It Was Thanksgiving That Did Hong In

It was Thanksgiving. That much I know. It was that simple.

Francesca Hong's candidacy for Wisconsin governor might have survived her comments about the police--namely, that she favored not only defunding it but eliminating it altogether--and might have managed to flick them aside as an overreaction to the George Floyd tragedy that nobody really believes in anyhow. Maybe, although you know Tom Tiffany, the Republican MAGA devotee', would have included that on every ad on which he would have attacked her (which would have been all of them, owing to the Republican inclination to distract from who he really is and what he really wants). Maybe, if she would have come clean soon after gaining the nomination, which she very nearly did, she might have managed to convince a majority of Wisconsin voters to forgive, if not forget.

Maybe. But not her comments about Thanksgiving. There are very few things that Americans can agree on, even if at the table they're all opening their mouths now only to take in the stuffing and the cranberry sauce to avoid stalking out of whomever's house after an intense, ridiculous argument breaks out between people who are still thinking versus people who stopped as soon as 45-47 took that first trip down the escalator and took them with it. One of them is having Thanksgiving, period.

That's the comment that did her in, trust me. The New York Times is trying to figure out how David Crowley managed to come from oceans behind to defeat Hong,. Predictably, the article is filled with social science and tendencies, including Wisconsin voters who wait until the last minute to figure things out-- which in this particular case, with four other candidates too chicken to call each other out during the waste of time that the Milwaukee Channel 12's debate was the other day, made perfect sense.

No. Forget the polling with the fancy analysis, crosstabs, probability, reliability and other statistical gobbledygook. Hong lost because she wants, and has always wanted, an end to Thanksgiving, that most American of all holidays and chocked so full of culture it practically bursts (including the day after, swelled up with shopping). She didn't mutter it with an open mike, either. She said so online and on record.

Yup. She claims that to be part of her wokeness. Good for her purity. It never occurred to her, I guess, that she should have said something like, "Listen, I think that whole thing is an insult to Natives so I'm not taking part, thank you very much. If y'all want to do it, then fine, but remember what you're doing." You know, give the culture the benefit of the doubt, because turning that around is kind of like climbing Mount Everest with a mule and a six-pack of Gatorade.

I'm guessing--and no polling on that question has been attempted, because pollsters believe themselves to be so superior to the rest of us that such a simple question can be ignored--that uncommitted Democrats took one look at that and thought of Francesca Hong as something of a kamikaze pilot, determined and willing to destroy herself and the Democratic Party.

If you think Tom Tiffany would have jumped all over her comments about the police, think about his next ad, which would have been having dinner at 'Thanksgiving (instead of the picnic table, at which he eschewed his Old Fashioned in an earlier, very stupid ad for a glass of milk, which he didn't raise to his mouth, in an unwitting attempt to demonstrate his 'old fashioned'--get it?--values in the Dairy State) and would have made complete and deserved fun at Hong for forgetting what 'real Americans' appreciate, along with God and family and the Packers, not necessarily in that order. There would have been several spinoffs about that, too, which he would have followed up with because he would have gotten so much Elon Musk money that he would not have needed to count it--which the Republican-loaded Supreme Court has pretty much told everybody never to worry about again.

Crowley isn't immune to Tiffany's needle, either, and not without good reason. He got out of the race, then suddenly redeclared his candidacy about six seconds after the otherwise retiring Governor Tony Evers saw this runaway train heading toward an inevitable disaster that was Francesca Hong. Evers must have called someone to call someone and suggested that if Crowley could possibly be persuaded, he would do his best, at the last possible minute, to give him a badly needed boost and maybe snatch something akin to victory from debacle. You can guess what Tiffany's going to chant now: Flip-flop, flip-flop!

That Crowley only saw the path that he previously said he didn't see before Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez was forced to leave the race when the only financial thing that could have derailed her candidacy actually did--outright theft by her financial chair--was a demonstration of political opportunism that, at least not recently, has not been matched. Not only was that one hell of a good break for Crowley, but also good for the rest of us Democrats, because Rodriguez would have probably finished second in the primary to a victorious Hong, a pyrrhic win if there ever would have been one.

All of this has switched the question completely: From 'Do the Republicans actually think they have a chance?' to "Will the Democrats actually get their act together in time to avoid another embarrassment?'

I have no idea. Crowley has a few things in his favor, though: 

• He's black--yes, hoping to be our first black governor, which is always a double-edged sword because, while it's likely that the blacks will now come out in November, we can count on Tiffany to resurrect race-baiting in a statewide race, kind of like what Michael Gableman did to Louis Butler in the state Supreme Court race back about two decades or so;
• He happens to be the County Executive of Milwaukee County, which any Democrat needing to win needs to carry by at least 62 or 63 percent with a big turnout; 
• He has some momentum going; and
• He speaks relatively well.

How well that plays in the following counties: Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland and Door--the first three at the very top of the state, but with a decent Democratic following and the ones that Evers managed to win in each of his two campaigns, where he barely edged his opponents, including incumbent Scott Walker; the last one a crucial swing county--remains to be seen, but are indicators of how this showdown may go. 

But other questions linger. Will Dane County, oozing with Madison liberals, still come out for Crowley, now that its darling, Hong, has been turned back at the very last second? 

And what about Rebecca Cooke? Can she bring Democrats with her in the 3rd Congressional District race, which she lost by all of two points in 2024, against the closest thing we have to Simon Legree, the sinister, snarling Derrick Van Orden, especially in the Eau Claire area, to help Crowley win a grand slam?

Stay tuned. Let's hope Democrats can celebrate Thanksgiving 23 days later with an extra Brandy Alexander or two, toasting a continuance of rationality in the governor's residence. Almost by default, we still have a chance to have that.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

McRaven, I Said. So I'll Say It Again.

I'm going to say this one more time. I said it more than four years ago, and he turned down the possibility. He can't turn it down again. The country's in too much trouble.

William McRaven should be our next President. And indirectly, I believe more than one person would agree with me.

One may be Messa Gassen of the New York Times. In an article that ran a few weeks ago she analyzed the  campaign of Peter Magyar, who buried Viktor Orban in a huge upset that will change the dynamics of the political landscape in Hungary, putting an end to "illiberalism," as those ensconced in it will admit. She gave eleven hints about how he did it.

But one caught my attention: it put the other ten into perspective. To wit: "The person best positioned to break the power of [47] would not be an anti-[47] Republican but an outsider to the Democratic establishment, someone who can credibly claim that [47] didn't happen on his watch."

That someone is William McRaven. Hands down. He has consistently turned down any notion of running for any political office, much less the presidency. But it is time for him to come in from the sidelines and re-arrange this country, tighten the ship, so to speak, and bring us back into sanity and something akin to stability.

He hasn't exactly hidden from the public. He's published five books, including his best known "Make Your Bed." He'd served as president of the University of Texas. Beyond that, he's distinguished himself for being a public servant without scandal and without controversy. I'm not sure why that is, exactly, not being a resident of Austin anymore, but I would bet it's at least partially because his rhetoric is moderate and remains that way.

Fareed Zakaria, moderator of the excellent CNN show, "GPS," which gives you the best impression of world affairs you can possibly have (on Sundays in Milwaukee at 9 a.m.), had McRaven on his show not long ago. After an intelligent discussion, Zaharia thanked McRaven and commented that he would like to mention that he was running for president.

That's the impression McRaven gives you: Distinguished, articulate, measured, thoughtful, still in good physical condition (instead of the fat, repugnant slob we have now), and not given to extreme statements. Add to that his largely military background (He oversaw the raid that brought down Osama bin Laden in 2011), and you have a candidate that can withstand the obvious attacks that either 47 or one of his minions will unleash on him.

Some things have to be as true of the USA as was true of Hungary, though: Namely, that people got pretty tired of the enforced drudgery of power, politics and hopeless lies and bombast coming from the top office. Add to that deteriorating conditions everywhere you look: 

• prices going through the roof; incredible incompetence;
•  unprecedented corruption for which 47 should have been rousted from office long ago; 
• a useless new quagmire of a war that could easily have been avoided; 
• wreckage to the reflecting pool adjacent to the Lincoln Memorial and the now destroyed East Wing of the White House--symbolic for their intentional disasters; and 
• an elected national leader who cares only for whatever gilded overgloss he thinks will be a permanent addition to his legacy--except his successor, if he or she has any brains, will remove it as soon as possible, at additional cost to taxpayers.

Enough people have to be tired enough of this wretched excess. But first, we must reflect this collective disgust through the Congressional mid-terms, which will be challenged only if Democrats win control of both Houses of Congress. That there is a distinct possibility that that won't happen, even after the succession of blow-ups and mishaps and horrible judgment now on display, including the continuation of the vapid, piteous capitulation and self-repudiation of Congressional power in order to hang on to nothing more than personal titles, makes this time all that much more amazing. If 47, at no higher approval rate than 34%, manages to survive another challenge to his power without even further expanding it, we will have a potential accumulation of senselessness.

Only someone like McRaven can stand in the way, someone with his stature and presence, someone who will return the presidency to the decency and prestige that it used to have. Can he be urged to run? Who knows?

More to the point: Can a substitute, third-party candidacy suit him best--Lincoln Project, anyone?--one that won't attach too closely to either, emptied-out, banal political party, one without fresh ideas for at least half a century, the other with too many ideas completely out of touch from the vast middle that's still there and wants to be re-recognized? That's probably the best question. 

The 21st Century Catch-22 is that nobody with an ounce of sense in them would even consider running for president about now, except that's what we desperately need in huge quantities. The country is increasingly ungovernable; I have said so in this blog more than once. It calls for a Democrat with a firm hand, who will put down any incipient uprising that's likely to happen should Republicans lose the office, as much as they'll try cheating, massive lies and deceptions, and perhaps more violence to keep it. One more time: William McRaven fits the bill. He may be the only one who does.

My connections with real pols has faded through the years, and not for bad reasons: I've watched this disaster develop step-by-step, while being another, less prestigious, futile squeaking in the wind. Nobody's listening to me, either. But, since I'm a little (!) healthier now, I'm going to reach out to whatever connections I might have left and see whether, eventually (but it needs to be pretty soon to get machinery started), someone can contact Admiral McRaven and get an audience with him. I'm available, but I don't need it. The country does.

Maybe he's already been approached. Maybe that's already been unsuccessful. I don't know. But it won't hurt anything to find out.

High-minded? Sure. Far-fetched? Perhaps. Worth a shot? Hell, anything is by this time. I'll let you know if I get any meaningful attention and/or connection.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark