This is an opinion piece.
What’s the big deal with the now-dead Vos recall? The recall effort was being run by a small group of people who are well-meaning. But their misplaced efforts wasted party resources.
They are not the only ones, either. Some people in the conservative movement spend their time chumming the waters to stir up trouble, but they don’t actually produce results, i.e. win elections.
There are some people in the conservative movement in Wisconsin who refuse to compromise and will throw anyone under the bus who doesn’t agree with them 100% (i.e. on all the issues).
On one hand, I can understand their frustration.
The difference is, I’ll call up the powers that be and ask questions, get the real story, and then share those facts with others.
Some people just jump to conclusions and then when shown they’re wrong or ill
advised, they revert to the the Sgt. Schulz syndrome; I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know
nothing!
We all need to be united as a team though, rowing in the same direction, but these types of people love the drama; drama to them equates with progress, but it’s not progress, it’s spinning the party wheels and wasting everyone’s time and resources. As a result, they are actually helping the Democrats and hurting their own party.
We need to be strategic in our thinking. We can’t be playing checkers while the Democrats are playing chess, thinking 4 and 5 moves ahead of us. We need to change our mind set, but admittedly there are a few of these types that are holding us back.
Some people would literally rather lose and be in the minority forever, so long as they have their little power center they can control or be the face of with no results.
For Vos, the recall, which has now failed twice, is a distraction and a waste of time.
Vos says something has to change if Republicans are going to win elections. He sees how Dems stick together; no matter what. It doesn’t matter how bad their leaders are. No matter how stupid crazy Uncle Joe looks, Dems still back him.
But we’ve got some old school types in the Wisconsin conservative movement as a whole who don’t want to change, they don’t want to adapt, and they don’t win elections. They’re more about the show of it. Having a title, a position, and then not doing the work.
Ironically, some people will put in the effort to take down one of their own, but they aren’t taking on Tony Evers instead. (Think of the benefit if these people spent the same resources and energy attacking Evers instead of each other.) It’s really confusing for someone like me. Yeah, we need certain unproductive leaders to be changed out, but not Vos and not during an election year.
Part of the challenge for Republicans is that we vote for leaders, while Dems vote for causes, Vos says, and that is sooo true. But a reverse problem exists here. The people who want to take out Vos will work on a recall to remove a strong leader who made a very wise strategic chess move while they refuse to remove weak leaders who do nothing but talk. (Oh, and believe me, they like to talk.) We have a couple of weak leaders like Devin LeMahieu in the state Senate who won’t stand up and fight for legislation that will help the state and help Republicans win elections.
The reason why Vos refused to push forward with an impeachment of Meagan Wolfe at the
Wisconsin Elections Commission includes two reasons. First, because removing her would likely result in her next in-line taking over, and he is potentially even worse. Second, because the Republicans in the state Senate likely lack the two-thirds vote needed to remove her from office so spending a ton of money, time and resources on an impeachment in the Assembly is a complete, utter waste of time. (They’re two votes short.) Let’s focus our energy on winning the upcoming election instead!
Third, in terms of Meagan Wolfe, the WEC board itself couldn’t decide on new leadership. So the matter then defaulted to the legislature, but the courts ruled that the legislature CANNOT replace Wolfe. Again, why bother?
And by the way, if these people had invested their time in aggressively turning out the conservative vote for Dan Kelly in the state Supreme Court race, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position now.
And that’s my major point, the recall attempt (times two) was a huge distraction from winning – winning elections that matter and determine the fate of everything. But nope, they’d rather focus on an inter-party battle.
It’s just like the maps. Vos had to choose between Evers’ bad maps or risking the Wisconsin Supreme Court deciding on even worse maps. So some people are angry at him for that too, but it was the lesser of two evils. It’s no different than when I support a moderate Democrat in Dane County for election or a progressive-socialist. It’s the lesser of two evils. Of course, some people would say that I shouldn’t donate to either, but that is just not reality and again, it’s not the chess game.
I’m in it to win, not stir the pot. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you got to remove bad
leadership that doesn’t get results in favor of trying new leadership who can win elections.
But there are people in the conservative movement who will sit home and refuse to vote for a pro-life Republican candidate who supports a compromise of 15 weeks with the three standard exceptions, because the candidate isn’t an absolutist on opposing all abortion.
Abortion is murder, and I’m pro-life, but if Republicans don’t allow for 12 to 15 weeks and three exceptions, Republicans will lose elections and then the socialist-progressives will win and they’ll demand unlimited abortions.
We’re in this for the long-game, but some people don’t get that.
Republicans have to learn to take the Democrat incremental approach; gaining a little at a time and then, continuously prying the door open farther each year.
Whereas, some people take the approach that if their leaders are not perfect, if they make one bad decision, it’s off with their heads. In business, I take the approach of making a series of decisions over time; learning from mistakes, then making adjustments, improving and gaining more ground in the long game. If a worker can’t learn from mistakes and self-correct, and they keep doing the same stupid thing, ok then they got go after a few warnings. That’s the difference; winners learn from their mistakes.
Vos says of some of his critics that, while they’re listening (to him or you), they’re listening to prove you’re wrong, not to learn. They don’t want to learn or change their way of thinking, and I’ve seen that in our own county party meetings. My own observation is that some people zero in on one subject – and go all in on that, and it’s almost always a topic that won’t help win elections, like debating the last election. If they would have fought for Dan Kelly like this, they wouldn’t have to worry about election integrity, but now all that is out the door, as the Supreme Court under radical new leadership intends to throw election integrity out the window along with the babies.
Reagan once said that if someone is with you 80% of the time, they’re with you all the time. Politics can’t be a business of absolutism. For example, if a good Republican supports a moderate Democrat in a county like Dane where 80% of the vote is Democrat vs. sitting on the sidelines and letting the socialist-leftist-progressive win against that moderate Democrat, well, that’s the right thing to do. But outside of crazy town (Dane County), many Republicans have the attitude that you can’t donate to the moderate, you have to support no one, but that won’t get moderates in office in crazy town.
Unfortunately, they’ll always be in the (political) minority as a result. Vos says it’s like marriage – if your spouse has to be with you all the time, you’re gonna be a pretty lonely guy. Vos says the time for us to argue about the nuances of public policy is AFTER we are in charge.
Arguing about it before being elected is a waste of time, because you should be spending that time and resources on winning. Or as he puts it in short, “If you haven’t gone door to door for 8 hours day after day, then shut the hell up.” Agreed.
So why am I writing about this recall? Because if the recall had been successful, the new assembly rep would be elected only until the end of this year – when the legislature is not even in session! So the new rep would not even function as a rep, nor really even move into the seat, because there won’t be any legislative actions.
And Vos is up for re-election this November anyway. And this is what we are talking about –
why not spend your time on the primary election for the seat, than to waste your time and
resources on a pointless recall? Remember, I’m told that the Wisconsin Constitution says a
elected official can’t be recalled unless the rep has been in office for more than one year. And then the next year is an election anyway for a two-year term official! So with Assembly seats, the voters get to kick out anyone they don’t like every other year anyway, so a recall is pointless.
Only one person has been recalled in the Assembly in the history of the state and the same
representative won re-election anyway.
Donors want officials to get stuff done; they hate people who can’t get stuff done. Much of the base wants a fight, but they don’t care if Republicans ever win. Just fight, fight, fight. But let me tell you, most Republicans want less fighting, more winning, so stuff can get done, while a few want to die fighting on the hill.
When was the last time you heard a Democrat in the state criticize Gov. Evers? Never. Even
when he signs stuff that is bi-partisan that the Republicans put in front of him, he is never
criticized. Try keeping that mind at the state convention.
Wisconsin Right Now is a news organization focused on covering the news from a conservative point of view, in particular on politics and policy issues through analysis and opinions, and is protected by the first amendment of the United States constitution. WRN and the columnist does not make endorsements of candidates or urge a vote for or against any candidate or issue. On October 18 and November 23, 2023 Donald Trump tweeted out on Trump’s Truth Social account T. Wall’s October 6th column on Trump’s property valuations. T. Wall holds a degree from the UW in economics and an M.S. in real estate analysis and valuation and is a real estate developer. Disclaimer: The opinions of the writer are not necessarily those of this publication or the left!
