Who’s Behind the Rodriguez Smear?

When I shut down my blog for the summer I noted that I would occasionally comment about the governors race.

It looks like we have the most convincing evidence to date that Sara Rodriguez is the front runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

That evidence comes in the form of the latest story, this one courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that Rodriguez took corporate PAC money before she pledged she wouldn’t. It’s mostly a non-story — but reported breathlessly anyway — because Rodriguez’ pledge was that she wouldn’t take these contributions as a candidate for governor. She took them previously as a candidate for Assembly and for lieutenant governor.

Rodriguez has been getting hammered on this issue for about a week in an obvious effort to prevent her from getting the nomination, which says to me that others have polling showing her to be in the lead.

Three questions arise. First, who’s pushing this story? Second, will it tank her campaign? And third, should anybody care about PAC donations to begin with? Let’s take these in order.

It’s a fair guess that Republican Tom Tiffany’s camp is behind these stories. There’s no question that his campaign leaked a memo this spring which claims that Democratic socialist Francesca Hong would be the strongest candidate against him in the fall because of her “unapologetic and popular progressive views.” The memo was so over the top in playing to the Democratic base that I have to believe it was written to be leaked.

If you buy the argument that Tiffany is messing around in the Democratic primary, then it would follow that he’s behind these Rodriguez stories as well. It’s no secret that Tiffany wants to face Hong in November and a moderate like Rodriguez would be much harder to beat.

So, will he be successful in his attempt to upend Rodriguez’ campaign? Yeah, maybe. This is a potent non-story for two reasons. First, a lot of Democrats think money is the root of all evil in politics — I don’t and I’ll explain below. And second, a lot of Democrats — like me — just want to win in November. If she looks like damaged goods they may start looking for someone else. If moderate voters are split among the three and a half moderates in the race, that will work in Hong’s favor. (Joel Brennan and David Crowley are the other moderates while Kelda Roys is trying to split the difference between the hard-left and the center.)

Finally, does any of this really matter in terms of the kind of governor she’d be? No, of course not. Trying to get money out of politics is a fool’s errand. It’s like water. It’ll seep in no matter how hard you try to stop it. The Supreme Court now takes the not unreasonable view that money in politics is a free speech issue. And Democrats seem to want to ignore the fact that they crushed Republican candidates for state Supreme Court in Wisconsin in two races that each set national records for spending. And don’t forget that Hillary Clinton far outspent Donald Trump in 2016, demonstrating that money can’t buy you an election even against a guy like that.

Frankly, I think Rodriguez should have never made the no corporate PACs pledge in the first place. A better answer would have been: “You want to win? Then why do you want to tie one hand behind your back? You think Tiffany isn’t going to take corporate money? The difference is that I can take their money and still disappoint them when they’re wrong.”

The bottom line is that I have a growing awful feeling about all this. Tiffany has been playing like the Brewers this summer. Just as they’ve played nearly flawless baseball, he’s playing perfect politics. His introductory media has been excellent and his black ops against the Democrats have been brilliant. If he gets what he wants in the August 11th primary, he’ll be set up as the common sense regular Wisconsin guy who milks cows while drinking brandy old fashioneds against the radical socialist from Madison.