Posted on 07/21/2017 8:24:52 AM PDT by johnk
Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke’s path to the GOP nomination for the United States Senate in Wisconsin just got a whole lot easier, and conservatives across the nation are celebrating.
Popular conservative Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch announced that she will NOT challenge Sheriff Clarke for the GOP nomination next year.
On the heels of Kleefisch’s announcement, millionairess Nicole Schneider also put an end to speculation that she might challenge Sheriff Clarke by leaking the classic line that she wanted “to spend more time with her family.” Schneider was not regarded as a serious candidate beyond the fact that her family’s trucking fortune meant she could have written an eight figure check to self-fund a campaign.
Lt. Gov. Kleefisch went public with her plans two days after Sheriff Clarke declined a Trump appointment to the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC. Clarke’s move rocked Wisconsin’s political class, and made his eventual leap into the 2018 Senate race seem all the more likely.
Liberals criticized the Clarke appointment, announced mid-May, saying it was nothing other than a transparent attempt by Trump to add Federal government experience to the county Sheriff’s political resume in anticipation of his Senate run.
Bush provided that stepping stone for Mel Martinez, whose short-lived HUD appointment took him from a local county office in Florida to the U.S. Senate. Obama did it for Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, who spent ten months as a Treasury Department appointee while the “Progressive Change Campaign Committee” PAC launched its successful “Draft Elizabeth Warren for Senate!” campaign to identify tens of thousands of donors and more than a hundred thousand supporters.
Sheriff Clarke stumped tirelessly for candidate Trump in 29 states, and has been the President’s MOST stalwart supporter since the inauguration. The recent hysteria over Trump’s tweets is but one of countless examples. After enduring months of nasty, below-the-belt attacks from MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough & Mika Brzezinski, President Trump utilized Twitter to defend himself and fight fire with fire. Predictably, Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Susan Collins, and every other establishment Republican responded by publicly criticizing the President.
But not Clarke. Instead of joining that circular firing squad, the Sheriff circled the wagons. Clarke sent out this glorious tweet admonishing them to “stop” criticizing the President and pointed out that it is MSNBC and CNN that are “evil.”
For President Trump to show a little gratitude (and maybe a little favoritism?) in the coming GOP primary by offering Clarke a temporary appointment in D.C. surprised no one.
The surprise was that Clarke TURNED IT DOWN after telling a local Milwaukee radio host that he intended to take the position.
Upon further reflection, Sheriff Clarke undoubtedly realized that an appointment to any position in the Federal government’s Executive Branch would place him under the “Hatch Act.” That statute would forbid him from doing anything political, including the kinds of things necessary to be most helpful to Trump and test the waters for his own Senate candidacy. Gone would be his speeches and rallies, his columns, his podcast, his many appearances on Fox News, and his guest hosting of Sean Hannity’s radio show.
Gone would be his constant Tweets defending Trump, supporting law enforcement, and decrying the damage America’s liberals have done to the black family. Gone would be his courageous warnings to Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to stand and fight and not cut deals with the Left.
Gone would be his magnificent rebuttals to the endless stream of liberal lies and fake news and crazy conspiracy theories about Russians “stealing the election” from Hillary Clinton, and all of the rest of the noxious nonsense that regularly spews forth from CNN and MSNBC.
When Trump visited Wisconsin a few weeks ago, he met with Clarke to discuss the Sheriff’s political future. Following that discussion, Clarke announced he was declining an appointment in the federal executive branch because his “skills could be better utilized to promote the President’s agenda in a more aggressive role.”
Clarke’s latest move is therefore widely perceived as the latest sign that he is dead serious about considering the Senate run, and realizes he can build up political capital far easier by supporting President Trump in the public eye, rather than buried in a bureaucratic backwater of the D.C. swamp.
Like in the Alabama situation with Moore and Brooks, I think I’d like both of them in the Senate.
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