Posted on 08/26/2012 11:11:07 AM PDT by Hunton Peck
This week's GOP convention will be a striking testament to the remarkable prominence three Republicans from Wisconsin have achieved in national politics.
Reince Priebus will preside as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
His good friend Scott Walker is among a handful of governors with prime-time speaking slots. And their good friend Paul Ryan will be introduced to the nation as Mitt Romney's running mate.
"It's kind of weird," Ryan told me this summer about their rapid national ascent, a phenomenon Walker and Priebus call the "Cheesehead Revolution."
Is it just weird happenstance that Wiscon sin has in short order produced the Republican Party's most influential congressman, its most impactful governor and its institutional leader?
Does it say something about Wisconsin's fervid political culture? Its rich political traditions? Its shifting partisan balance? Its well-financed conservative infrastructure? Its unusual history of seeding and shaping the modern conservative moment?
Or is it more emblematic of broader trends: the tea party insurgency; the 2010 Republican wave; and the generational phenomenon of audacious post-baby boom conservatives remaking their party?
"Wisconsin is clearly the center of the universe," says Dave Keene, a Wisconsinite, longtime Beltway figure, former head of the American Conservative Union and current chairman of the National Rifle Association.
He's not entirely kidding.
"At the NRA, everybody is from Wisconsin," says Keene. "I sent an email to a friend of mine in the Romney campaign and said they can go into all of the reasons for picking Ryan, but it's clearly part of the Wisconsin takeover of the world."
Aside from the role of pure circumstance, which should never be discounted, here is a look at what the rise of the Wisconsin Three might tell us about state and national politics:
Republican revolutionaries. Ryan and Walker share an aggressive, risk-taking, third-rail approach to...
(Excerpt) Read more at m.jsonline.com ...
Good article. Coming from JSOnline; shocking.
Equally as stunning, they were able to get through the whole thing without using the phrase “reaching out”.
Instead they used the words ‘call, called, talked, met’ and other such non-liberal descriptions of people having a discussion.
It’s not difficult to understand at all. Geniuses. We’re all geniuses. (alright, quit laughing) Except for an area in south central Wisconsin called Mad City and a large city on Lake Michigan where the Brewers play. Even then the burbs surrounding Milwaukee are conservative.
In the words of Pelosi, are you serious? That’s not a serious question.
I live on the Illinois/Wisconsin border, just outside of Paul Ryan’s district. My two cents is that a number of pols in the Wisconsin republican party are more connected to the underlying philosophy of conservatism than in Illinois. The Illinois republican pols tend to be RINOs and are immersed in a culture of corruption.
Wisconsin has a long tradition of political activism. The Republican party was founded in Wisconsin in teh 1850s.
That would be twenty six square miles surrounded by sanity...
Regards,
GtG
The perfection of beer and cheese products.
Some people are convinced that it's aliens
but I think it's kids with plywood strapped to their feet.
“The Republican party was founded in Wisconsin in teh 1850s.”
That is very interesting. It would have made a good line in that column. Too bad the author didn’t do a little more research.
I also like how Ryan points out that it was THE LEFT who made Scott Walker a hero to THE RIGHT.
I think Wisconsin politics are pretty clean too. I think that helps because graft, in all its forms, tends to cement people in place.
And bratwurst. Don’t forget bratwurst.
Mmmm, brats!
Cool!
Watching this all daily from Gnu Yak has been an education in the return to sanity from the uber-liberalism that is the fundamental script of the media and most candidates (giving goodies for gratitude and graft, let alone votes) Having family there and now being an owner of the greatest franchise in Sports, I watch, hoping that the same sanity can be achieved here in the Umpire State. Sadly, however, I do not believe that Prince Andrew will allow anything that does not prepare him to ascend to the Bozo Throne in DC will be allowed to happen here...
Wisconsin rules the nation ping
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
I’m from Minnesota and am so very jealous of Wisconsin right now.
In 2010 we managed to take control of the MN House and Senate for the first time together(!!) since party identification of candidates changed from Liberal/Conservative to Dem or Rep.
Then in the governor’s race, we had an independent candidate who mucked up the election. Tom Emmer, a true conservative and tea party member, lost to Mark Dayton by only a few thousand votes - in spite of the fact that the liberal media managed to dig up a DWI that happened over 20 years previously on Tom Emmer plus an underage drinking charge against one of Emmer’s college age sons (he has 6 sons and 1 daughter). Of course, Dayton had lots of stupid past shenanigans on his record when in the US Senate, but that ever made the pages of the liberal rags or the Twin Cities news stations.
Dayton was not even the endorsed candidate of the Democrats, but using his own fortune and that of his ex-wife, Alida Rockefeller ___, he bought the election. He won the primary and then eeked out a win over Emmer. He always looks rather glassy-eyed, as he has serious emotional problems and was a drinker at one time, plus is on snti-depressants.
As I said, I envy you your governor, and wish we had Emmer here.
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