Sara Rodriguez for Governor

When I shut down my blog for the summer I noted that I would occasionally comment on the Wisconsin governor’s race.

For Democrats it’s time to choose. For me the choice for Wisconsin governor is Sara Rodriguez.

Rodriguez’s camp has been picking up a little steam lately. She won the straw poll at the Democratic convention (I know — others have won it and gone nowhere). She got the endorsement of the one candidate who has dropped out so far (I know — Missy Hughes’s support was thin). She’s also now been endorsed by former governor Martin Schreiber (I know — his two year stint in that job ended in 1979). And she’s been endorsed by Mary Lang (I know — you’ve never heard of her, but she’s a major Democratic fundraiser). An internal poll found her with a substantial lead (I know — it was leaked by her own campaign). And she’s now being attacked for cozy ties with a major utility (I know — you wouldn’t think that’d be a plus, but it suggests that other candidates see her as the one they need to stop).

But all of that taken together, while far from conclusive, does suggest that practically-minded Democrats are gravitating toward her candidacy.

Two of the other moderates — Milwaukeeans David Crowley and Joel Brennan — just don’t seem to be getting much traction. Brennan might still have an outside chance if his brother-in-law, Exact Sciences founder Kevin Conroy, comes through with a last minute multi-million dollar “independent” expenditure. But it may be too late even for that and there are those who might argue that having a successful brother-in-law is a weak qualification to be governor. The last Wisconsin governor to arrive in office with no previous experience in elected office was Lee Dreyfus, who turned a billion dollar surplus into a billion dollar deficit in only four years.

A fourth candidate, Kelda Roys, is trying to straddle the distinction between moderate and progressive. In fact, last week in a fundraising email (I literally get one every single day) she attacked “timid moderates,” a shot I took to be aimed primarily at Rodriguez.

At this point, it feels to me like the contest is between Rodriguez, Roys and Francesca Hong. As long as Mandela Barnes stays in the race, Hong has only a partial lock on the hard-left. He may take enough of those votes to keep her from the nomination. But if Barnes were to drop out, I think it’s likely we’d have a social Democrat nominee in August and a Republican governor-elect in November.

Roys is a little less risky than Hong, but not by much. She’s a Madison liberal now running flat out as just that. This does not play in Potosi.

Rodriguez is not exciting, but she’s the safest choice. Tony Evers filled that low key role back in 2018 and he won and was reelcted. He may well have served another term had he gone for it again this year. For Democrats there’s a lot to be said for boring.

Rodriguez also has some — admittedly modest — appeal in swing parts of the state. She defeated a Republican for the Assembly in 2020 before joining Evers on the ticket as the lieutenant governor candidate. They won and her presence on the ticket didn’t hurt, though you could make that same case for Barnes.

She did use her four years in that meaningless role productively, laying the groundwork for this campaign by visiting all 72 counties each year and boning up on the issues, though Evers gave her no responsibilities.

Early on in the campaign I spent an hour with Rodriguez over lunch. She had a command of the issues, an executive presence and a friendly yet no nonsense demeanor. I asked her some hard questions and she gave me some straight answers. I’ve also seen her on the stump and she does a workmanlike job. She’s competent and, not that it matters much, but I think she’d do well in a debate. Again, a fiery speaker with a bold agenda is not what I’m looking for. I don’t look to politicians to be spiritual leaders and I don’t look to the government for the answer to every problem.

My conclusion is that Sara Rodriguez, while by no means a sure thing, is my party’s best bet to replace Tony Evers.