candidate dressed up
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: by Tony Evers and the Democrat establishment and just drawn
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: out there as somebody who isn't Hang and isn't Mendela Barns.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: This is someone who's got a good job in politics.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I now want to move to the in retrospect, clear
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and obvious errors by Hong and her campaign staffers. First
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: of all, there was a report yesterday on Politico. It
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: came out when everyone still assumed that Hong was going
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: to win the election, and Hang assumed she was going
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: to win the election. She was out there already doing
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: her pivoting, moving away from her radical positions and trying
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: to sound a little bit more reasonable. She wasn't any
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: good at that, but she was so certain that she
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: was going to win that she was already talking like
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: a Democratic nominee who was going to try to win
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: a general election. The story in Politico said that Hang
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: had been persuaded to fire her campaign staff or at
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: least demote them, and she was going to bring in
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to run her general election campaign traditional veteran Democrats campaign staffers.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: That some Democrats had gotten to Hang and said, look,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: this last week that you've had here has been a debacle,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: a nightmare. Your staff's not supposed to let the candidate
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: get involved in nightmares. It certainly didn't help that we
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: found out that the deputy campaign manager is a porn star.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: So Hong, who clearly wants to win, had, according to
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the story in Political agreed to dump her campaign staff
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: and switch over. So already there was at least some
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: acceptance on the part of Hong that these last few
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: days of the campaign, where it has asked her for
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: her what I think Hang did was spike the football
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: before she's in the end zone. Every now and once
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: every three years, you'll see an NFL player running freely
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: for a touchdown and they dropped the ball before they
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: crossed the goal line. They're just waving the ball around
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: and they haven't cried. If you've dropped the ball before
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the goal line, it's not a touchdown. That's what she
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: was doing. She wasn't in the end zone yet she
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: just presumed that she was, and I'll admit I presume
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: she was. So she started going out and again, all
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: of this is controlled by her staff. Hang was doing
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: almost zero interviews prior to the last two weeks. Suddenly
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: there she is going into clearly a hostile environment going
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: on Fox News. Now. The host that she chose, Dana Perino,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: is probably the nicest of the conservative hosts over there,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: but it's still going to be a hostile interview where
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: she's challenged. Why would her staff have her do that.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Here's an indication of how schizoid the staff was. Fox
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: News is reporter assigned to cover the Honk campaign last
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: night was not allowed into the campaign celebration into what
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: they thought was the victory party. The Fox News reporter
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: was denied entry Okay, I get that the lefties don't
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: like Fox News, but if you disliked them so much,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: why did you send honk to go on a Fox
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: News live interview where she made a total fool of herself.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: It's comical listening to her non repudiation of her answer
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: about wanting to ban Thanksgiving. Then she went on CNN. CNN,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I'd have a little bit of agenda here. I don't
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: know whose side the host there is going to be on,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: because you've got the regular old Democrats saying we can't
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: have honk Win. They're the ones that dug up all
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: this dirty her and we're getting it out. She goes
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: there and she flops on that if your Han's campaign staff,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: why do you let her go out and do national interviews?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: They certainly must know that she's not any good at this.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: My guess is is that there's simply a bunch of
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: amateurs that she got where she was by telling everybody
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: that she's a socialist, having national socialist influencers like Hassan
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Piker saying go vote for she got propelled up there,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: and her own staff wasn't in prospective enough to know
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: that their own candidate is rather Dinghy, and clearly Hong
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: didn't know that. Now, we've all seen Democrats have said
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: really dumb lefty things in the past and try to
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: pivot away from them. Some do it far better than others.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris was never any good at it. She wasn't
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: any good at any kind of pivoting or anything that
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: has anything to do with speaking. Bill Clinton, on the
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: other hand, could pivot away from anything. But there are
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: certain things that you could have said with regard to
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: any of this stuff. Just take the Thanksgiving I was exaggerating.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I was trying to draw attention to the fact that
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: there are people like Native Americans who had land stolen
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: away from them. But I love Thanksgiving. I celebrate Thanksgiving something. No,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: whenever you blow a lead like she had, clearly a
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: lot of mistakes occur. Let's use a football analogy. We've
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: had a few games, say in the playoffs, or a
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: team as a giant lead at halftime, and then incredible
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: comebacks occur. There's been about three or four of them
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: where teams came back from like twenty five or thirty
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: points at halftime and came back to win. There's even
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: a Super Bowl in which that happened the Eagles Patriots
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: was one going back Falcons Patriots go back way back
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: in the day. There was a game between Houston and
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Buffalo that's about forty years ago. I think that was
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: like a thirty thirty point margin. A bunch of them,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: and after it happens, you go back and you dissect
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: all of the Packers went in a regular season game,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: We're done by like twenty five or thirty points to
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: the Cowboys. And the Packers didn't even have Aaron Rodgers.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: They had Matt Flynn playing quarterback. Was that in the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: five era or the Rodgers era, I don't remember. That
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: was the Rogers era, and the Cowboys just had run
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: the ball down the Packers throat. It's the entire first half.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And now with the big leade, you're gonna think, well,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: they're gonna keep running the ball down the throat because
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: the Packers can't stop the run and it keeps the
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: clock moving. To run the ball instead, they start passing
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and they get anywhere. The Packers got momentum and came
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: back and beat them in Dallas. So these post motives
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: occur in which you analyze the mistakes that were made
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: by Hong I think, however, the biggest single and again
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: this was still close three thousand votes, was the entire margin.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Tony Evers is the only thing that we have that
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: could be received as the face of a Democrat establishment
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin. And when he came out and started telling people,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: don't vote for her, you got to vote for Crowley,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: it turned the election on its ear. And again I'd
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: used the term perfect storm a lot. I always say
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I don't like the term that the reality is it
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: is a perfect term. It occurred at the same time
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: that Hong was doing these interviews so terribly. Now you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: dog gone well that if you're a lefty who wants
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: to win, you were cringing when she was out there.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: It had to be like these lefties who somehow never
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: it never dawned on them that Joe Biden was seen
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: now and then when he we had that debate with Trump,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: they were shocked at how terribly was They were looking
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the other way and believing that, you know, the apologies, saying, oh,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Joe sharp, Joe sharp, Joe sharp, Joe sharp. But then
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: they saw Biden fell flat in his face, and even
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: they had to go, oh, my goodness, gracious, this is terrible,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: and they got them out of the race. So at
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: the same time that these messages are coming in, these
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: advertise advertisements with Tony Evers, you need to vote for Crawley,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: you need to vote for Crawley, you need to vote
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: for Crowley. Here's hang out there making a total fool
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: of herself. It reinforced the message that Hong will lose this.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Let's look forward, let's preview Tiffany versus Crowley. There are
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of Republicans of Wisconsin that are crying crocodile
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: tears today. Tiffany would have beaten Hong, and I think
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: probably he would have beaten Hong and he's going to
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: lose to Crowley. I don't accept that premise. David Crowley
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: is not an invincible political figure. The only reason he
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: won the Democratic primary is because Tony Evers had to
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: pick somebody to anoint. I actually wonder this. I haven't
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: tried this out with any Democrats, but I do wonder
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: if Evers and his people had anointed Kell de Roy's
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: state senator from Madison, she ended up running fourth, right
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: or third fourth, She's third, if they had anointed her
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: rather than get Crowley back into the race. Would she
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: have won? Killed is not that bright either, neither is Crowley.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's possible. Or let's imagine Sarah Rodriguez did
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: not lie about her campaign donations or didn't have a
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: campaign manager. Crowley didn't have any money when Ivers endorsed
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: him a few weeks ago. They just pounded and laid
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: it all in at the last minute. They could have
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: done that with Rodriguez had she not had that problem
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: in state in the race, would she have won? All
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Crowley was was generic Democrat. I don't even think being
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: African American was that big of an asset for him
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: in the Democratic primary, because the African American population in
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee County is of a higher percentage than in Dane County.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: But Crowley barely won Milwaukee County and ran very very well,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: or at least beyond expectations in Dane County. The African
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: American percentage of Racine County is greater than either brown
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: out a game or win a Bago. Yet Hong Prowley
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: lost those counties in one. Racine anyway, I think I
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: meant that in reverse. But whatever, this is still a
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: good matchup for the Republicans. The problem of course, is
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: is that it's likely to be a national Democrat year.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: But if you simply without knowing who the candidates were,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: said we're going to run an outstate candidate against the
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee candidate, who would you bet on? Milwaukee candidates are
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: traditional statewide losers. The only prominent Milwaukee and to win
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: a statewide election in Wisconsin in the last number of
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: decades was Herb Cole, who had an incredible amount of
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: money backing him up and was never associated with Milwaukee
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: local government. Everybody who comes out of Milwaukee local government
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and tries to run for greater office loses. And that's
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: because the entire state knows that Milwaukee is a basket
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: case of dysfunction. Who do most people? What area of
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: the state do most people think it normal? And well?
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Run up North or Milwaukee. Also, Crowley, as I said,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: even though nobody associates him with anything that he's done,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: has a track record. Crowley asked the state of Wisconsin
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: to give him the power to raise the county sales tax.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: They did, and even with getting all of that revenue,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the Milwaukee County budgets a disaster. Crowley just greenlighted the
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: renovation of the Milwaukee County Courthouse without going to referendum.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: The county has a massive structural deficit. You can simply
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: run against Milwaukee and tie David Crowley to it. In
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: most areas of the state, a swing voter is going
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: to be more open to a common sense up north
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: her then a Milwaukee leftist, because almost everyone who's in
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: the middle of the state knows Milwaukee is badly run.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: In addition to that the baggage, I will remind people
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: that David Crowley's last semester at UW Milwaukee occurred while
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: he was the county executive and his tuition was paid
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: by the taxpayers of Milwaukee County. He charged his tuition
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: to the taxpayers to go to college. That's a pretty
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: good negative ad to run, and it shows something about
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: the character of the guy that even though the county
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: executive makes a lot of money, he was too cheap
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: to pay his own tuition an initiative, the fact that
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: he was spending so paying so little attention to his
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: own county executive duties that he was able to go
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: and be a full time college student at the time.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: And then the Dirk McGirk posts on then Twitter now
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: called x which Crowley says, well, a lot of people
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: under that, but he was the registered owner of that name.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: In addition to that, Tiffany will be well financed, probably
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: not as well as Hong. The word all over was
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: that if Hang had won the nomination, an avalanche of
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: money national money would come into support Tiffany because they
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: believe Tiffany could win. Maybe not as much now because
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: it may be more competitive, but I don't think that
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Tiffany will be short of money. And also Tiffany has
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: been able to back up bank the money and he
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: didn't have to spend in a primary election to put
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: it all into a general election. When we come back
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: after the break, I want to talk about other elements
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: of the election, including a developing local story that I
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: think has statewide political ramifications. You're listening to the Mark
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Belling podcast. This is the Mark Belling We spent the
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: entire first segment talking about the very surprising result in
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: the Wisconsin Democratic primary. The almost certain winner, socialist Francesca Hang,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a candidate who
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: had been doing so poorly he had dropped out of
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: the race a few weeks earlier. Was nowhere in the polls,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: couldn't raise any money, and it was at the point
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: of almost embarrassing himself by sticking it out. Somehow he won.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: There were other elections that occurred yesterday, and I want
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: to cherry pick and focus on a few of them.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Waukshaw County has a new sheriff, Nick Ollinger, as a
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: captain in the Sheriff's department, and was endorsed by the
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: outgoing Sheriff, Eric Severson. He was challenged by a guy
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: who has significant law enforcement experience and been endorsed by
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a number of prominent people in Waukashaw County. The former
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: district Attorney Sue Opper, endorsed gush Myi the opponent. The challenger, Ollinger, however,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: won by a pretty wide margin. It was about I
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: think sixty four to thirty six or so. I think
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: that this indicates that most Walkershaw County residents are happy
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: with the sheriff's department. As I said, my big issue
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: in that race is, I think it's an embarrassment of disgrace.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It's almost humiliating that the Waukashaw County Sheriff's Department, one
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: of the larger law enforcement agencies in the state of
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin doesn't have body cameras. When Pipsqueak Phil Wisconsin as
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: body cams, both candidates said that they were going to
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: do everything in their power to get the body cameras.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: The executive budget of Waukershaw County appropriates them, but the
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: county Board votes on the county budget in November. It
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: will be interesting to see if, now that Ollinger has
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: been elected, there is no Democrats, so the primary winner
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: is the new sheriff, the county board does appropriate the money,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: or if Waukershaw County County County Board again decides to
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: not create the appropriation, and if they don't, whether or
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: not the sheriff will find the money within his own
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: budget to do something that almost every law enforcement agency does.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Another story endorsements. Clearly there were two all powerful and
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: almighty endorsements yesterday in Wisconsin. Evers's endorsement of David Crowley
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: is the reason Crowley what now. I can't even think
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: of another race that Crowley got involved in a Democratic
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Excuse me that Evers. In Evers's eight years as governor,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I don't remember him butting into a Democratic primary at
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: all on anything now he's an outgoing governor, so he
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: can run the risk of hacking people off. At addition
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: to that, Evers is furious with the Democrats in the
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: state legislature. Hang is in the legislature because they killed
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: his plan to increase school funding in exchange for tax
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: cuts the Republicans wanted. But the Evers endorsement was clearly
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: incredibly powerful. Likewise, the media wants to Every time one
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: of Trump's endorsed candidates doesn't win something, the media goes
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: on and on and on about it. But the fact
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: of the matter is is the candidates that Donald Trump
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: endorses almost always win Republican primaries. We have an open
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: congressional seat in the state of Wisconsin. The one candidate
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: who's in, one member of Congress who we know isn't
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: going back as Tom Tiffany, he's running for governor. He's
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: giving up his congressional seat. Member of Congress is a
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: dream job, especially if it's in a district in which
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: the incumbent never loses. I don't believe an incumbent is
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: lost in the Northern Wisconsin district in seventy five years.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Dave Obey was there for like thirty years. In after him.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: None of the Republicans who owed the position lost. They
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: have eight districts. First week we had Ken at one point,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: then nine and eight. You know, part of the Northern
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin district was divided up. You know mel Laird had
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: it for a while. There was a guy named Lkonski
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: and so on. But you serve at it forever. So
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: this is a dream job. Five Republicans ran. Three that
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: were prominent. Jesse Eman, who was supported by a fair
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: number of Republicans of importance and raised a good chunk
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: of money. Kevin Hermaning, who is a longtime Republican activist,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: is still known for having been an Iranian hostage, but
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: has lived in the district essentially his whole life and
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: also raised a lot of money. But President Trump and
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: didn't endorse either of them. Instead, he endorsed a twenty
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: five year old, i'll say kid, Michael Alfonso, whose biggest
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: claim to fame is he's that he married into the
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Duffy family. He married Sean and Rachel Campo, Stuffy's daughter.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: He is I think a pretty well spoken guy and
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: did come across as a credible candidate, but he didn't
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: have anywhere near the political bona fides as the other
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: two prime candidates, but Trump endorsed him. Alfonso annihilated the
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: other two. He got well over fifty percent of the vote.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: He routed Hermaning and Ebon, with the other two candidates
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: even farther behind. Now, maybe Alfonso would have Let's imagine
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Trump sat the race out, and there are a lot
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: of Republican races that Trump sits out. Alfonso would have
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: been endorsed by his in law as the Duffies. Sean
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: held that exact same seat in Congress. Rachel is a
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: famous host on Fox New. He's clearly influential people. The
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Duffies are really well liked in northern Wisconsin. Maybe he
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: would have went anyway. I'm telling you, I think trump'son
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: horsement in that race was good for twenty five or
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: thirty points. But let's talk about a couple of endorsements
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: that were useless, that didn't do any good. Let's start
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: on the Democrat side. For almost my entire career in Wisconsin,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: I was carrying on and on and on about the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: overwhelming power, destructive as it was, of the State Teachers'
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Union before Actken, and before Actken, if you were a teacher.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: You had to if not join the teachers' union, pay
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: a dues payment equal to it. So they were sitting
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: on a ton of money. And since you had to
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: pay it, most members, most teachers joined the union anyway,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Why pay the dues if you're not going to be
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: able to get in there and have something. And when
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: the teachers' union said do something to the teachers at all,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: do it. They were an incredible force in Wisconsin politics.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: They decided to get involved in the governor's race and
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: they endorsed Kill de Roys. Once you get seven percent
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: of the vote, the teachers' union is now close to
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: an irrelevancy in Wisconsin politics. The other candidates that didn't
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: get the teachers union endorsement didn't affect them at all.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: And out of the Republican side, the Republican Party of
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin doesn't always, but often endorses a candidate in a primary.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: The big advantage of the endorsement is you get the
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: resources of the party, including the mailing lists, which now
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: is the emailing list. Republican Party, of course, has this
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: data base of all their voters and they've got all
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: the background of them, demographics and who the voters are this,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: that or the other thing. If you endorse the candidate
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: that stuff, it's turned over at no cost to that
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: candidate something. The other challenges don't have. The Republican Party
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: at their convention endorsed Will for lieutenant governor. He lost.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Will is a very accomplished guy from Racine. He lost
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: to David Varnum, who has I would say, probably less
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: of a political base to run from in that he's
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: a mayor of a small city. He's a mayor of Lancaster.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: A hard thing for a mayor to win a statewide
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: election is most people don't know about a mayor other
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: than unless they live in that city. Even the mayor
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: of Milwaukee's not been able to turn it into You'd
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: be hard pressed to think of any mayors that have
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: been elected to statewide office. Ever, you usually have to
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: get into the legislature or do something else in order
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: to launch such a bid. The endorsement of Will Martin
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: by the Republican Party to Will Martin any good secretary
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: of state. Four Republicans are running. The Republican Party of
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin endorsed Nate Palno. Jay Schroeder won that nomination four
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: years ago and managed to lose the general election, the
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: voters picked him to do it again. Now I think
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: that's probably a mistake. You know, my theory that if
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: somebody runs for a state runs in a statewide election
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: and loses, they should you should never support them to
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: run for the exact same job. They never turn it around.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: They can win a different statewide position. Tom Barrett's a
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: classic example of that. Ran for governor and lost, ran
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: for governor against Scott Walker a second time, lost again.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: We saw Conservatives do this with regard to a candidate
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: who lost two state Supreme Court seats. Ran for the
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court, got clobbered, lost his seat, runs for somebody
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: else's seat, gets clabbered again. So I understand why the
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Republican Party endorsed Palmo. It must not assuade any voters
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: at all. My guess is is that unlike Democrats, by
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: the way, Republicans don't necessarily do as they're told. Republican
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Party tells Republicans who sing, they blow him off. Trump
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: tells them to do something a lot to listen. But
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: the party no, unlike the Democrats, was I say, they
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: tend to do as they're told. That's how Crowley won.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: My advice to the Republican Party of Wisconsin is to
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: stop endorsing. You're starting to look like fools. It just
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: makes you look even weaker when you endorse a candidate
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: for a statewide office and they get clabbered. Now, these
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: were two low profile races, and I was struck by
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: how little campaigning either candidate for lieutenant governor did. There
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: was a time that lieutenant governor primaries were a pretty
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: big deal. I'll go back to twenty let me get
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: the year right, twenty ten. This was when Scott Walker
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: was running for governor. I think Tim Michaels was the
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: appointed to the Republican primary. There was also a race
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: for lieutenant governor and there were TV ads on it,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: and it was a high profile race. Gee, I was
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: it Mike Hips? I think he was the anointed Republican
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: candidate for lieutenant governor remember the Legislature. I think it
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: was Hipchef was somebody else? I apologize. Rebecca Clayfish was
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: a former TV reporter for Channel twelve and she ran
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: one of the best political ads I've ever seen. She
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: got up there and said I'm not ashamed, and then
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: talked about all the conservative beliefs that she had. Remember
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: this is twenty ten where Republicans were just beaten down.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Anything that we believed in is just terrible, awful thing.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: As Brett Davis, that's who it was. I'm glad you
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: corrected me. If Dave Michael's in there who recovered you know,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: like what a football player fumbles and a member of it,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: like an offensive lineman falls on the ball, They never
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: get credit for that. Those are such important plays. Stopping
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: a turnover is the same as getting a turnover. I mean,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: it would have been a change of possession, but it
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: isn't It is Brett Davis, That's what it was. Clayfish won.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, we did numerous segments on my show about it.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: A lot of people talked about the TV ads in
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: this particular race, Varnum and Martin. There's almost no attention
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: even though it was it was the biggest statewide primary
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Republicans had. You know, Tiffany had a Republican opponent named Manski,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: but it was a token opponent. Tiffany got ninety six
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: percent of the vote, so without much attention drawn to
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: the race, people who voted voted for the reasons that
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: they voted. I thought both are excellent candidates. I think politically,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: a better running made for Tiffany would have been Will Martin,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: because you have rural and urban Martin from Racine, Martin
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: being African American. You now have two candidates kind of
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the same profile. Tiffany northern Wisconsin, obviously member of Congress.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Varnum is from southwestern Wisconsin, Lancaster, Wisconsin. But they're both very,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: very good candidates. Varnum is very conservative and has a
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: strong pro life position. I do think the Democrats will
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: try to use that saying, look, something Appensitiffany, this guy's
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the governor. He's going to take away your right to
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: have an abortion, so forth, and so on. In any event,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: my point is is that some endorsements are meaningful and
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: others were clearly meaningless. Another interesting political race, this battle
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: here for control of the Democratic Party between the socialists
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: and regular Democrats. We know how it played out on
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: a statewide basis the Socialist loss, but let's be honest,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: she came very close, and it was only because of
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: extraordinary efforts by Evers's people to stop her from winning
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: the state Assembly district that covers the east side of Milwaukee. Possibly,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: I won't say it's the most liberal district in the state.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I think that Francesco Hank's district and the one that
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: covers the east side of the city of Madison would
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: certainly be as liberal. But this district is drawn to
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: be a seventy five to eighty percent Democrat district. It
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: runs from Shorewood through the Bayview, Walker Point Walker's Point
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Era area. Very very democratic, very The current member of
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: the State Assembly is a socialist. I think he was
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: the first socialist Democrat to win one of these elections.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: His name is Ryan Clancy. It came out of Milwaukee politics,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: and he is a very polarizing figure. Not only a socialist,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: A lot of people just don't like him. No, I
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: live in that area. I know where the bodies are
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: buried here. Aside from the fact that he's not a
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: traditional Democrat, he's disliked by a number of people. In particular,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: he is despised by the family of the guy who
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: formerly held the seat, Jonathan Prostoff. There have even been
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: suggestions that the criticism by Clancy of Brastoff led to
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Jonathan's suicide. That's how bad the blood is in this district.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: There was a democratic challenge at a Clancy and yesterday's election,
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: her name is Bridget Maniacchi. She was backed by everybody,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: every traditional Democrat you can think of, Cavalier Johnson, you know,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Matt Flynn. Just goes through the list of big name
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Democrats in the city of Milwaukee, particularly in the east
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: side of town. They all backed the regular Democrat because
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: they they're Democrats, they're not socialists. And Clancy was backed
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: by socialists. As I live in that district, I can
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: tell you a fortune with spent on. I mean I
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: got mail every day. I mean they just were setting
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: it to everybody. If I had done what some people
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: felt that Republicans should do, which is voting the Democratic primaries,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: so you could vote for Francesco Hong for governor becase
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: tifity of a BEETERR, I would have had to vote
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: in that race for the state legislature. Clancy won. At
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: least on the East side of Milwaukee. The Socialists now
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: clearly outnumber the Democrats. You can see this by the
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: city council representative from that district also a socialist. Also,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: there's a backdrop to this. I don't know if this
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: is going to happen, but I've heard it more than once.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: I have heard that Ryan Clancy intends to run for
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: mayor in twenty twenty eight, to set up a citywide
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: version of the same thing that we just saw for governor.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: A socialist running against a traditional Democrat, Keviler Johnson, a
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: traditional Democrat, Clancy a socialist. Now, maybe that won't happen,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: but I've heard it so clearly. The people who don't
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: want socialists to run Milwaukee, that want regular old Democrats
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: to run Milwaukee, would have liked to see Clancy lose
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: to take away his political base. Western Wisconsin probably has
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the one congressional race in Wisconsin that's a toss up.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Every other district, the party that currently controls the seat
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: likely to win. Not a cinch, but very likely. Tony
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Wead Republican, very likely to win a northeastern Wisconsin Glenn Growthman.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I I'm not up to speed on this. I don't
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: even know if Glenn has a Democratic opponent. I assume
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: he does. They always do. But Glenn Growthan very likely
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: to win reelection in his district. Brian Style, the southeastern
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: corner of the state. He has a Democratic opponent, but
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Style is going to be a heavy favorite. Glen Moore
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: a sins to win reelection in her district, Mark Polkan,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: the Madison area Democrat, he'll win. And the northern Wisconsin
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: district where Tiffany was in Michael Lafonso won the primary.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: Very likely he'll beat the Democrat. It's a Republican district,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: this western Wisconsin district. I took up what Wisconsin being
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: a swing state. This is a swing district includes Euclaire
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: On Lacross counties and then kind of skims along the
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Minnesota and then down to the Iowa Wisconsin state line.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Derek Van Orden is the Republican incumbent. All of his
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: elections are close. He's targeted again. Now the Democrats are
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: doing the thing that I've encouraged Republicans not to do.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: They're putting up the candidate who ran last time and lost.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Rebecca Cook ran against vn Orton two years ago and lost.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: There was a Democratic primary. Cook is very, very liberal,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: but her opponent was a socialist. Cook beat the socialists.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: So Cook is going to run against ben Orton next.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: We had another late mit light Milwaukee ballot dump. The
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: governor's race was not settled until around two in the morning.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee is one of the cities in the state of Wisconsin.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: We're not the only one in which the early votes
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: and the mail in votes and early votes also called
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: absentee votes are counted in one single location. A few
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: cities in the Fox Valley do this. So what does Madison.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: They have something called Central counte. Central count is a big,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: giant room where all of the early votes and the
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: mail in votes are counted. There were twenty six thousand
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: City of Milwaukee votes that were cast prior to the election.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: One of them was mine. I always wrote prior to
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: the election for whatever reason, and I'm tired of listening
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: to the explanations in the City of Milwaukee because none
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: of them make any sense to me. They take forever
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: to count these, they said, well, we have so many
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: of them. And by law in Wisconsin, you're not allowed
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: to start counting the votes prior to election day. You
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: can start counting them at eight at seven in the
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: morning when the polls open, and counting means feeding them
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: into the voting machine. That's what counting the vote is.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: People think that you're voting when you put it in
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: the machine. No, you're voting when you mark the ballot.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: It's counted when it's run through the machine. If you
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: vote in advance, they don't run it through the machine
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: when you vote get there that day, it's put in
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: an envelope and they run it through an election day
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: and they say that they simply can't get it done
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: by eight o'clock at night. Here's why I don't buy
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: that excuse. Madison has a central count. The Madison vote
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: numbers yesterday were overwhelmingly high. Tremendous number of people voted,
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: and most people in Madison vote early. Madison's vote is
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: always it. They don't have problems with getting their ballots
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: counted in central count and put in it's only Milwaukee
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: that's hours after everybody else, and we have to wait
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: for the result. Now, at the time, Crowley was leading
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: by about three thousand votes, and Crowley was not doing
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: well in Milwaukee County. Remember he was almost a dead
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: heat with Hong. My theory was the early votes were
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: likelier to be tilted toward Hong because Crowley serge at
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: the last minute the day of election voting. Election day
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: voting kule would favor Crowley. But a lot of these
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Hong votes came in before Ebers even got the endorsement
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: thing going. They came in before Hong made a fool
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: of herself on national TV and so on. So Hong's
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: people were holding out hope that they that they were
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: going to win by getting enough of the twenty six
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: thousand votes that would be dumped into the count when
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: it we finished in Milwaukee. As it turns out, those
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: twenty six thousand votes broke about the same way as
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: the election day votes did, and Crowley kept his margin
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: of three thousand votes. It didn't move the figures one
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: way or another. But again, it could have, and I
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: think a lot of Republicans were hoping that it would
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: propel Hong to a win, just so the Democrats would
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: turn on and then okay, now the thing that they've
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: been pulling forever late night votes coming in at the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: last minute, switching the election would have victimized one of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: their own. There's a report on Fox six in which
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: the Milwaukee Election Commission is blaming human error for the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: terrible delay. This time. It was bad enough anyway. What
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: they do is they download the ballot count number onto
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: these computer stick gadgets. They're like flash drives, and then
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: they take them to the Milwaukee County Clerk's office. The
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: local municipalities in Milwaukee City, in Milwaukee County, in West Allis,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: City of Milwaukee, Whitefish Bay, and so on. When they
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: count their votes they report them to the Milwaukee County Clerk.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: So the City of Milwaukee was taking the central count
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: ballots on these glorified flash drives over to the Milwaukee
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: County Clerk's office, and when they got there, they found
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: out the number of the flash drives didn't have any
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: vote numbers on them, so they had to go back
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: and do it again. Paulina Goutierrez, who is the head
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said it was human error
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: that the person who was in charge of transferring the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: data onto these drives pushed the wrong button. My goodness, gracious,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: this happened. This happens every single time. There's always some
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: dumb bell reason. The last head of the election commission
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: left one of these flash drives in a computer unattended
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: for twenty minutes. That's Claire, what all bog And now
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: this thing is delayed further because well, but we got
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: it right eventually. The level of an aptitude human error,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: human error, human how hard is this stuff? So they
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: have one person who's in charge of taking the vote
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: tallies and putting them onto the flash drive. Wouldn't you
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: think that that would be something that might require more
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: than one person. And secondly, wouldn't they practice that nineteen
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: thousand times so they don't do it wrong. We're going
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: to be staring at this in the general election. You
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: may have Tom Tiffany head by forty five thousand votes
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: at two in the morning, and there's the City of
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee Central count still not in. This is intolerable. The
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee Republican County Chairman, Bob Spandell is also a member
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: of the state Election Commission. He's a Republican member of
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: the Election Commission. He says he's going to put this
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: on the agenda of the Wisconsin Election commissions next meeting,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: that the state has to step in and interveing and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: deal with this train wreck that is Milwaukee Central count
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: There are hundreds of thousands of Wisconsins who believe that
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Central County Milwaukee is rigging these elections, whether they are
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: or they are, and people believe it because they see
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: time and again the vote results change. At two in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: the morning when the votes come in from Milwaukee. It
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: reminds them of the crap that's been going on in
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Chicago forever. None of the expert Let's just assume there's
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: no crap going on that it's just slow level slot
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: like government officials who can't get anything downe on time.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: None of their excuses here wash because none of the
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: other communities in the state of Wisconsin have the same problem. Now,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: it's certainly true some counties report the results really quickly.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee County was at forty four percent forty five minutes
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: after the polls closed. Walkershaw County was virtually all in
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: by about nine o'clock. Win Abago County, however, was at
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: three percent at eleven thirty at night. Why is win
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Obago County so slow? And I don't know. Some of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: these counties just either the way that they do it
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: or the way the clerks set up the operation are
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: slow and others aren't. But Milwaukee City of Milwaukee's always slow,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: and it is creating tremendous distrust. So if all of
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: these people, the media who want to keep telling us
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: there's no election fraud, there's no election father, there's no
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: election fraud. If you want to end the arguments for
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: election fraud. You need to insist that the Milwaukee Election
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: Commission learn how to count votes in a proper fashion.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: I want to move now to one of the issues
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: that's going to come up in the Tiffany Crowley race
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: for governor. The data center issue is going to be
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: raised by the Democrats. Francesca Hong was running on not
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: approving any data center anywhere in the state of Wisconsin. Unfortunately,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: this is a popular position. This is a once in
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: a lifetime opportunity to build a massive employment base in
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: your state. We see, for example, that the state of
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Texas is going to hate be the data center capital
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: of maybe planet Earth. So many of them are on Dallas.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: It's resulting in massive population gains in Texas. One of
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: the downsides of that is a lot of the people
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: moving in to get these tech jobs in the state
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: of Texas are Democrats. The Democrats might win that Senate
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: election in Texas this year because of all of the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: influx of new people that are coming in. Nonetheless, this
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: is the new industrial Revolution. There are a lot of
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: downsides of data centers, but the one thing that we
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: can say about them is they create massive numbers of
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: construction jobs and then massive numbers of human jobs and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: operating them in addition to all of the other economic
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: development that occurs when you have a major employer that
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: has several thousand employees working for it. We have a
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: workforce here with all sorts of college educated people who
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: say that they can find jobs. But we're turning our
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: noses up at what's going to be the most important
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: industry in our world for probably the next twenty to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: forty years, and that is processing and handling all the
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: data that's going to come from everything that's going on
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: in our tech world. So anyway, this is an issue.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Tom Tiffany's not going to say I'm going to ban
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: all data centers. It's not a Republican position, but the
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: position of the Democrats have haunt. If a Crowley adopts
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: it is a winning issue for them. I have advice
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: on how Tiffany needs to respond to this. First of all,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: he can't pander and say I'm going to be against
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: the data centers too. He can't. What he needs to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: say is the state needs to be involved in properly
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: planning and locating where these facilities are. We have seen
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: that if you put a data center in the right location,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: there's virtually zero public opposition. I don't know if it's
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: the largest, but it's close. One of the largest data
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: centers in the world is the one south of Highway
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: eleven in Racine County, the big Microsoft site. When that
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: thing was being built, almost nobody opposed. This was Tony
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Evers's project. Tony Evers was the guy who delivered this
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: deal with Microsoft. It was the old fox Con property,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: so the infrastructure was already in place, and the Evers
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: people posed for holy pictures, look at me. Give Evers
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: all this credit. The left he news media praising Evers
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: at his economic development team for bringing this home. Since
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: it's open, and there have been some complaints of people
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: who live really close by that there's a noise, a
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: worring noise, a machine like noise coming from the plant.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: Other than that it's up and running, the world's most
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: powerful supercomputer is located. There very little opposition to it,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: in part because, as I say, after the fox Con deal,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of the adjacent homeowns and properties they were
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: bought up, and it's in an area away from the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: city ever scene, and also away from the interstate. It's
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: kind of a land that wasn't used for much of
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: anything else. There aren't too many close in neighbors. And
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: because it's this big tract of land, no real issues
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: of parking or anything like that. Because you the big
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: parking lot area and the footprint is there for expansion,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: you need to find sites where these things are appropriate.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: And that's what Tiffany's position needs to be. When you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: jam these things down the throats of areas that don't
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: want them, there's going to be blowback. Now you might say, well,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: nobody's going to want them. My guess is that five
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: to ten years from now, when there's data centers all
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: over Texas and all over Tennessee and people are flocking
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: down that I get one hundred and ten thousand dollars jobs,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: that people are going to be all in favor of
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: data centers. Unfortunately, from what I can see with regard
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: to the data centers, if anything, that's an over build
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: going on now, I think by twenty thirty they're going
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: to be built and we aren't going to need any
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: more by twenty forty. So you can't say no to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: these things now. So I think the Tiffany has to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: craft or response to this that makes it clear that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: we're going to cite these things the same way. We've
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: got all sorts of things that we have to put
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: up in the state of Wisconsin that nobody wants to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: live by, but we've managed to put them up. Power plants.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: A data center is certainly less intrusive than a power plant,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: but we figured out a way to cite power plants
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: that it doesn't freak anybody out when you put a
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: power plant. You know, we've got power plants in Milwaukee,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: We've got the big power station in Kenosha County. We've
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: got where the new plans are. We've got natural gas
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: running plans. They're all over the place, but they're done
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: with proper sighting, proper permitting, and done in a reasonable fashion.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast. I want to
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: we've done a special podcast today in that the content
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: was essentially all political relating to the Wisconsin primary election
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: of Tuesday. I want to plug a topic we're going
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: to get into in greater depth on the Thursday podcast
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: because it has I think a political component to it. Today.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Actually yesterday, the State Department of Transportation, which is part
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: of the Evers administration, said that the ongoing massive I
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: ninety four project in Milwaukee County. For those of you
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: not aware, Interstate ninety four East West is the busiest
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: stretch of interstate highway on the state of Wisconsin. It's
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: the most traveled freeway in the Milwaukee area. This is
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: the run that runs west through east that goes past
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: near the Zoo, but then past the State Fair, past
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: the American Family Field, and funnels people from the population
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: rich western suburbs into all of downtown Milwaukee. In addition
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: to that, it's the primary means of travel to get
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: from the north shore to go west. So it's in
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: the process of being widened from three lanes in each
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: direction to four. It's already four lanes near downtown Milwaukee
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: and on the way west, but there's this donut hole
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: between about roughly twenty seventh and seventy sixth streets where
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: it's three. So they're widening it, and it's a complicated
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: project because there's not a lot of room to widen,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: so they're going to double deck in a certain area.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: And it's a big, big, big project, and there's traffic
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: slowdowns and bottlenecks that occur now because in portions of
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: it we go down from three lanes to two lanes
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: and the narrow lanes, et cetera. The DOT is now
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: saying it's going to take two years longer than expected.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: It was already an eight year project. They started it
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: in twenty five and it was to be done in
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: twenty thirty three. The Unversity administration is now saying it's
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: going to take until twenty thirty five because the problems
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: are there is problems with that. That's nine more years
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: of this. I'm not involved in doing political strategizing. If
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: I was, i'd be good at it. This is an
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: issue for Tom Tiffany. Tom Tiffany needs to vow to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: get this project done on its original timeline and say
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: that he's going to get in there and he's going
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: to make sure that it's done on time. That you
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: can't disrupt this massive artery that not only handles all
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: this local traffic but effect that passes through the region
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: for a decade. It will force Crowley to disassociate himself
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: in a position of his political patron Tony Evers and
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: in terms of Canty deliver on this well. The last
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: Republican governor that we had, Scott Walker himself had a
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: massive and unbelievably complicated project. Again, for those of you
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: not in Milwaukee, we have two really confusing interchanges in
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: our area. One is the Zoo is the is the
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: Marquette Interchange, which is in downtown Milwaukee. You have several
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: different freeways coming together. You have Interstate eight ninety four
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: dead ending from the south, Interstate ninety four coming from
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: the same direction, Interstate forty three converging from the north,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: and Interstate ninety four the heavily traveled road connecting to
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: the two of them, and then a spur line feeding
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: into downtown Milwaukee. Very busy and rather complicated interchange. And
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: they're just stack You're way way ay up in the air.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: The highest one up there is I don't even know
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: how many feet you are up in the air. It's
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: if you like, go out of downtown and head forward
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: the airport. I swear if you look, you can see
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: you can see a cross Lake Michigan. I think you
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: can see New York City, you're so high up there.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: The Zoo Interchange is the one that occurred in the
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: Walker era. The Zoo Interchange was also it's a mess.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing that we have in the Marquete Interchange,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: only you're doing it on the west. This is the
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: other end of eight ninety four, the bypass, and it
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: connects with I ninety four, which is going east and west,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: and then it connects with Interstate forty one that heads
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: north up toward Washington County and eventually to a final
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: lack the Fox Valley and so on. And there's all
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: sorts of stuff right at that interchange. The Milwaukee County
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: Zoo is very close to there, The Wisconsin State Fair
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: is very very close to there, the whole Medical College
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: of Wisconsin complex, the Medical Center, Children's Hospital, all this
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: stuff's in there. And given the incredible population growth in
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: Waukeshaw County, anybody coming from any direction would be going
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: through that interchange the head to the west and vice
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: versa when those people are coming back the other way.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: And the only way to do it again is to
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: stack and wind all these different ramps and all these
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: different freeways, and you have to kind of put them
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: on top of one another because they're all going in
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: different directions. It was a remarkable engineering project. Scott Walker
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: got that project done on time. The journal at the
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: time was trying to claim that he didn't saying that
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: some of the work that was north up toward Wawa
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: Tosa wasn't done. That was never part of the Zoo interchange.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: That's the extension of the rate. He got it done
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: on time. I've been on this issue forever of the
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: State Department of Transportation being too cozy with the road
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: construction firms, of the road builders. There's always these change orders.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: They always come in and say that the thing is
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: going to cost more than it would need to the
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: projects south of Madison on ninety and ninety four that
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: was done during the Doyle administration, that thing was almost
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: double the original cost because the dot was walked all
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: over by the road buildings. They also have a tendency
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: to low ball the costs and low ball the timelines
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: on this thing. And then once they get in, just
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: tell Dot, let's going it's going to take longer. If
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: you have a governor who rides rear end on these people,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: you can get it done. It's a great issue for Tiffany,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: and it's one that a weenie like Crowley will not
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: know how to handle. Just my advice, well, of course
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: it plays well because all my ideas play well with people.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Because they're common sense. There is no I this. By
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: the way, this ninety four widening project is not that complicated.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: We have freeways all over the United States of America,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: and I'll grant you some of them do take forever.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: Indiana has been rebuilding the Frank Burmans Expressway since I
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: was in college. I know that's an exaggeration, but I'm
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: just telling you, I bet right now they're doing construction.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: Other thing. Government projects take the longest time. When those
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: bridges went down in San Francisco, it takes forever. The
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: bullet train that they're trying to build in California, it
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: just like thirty years into this thing and they're nowhere
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: near finishing it. It is something that happens. But this
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: project isn't the building of a new road. The freeway's
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: already there. You have three lanes in each direction already.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: You're just widening. And I get that you're going to
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: stack the freeways and put one up in the air
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: and so on. But it's not the most convoluted, impossible
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: thing that's ever happened in road construction. You shouldn't need
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: a decade for it. You get a decade when the
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: road contractors don't want to work overtime. You get a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: decade when they realize that we can charge for a
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: bunch of change orders. You get delayed when the utility
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: companies say, we have to relocate this and relocate that,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: and do it on our own good, fine time, and
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: do it with our own contractors. In other words, when
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: everybody walks all over you. Anybody who's ever had a
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: deal with a contractor on a home improvement project or
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: building a new house and so on knows often you've
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: got to ride herd on these people. So that's my
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: suggestion for a political issue. And that's the end of
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: today's podcast. See you soon.
• 1:18:51
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