The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
The Dog Days of Summer have been bringing the heat for thousands of years and this year is no different. Seas boil, wine turns sour, dogs grow mad and humans burn with fevers, hysterics, and frenzies. Amid the tumult the wise raise their eyes to heaven and pray for rationality to return with the cool autumn breeze. When it does how will Wisconsin’s political winds blow?
First, expect support for Democrats to ebb further. They promised a return to normalcy but since they aren’t normal it is no surprise they aren’t delivering on their promise. Democrats still can’t admit they have overreacted to the virus and that their draconian, tyrannical overreactions made, and continue to make, things worse, not better. Science reveals the virus and its variants will continue to spread whether or not everybody is vaccinated, and that it will sicken and kill a tiny fraction of us no matter what we do, or our vaccination status. The depredations of the virus are irresistible and are not anybody’s fault, unless somebody cooked it up in a lab. That is why throughout Wisconsin, save, perhaps, in the citadels of Democrat tyranny such as Dane and Milwaukee Counties, there is little appetite for an irrational return to lockdowns, mask wearing, and vaccine mandates – no matter what the CDC’s coterie of “experts” may or may not recommend (before they change the recommendation). Hectoring and tormenting children under the guise of “stopping the spread” or “keeping everybody safe” is mean, and later historians will undoubtedly denounce such practices as roundly as medieval Chinese foot binding. The longer the Democrats keep it up, and the harder they squeeze the poor people still subject to their depredations, the more tenuous their hold, even in their citadels. Democrats deserve the retribution they will ultimately receive.
Ron Johnson has proven himself to be an extraordinarily courageous truth teller and he should be, and from my perspective will be, reelected if he runs again for the US Senate. Johnson can handle whichever lightweight emerges from the jostling mob of Democrats who hope to challenge him. Whether or not Johnson runs his delay in announcing his decision is helping the eventual Republican nominee for Governor by dissuading the potential nominees for Governor from declaring their candidacies, thereby leaving themselves exposed to merciless press attacks for longer than necessary and spending all the available donor monies paying consultants and bashing one another. There is no reason whatsoever for Senator Johnson to rush his decision. It is fine to keep everybody guessing awhile longer.
If Johnson does run for Senate the race for the Republican Gubernatorial nomination may be crowded. Candidates such as Rebecca Kleefisch, Kevin Nicholson, and Bill McCoshen have given strong indications they will enter the race while Jonathan Wichmann is already there. All these names have strengths and weaknesses and any one of them could, with a bit of hard work and intelligent issue selection, defeat the desiccated bureaucrat Tony Evers. There are undoubtedly other personages attentively watching developments as well. Such reassuring and patient figures are probably even more lethal to Tony than potential candidates who have already been revealed.
If Johnson doesn’t run for Senate some of the potential Republican gubernatorial candidates (whether they have hitherto revealed themselves or not) will peel off to enter that race, or others. All the positive energy and drama will be on the GOP side as it selects, in a high quality, truncated and cost-effective primary season, statewide champions for battle against the Democrats. All the lethargy and futility will be on the Democrat side as they snarl and snap against one another arguing about whether the “Progressive” or the “Establishment” wing of their party is more fanatical in its desire to accomplish objectives everyone else has already rejected, like defunding the police, engaging in reckless and inflationary spending, and teaching masked and miserable children to hate one another as well as their country.
All the signs point toward a smashing Republican triumph in 2022, particularly since a majority are now on guard against traditional Democrat electoral chicanery, and an increasingly large minority are determined to root it out. Too late to straighten up, Democrats! Your days in the sun are numbered.
– Mobley is president of Thiensville.
