Mike McCabe, Democrat (?) for Governor

Mike McCabe, Democrat (?) for Governor
Suppose you’re a Democrat wrestling with which of eight candidates you’d like to support for governor, and you’re looking into this McCabe guy. “Why him?”, you might be wondering. “He spent his early career as a legislative aide to Republicans, has never been a dues-paying member of the Democratic Party, and refuses to take a loyalty oath to support the party’s eventual nominee.”

All true, and exactly why he deserves your support. Ask yourself this: “Do you consider yourself a citizen first or a Democrat first?”

Primary elections are dividers, not uniters. They drive the Democrats toward the bluest, most liberal contenders and the Republicans toward the reddest, most conservative ones. Whichever candidates emerge from this process will have the undying devotion of a fourth of the electorate, the unremitting hatred of another quarter, and massive indifference from the half that’s in the moderate middle. No wonder modern American politics leaves us so fractured and divided.

Mike McCabe is a realist. He knows that third-party candidacies are not only futile, they serve to further fractionate us. That’s why he’s running in one of the major parties, but not as a blind loyalist of it. It’s also why he’ll have broad appeal come the general election, and why he’d govern as a cost-conscious, trans-partisan uniter.

Mike’s #1 issue is getting big money out of politics, whether it’s liberal dollars from George Soros or conservative megabucks from the Koch Brothers. His appeal is to those of us in blue jeans.

In this, he’d follow in a noble Wisconsin tradition. Pat Lucey, a highly successful realtor with a healthy respect for the profit motive, ran and governed as a humane Democrat who promoted governmental efficiency. Lee Sherman Dreyfus, a college chancellor from the liberal world of academia, ran as a Republican and surrounded himself with top-quality advisors who weren’t partisan activists. Wisconsin’s longest-serving governor was Tommy Thompson, a self-described “hick from Elroy” who was able to work with urban Democrats on welfare reform, increased school funding, negotiated firmly but fairly with the state employees’ union, and brooked no nonsense from the extremist factions in his own Republican Party.

We need another governor like this today. Fortunately, one’s available. His name is Mike McCabe.


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The question will arise, and arise in your day, ... which shall rule — wealth or men? Which shall lead — money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations — educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?

— Edward Ryan, Chief Justice, Wisconsin Supreme Court, addressing the UW graduating class of 1873