"Self-proclaimed political outsider Tim Michels will face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in November..."

"... after defeating his primary challenger Rebecca Kleefisch in Wisconsin's heated GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday. Despite entering the race in late April, more than six months after former Lt. Gov. Kleefisch, Michels rode a surging campaign into Tuesday’s primary thanks in part to an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, who held a rally supporting Michels in Waukesha County on Friday....  While stumping for Michels in Waukesha County on Friday, Trump described Kleefisch as 'the handpicked candidate of the failed establishment, the "RINOs."'...  Evers' campaign manager Cassi Fenili [said]... 'The Republican Party has chosen the most extreme and divisive nominee possible, one that will tell Donald Trump anything just to keep his endorsement... From abortion and voting rights, to gun safety and public education — Tim Michels has staked out the most extreme positions possible, with the goal of dividing our state and pitting neighbors against one another.'"

The Wisconsin State Journal reports.

It's primary day in Wisconsin. What have the GOP candidates for Governor said about the raid on Mar-a-Lago?

Meade said he will vote for the first candidate who condemns it. Going solely by the candidates' Twitter accounts, we have this from Tim Michels, at 8:29 last night:

First 87,000 new IRS agents, now this? The FBI’s raid this afternoon seems more like a political witch hunt than anything else. Republicans in Wisconsin are far too familiar with overzealous prosecutors. Elections have consequences. Vote. https://t.co/PGNOHlCCL2

— Tim Michels (@michelsforgov) August 9, 2022

There's this at 10:58 from Timonthy Ramthun:

"... Democrats, nationally and in Wisconsin, [are] divided over how much to emphasize their own police-friendly credentials and how much to stick to the racial justice movement..."

"... that erupted anew in 2020. [Governor Tony] Evers, for example, has unilaterally funneled more than $56 million in federal funds to law enforcement, a move that enables him to circumvent a legislative maze controlled by Republicans who some Democrats worry are hesitant to give Evers a win in an election year.... But Rep. David Bowen, a Democratic state legislator who represents Milwaukee and is running for lieutenant governor... worried that moving too quickly away from police accountability would sour voters on Democrats who promised change... The National Republican Senatorial Committee recently attacked Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes — one of the Democrats who hopes to challenge Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in the fall — for refusing to say whether he still supports cash bail.... The ad said Barnes 'also refuses to oppose defunding the police.' Barnes’s campaign declined to comment for this article. One of the earliest campaign ads for Rebecca Kleefisch, one of the Republicans trying to unseat the state’s Democratic governor, begins with an image of Kenosha in flames. 'One year ago, Kenosha burned while Tony Evers failed to lead,' Kleefisch says in the ad, at one point walking past a boarded-up business. 'Lives were lost, and small businesses were burned because our governor sided with rioters over the people of this community.' Strategists for both sides say it is too early to predict for certain which issues will be salient in a midterm election six months from now and whether crime will still be a top concern."

From "In Wisconsin, a complex debate on crime foreshadows a midterm fight" (WaPo).

"Wisconsin GOP Suicide Watch/Fantasies about undoing 2020 will help re-elect Gov. Tony Evers."

That headline — for a piece by The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal — caught my eye.

Donald Trump’s delusions about the 2020 election are the gift that keeps on giving—to Democrats.

Rebecca Kleefisch (Wisconsin's Republican lieutenant governor) gets an article in The Weekly Standard.

"Scott Walker's Successor?" Excerpt:

Kleefisch is easily likened to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Fox News featured Kleefisch on a program about “Mama Grizzlies”—a phrase coined by Palin herself to describe GOP women who see their political roles as fighting for the future of their “cubs,” part of what Palin has called a “mom awakening.” The Wisconsin State Journal called Kleefisch “our Mama Grizzly.”

Like Palin, Kleefisch is polished and attractive, with the poise of a broadcast journalist. Both women have been called “Barbies.” As lieutenant governor, her domain is limited to job growth, so she doesn’t talk much about social issues. But, like Palin, she occasionally gets in trouble for making incendiary remarks, like the time she compared gay marriage to marrying a dog. If Kleefisch wants to make it to the governor's mansion one day, she'll need to put comments like that behind her.

Huge turnout at the Racine Tea Party rally yesterday.

And James Norton took some great photographs, including this one of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. And this one of Paul Ryan. (I don't know... I seem to enjoy pictures of right-wingers flinging their hands in the air.)

Here's an article about that rally (which drew about 4,000 people).

Noting the national prominence of the recall election, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan said: “You know what? On Tuesday we save Wisconsin, and on Nov. 6, Wisconsin saves America.... This recall, it doesn’t make any sense ... what governor or legislator will ever take on these reforms if the recall succeeds?”

Ryan also said of Democratic recall challengers Tom Barrett, Mahlon Mitchell and John Lehman: “They’re not even offering another solution. They’re not saying how they would fix our problems a different way.”

Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch — who faces a recall election on June 5th — makes a great joke, apparently by accident..

Christian Schneider reports from a Tea Party rally in Caledonia, Wisconsin:

Kleefisch, who is facing a recall challenge on Tuesday from Madison firefighter Mahlon Mitchell, began her fiery speech by invoking David and Goliath. She likened the “big union bosses from out of state” to Goliath, accusing them of coming to Wisconsin to “pick a fight with David.” Kleefisch pointed out that in the story, David had five stones, then rattled off a number of the reforms Governor Scott Walker enacted, calling them her “stones.”

Pausing briefly, Kleefisch raised her voice, and said, “Our opponents, despite their money and their muscle, don’t have the stones!” After a few seconds of stunned laughs and cheers, she continued. “I was in the middle of a sentence,” she cautioned. “Our opponents don’t have the stones to move Wisconsin forward like you do,” she clarified.

Later, Kleefisch would tell me that her timely pause wasn’t intentional. “I was in the middle of telling a Bible story and people just started laughing. I can’t explain it,” she said.

Did Kleefisch intend/notice her own joke?
	It was totally planned.
	It was accidental but she noticed it and pretended she didn't get it.
	It was accidental and she didn't even get it when nudged to see it.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: I need to expand the permutations of the first option:

Did Kleefisch intend/notice her own joke?
	It was totally planned and she understood it all along and pretended she didn't.
	It was planned, but not by her, and she got it later but pretended she didn't.
	It was planned, but not by her, and she never got it.
	It was accidental but she noticed it and pretended she didn't get it.
	It was accidental and she didn't even get it when nudged to see it.
pollcode.com free polls

"The outcome of Wisconsin’s recall election will not just decide this state’s leanings on matters of budget, taxes and policy..."

"... and the ultimate trajectory of Gov. Scott Walker’s fast-rising political prospects. It will also send a message about a larger fight over labor in this country, and whether voters are likely to reject those who cut collective bargaining rights, as Mr. Walker did here last year...."

A slide show at the NYT about the Wisconsin recall. There's also a long article, but the key text is in the slide show captions, and it's mostly stuff you know if you haven't been avoiding news of the recall. Nice dynamic photo of Bobby Jindal, with Walker and Kleefisch at photo #6. (Kleefisch, who looks gorgeous at the left edge of the photo, is not identified in the caption.)

Pro-Walker signage.

At Saturday's Tax Day rally, as photographed by Meade:



That's actually David Blaska, by the way. (Should we be repurposing the female candidate's name like that? Doesn't it make it harder to bitch about Sly mocking Rebecca Kleefisch?)

I don't know who this is, but I like the composition:



And I like this composition and don't know who this guy is, who looks like he's in more of a relationship with me than he really is:



Meade says I backed up into him, which accounts for the composition.

By the way, lots of people came up to me and asked me if I was Ann Althouse, and I invariably confessed that I was (and am). They all said they read the blog and liked it or thanked me for it, and none of them said "Where's Meade?," which made me realize all the more that those people at those other rallies who come up to me and say "Where's Laurence?" are really creepy.

"I'd like to finish the week without Scott's dick in my ear, but until captain douche-nozzle is recalled..."

"I'll drink and stew and become more resolute in my hate directed at this prick."

A sample of the discourse over in the Isthmus forum, where Madisonians bemoan the newly signed Wisconsin law that repealed the 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act.

MEANWHILE: In the comments section of last night's post "The Democrats' War on Women," a couple commenters engage in sexist wordplay about Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (who, like Walker, faces recall). A commenter referred to "Walker and his 'minions'" and chickenlittle quipped "What about all the filly minions like Kleefisch? Do you want to filet them too?" and leslyn said "How do you filet a filly??" This portrayal of a woman as meat called to mind the infamous Hustler magazine cover (showing a woman's body fed through a meat grinder). I said:

"How do you filet a filly??"

Said, about Rebecca Kleefisch, by a female commenter who probably regards herself as a feminist. That image is one of sexual violence.

You compare an adult woman to a juvenile animal. You refer to slicing into her dead (animal) body, prepping her for cooking.

But the woman you revile is conservative, so maybe you didn't notice.

If you think you are a feminist, you are a fake one, really a lefty or a Democrat, and your partisan politics comes first.

Go stand over there will Bill Clinton.

Leslyn defended herself this way:

Oh for goodness sake, Althouse, "how do you filet a filly" was A PLAY ON WORDS on CHICKENLITTLE'S comment. Which you'd have recognized were you not humorless.

And get off the "feminist" rant already. To use a METAPHOR, you jump both sides of the fence.

My response:

I saw the joke. That is was a joke is irrelevant to my point.

Would you like me to Google "sexist jokes" for you?

Try making racist jokes out in public and see how far "it was humor" gets you.

Picture a filleted young horse. Picture a woman in a similar condition. Picture a particular named woman in that condition.

Now, is that funny?

Remember when Rush Limbaugh portrayed Sandra Fluke as a prostitute and said we should have sex tapes of her on the internet?

How funny was that?

Now... go on with your explanations about why you are really not a hypocrite.

Alternatively, concede. It might be the better option.

Being a feminist is hard. You have to be consistent. Take the challenge.

Sarah Palin weighs in on the Scott Walker recall election.

At her Facebook page:

I look at the far Left’s assault on Wisconsin and I say, “Are you kidding?” As an outsider (albeit an admitted Green Bay fan with family roots in Chippewa Falls), I join millions of Americans watching the political shenanigans in Wisconsin. I am torn between just chuckling at these radical liberal yahoos trying to oust an intelligent administration that is fulfilling its promises, or raising a fist in disgust at people sitting on their thumbs while Governor Walker and Lt. Governor Kleefisch get thrown to the wolves....

In the Wisconsin rotunda, high school students chant "We're with Walker" and drown out the anti-Walker "Solidarity Singers."

I missed this one. It happened last Thursday. I guess I'm not covering the "Wisconsin protests" story with sufficient vigilance! Blah! It never ends. Anyway, tons of teenagers were in Madison for the big high school basketball tournament. They came from all over the state, drastically tipping the political balance. As Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op reports it (and I'm getting to this belatedly, via Prof. Jacobson, via Instapundit):

On Thursday March 15, 2012 the afternoon Solidarity Sing Along was taken over by a large group of supporters from Lutheran High School in Sheboygan...

Shouts of “LHS” and “Stand with Walker” thundered through the rotunda and was met with wide approval from the LHS supporters. One student entered the circle to mock and taunt the singers with dance moves.

Taunting with dance moves! There's video, but it doesn't include the dance-taunt, which I can only imagine. What would it be, some basketball-madness-Walker-loving hula?



Ha ha. I love the way Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op — with its ability to detect dance mockery — fails to notice the students singing along with "Solidarity Forever" and making it horribly off key. Maybe the Co-op thinks the Solidarity Singers are always that badly out of tune. That's so sad for the folks who so diligently gather day after day to sing with their clenched fists thrust aloft.

"Lessons From Wisconsin: What happens when you take on the public sector unions and win? You get a better state."

An interview with Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who's impressively articulate. I was watching this video with Meade, and he said: "That's the next Governor of Wisconsin."