Jay Weber Show transcript 2-21-24 8:10am
I had Eric Hovde on, the Madison businessman who has jumped into the US Senate race against Tammy Baldwin.
I gave listeners my take on the race earlier in the week- which is basically-I hope he runs a great campaign against tammy, but the biggest factor related to whether he can win or not- is at the top of the ticket.
Tammy Baldwin has proven, over the years, she is very hard to beat. There are several reasons for that, but she’s a very heavily monied incumbent that the left-wing women and LGTBQ organizations want to protect at all costs-and so- torrents of third-party money always flood her way- and many millions of dollars in donations just ‘appear’ in her campaign war chest every time she’s up for re-election. She never even has to work for it.
And so, it helps that Eric Hovde is a very successful entrepreneur who has built and sold several business ventures over the years.
This is a man with a massive amount of money, who can self-fund his campaign if he needs to-and can at least start out by matching the millions that Tamala already has in the bank.
But he’ll have to run a very good campaign-and keep it close-
And yet- the biggest key to his success or failure is going to be ‘what happens at the top of the ticket’.
His win or loss will hinge on how many people turn out to vote in a Biden versus trump race...and how disgusted Wisconsinites are with Joe Biden.
Here’s the thing about Baldwin’s position, historically: it’s stronger than you might think-and it’s certainly stronger than it should be.
She’s simply an incumbent with a high level of name recognition who has never given voters a reason to have a strong opinion of her-either way- and that’s what keeps her in office.
I’ll predict now that if Joe Biden wins Wisconsin by the normal 25 or 30 thousand votes- that Tammy Baldwin will keep her job.
She only loses if large numbers of Wisconsin democrats are so disgusted and turned off by the Biden era that they either stay home or vote trump.
As I said Monday: in a ‘good’ republican year- Baldwin probably keeps her job.
In a ‘great’ republican year- she could lose it.
I hope Hovde runs a great race against her and gets in some shots that rock the voter’s perceptions of her...but she’s not going to be easy to beat.
I think it’s significant that -of all the available possibilities when it came to ‘finding someone to take on Baldwin’.... the national republican senatorial committee sought out Hovde.
It will help him that he’s got immediate -and early- support, advice, and intra-party promotion from Mitch’s political apparatus that’s run out of the senate.
I’ve been watching and covering Tammy Baldwin’s political career since she was 26 and i was about 20.
I’ve watched decades of Marquette polls measure her popularity as a u-s congressman and senator. And I’ve never seen her at even 50 percent support, on paper. That 42 percent approval rating is about where Baldwin is sitting-in every Marquette poll-regardless of the year- (at least by my recollection)
But she always wins her races.
She gets re-elected every time she’s on the ballot and she has never had a great approval rating. I’ve had plenty of time to study it, and it has got to be because she ‘does nothing’ and ‘says nothing’ and gives voters no reason to either like her or hate her.
That’s my established theory.
Tammy learned well from watching Herb Kohl: if you want the title and the elevated status. If you want to be a long-time Wisconsin senator with access to the senate dining room and the trappings of an important job.... just...do nothing. Float along. Take no positions. Draw no attention to yourself.
It makes you-absolutely useless-to the people you are pretending to represent- but that’s the way you do it.
And that’s the way tammy Baldwin has done it: she has been an -absolutely useless-senator and congressmen for the people in the great state of Wisconsin....and the masses of voters who don’t know any better just keep re-electing her.
I understand that-by now- some audience members are saying ‘you’ve got an unnatural hang up when it comes to Tammy Baldwin, Jay. Did she reject you once, when you asked her out for a date in college, or what?’
Did she mistake you for a lesbian that time you had a bad haircut, and ask-you? -out? Or what?
Nope. I’ve had very few interactions with her, overall, and haven’t covered her since she was a useless Madison alderwoman and county board member.
I’ve simply watched her career, as i have any other politician, and have found her particularly irksome, given how staggeringly useless she is, and how she’s managed to run this 30 year grift on the voters of Wisconsin. A group of people-and a state-that i love.
Having Baldwin as a congressman or senator-has been as good as having -no second senator- for this state, at all.
I went thru some of this the other morning, but for the audience listening at a different time, I’ll run thru it again: the ways in which Tammy Baldwin is a complete waste of space-and skin.
Most lawmakers at least have a pet issue or some passion for the job. Tammy doesn’t.
She’s never had a pet issue, a pet project, a specific or personal passion for legislation that she went to Washington DC to pass.
And that includes the gay and lesbian stuff.
Look back: Tammy Baldwin hasn’t led on any of it, even though she’s been elected to office repeatedly by wearing her sexual orientation on her sleeve and insisting she’s bringing a lesbian voice to the discussion.
No, she doesn’t.
She’ll have her staff slap her name on any LGBTIQQ legislation that others dream up. She’ll meet and kibitz with all the right activist groups. But tammy Baldwin hasn’t led-on anything-over the years.
She also feels zero need to be accountable to the people of Wisconsin. I said this the other day, and it seemed to surprise even some media people:
Folks, with rare exception, Tammy Baldwin does not accept, or do, interviews. She has no opinion to offer-ever- and she’s never ‘top of mind’ for reporters who might want to do the asking.
It’s been remarkable to watch.
She’s been able to get away with simply putting out highly controlled press releases a memo to select media members for two decades. And if a rare controversy related to her ever does pop up- like the Tomah VA scandal that she was alerted to and then hid and did nothing about-
The weak and liberal media in Wisconsin has allowed her run and hide for a few weeks until it blows over.
Tammy Baldwin is never even ‘made to comment’ on anything. Ever. Look it up.
Tammy Baldwin simply sits back. Does nothing. And votes -exactly the way she is told to vote by democrat leadership, and she does. Period.
And she votes the way she’s told on every single matter.
I’ve been following Tammy Baldwin’s career since the mid-80s....when she was a Dane county supervisor and Milwaukee alderwoman.
She was at least ‘more vocal and active’ in those meetings, but as a congresswoman and then senator- honest to God- i have never. Once. Seen Tammy Baldwin vote against her own party...or even make some waves before a vote.
Ever.
On every issue, she votes along with the crowd, and as she’s told by party leaders, and folks, as we move into a new era in which socialists are taking over the democrat party platform-that’s a problem.
Baldwin’s history suggests that-no matter how radical or extreme or anti-American or incantational the ideas that will be coming from a now ‘socialist’ democrat party....Tammy Baldwin will just quietly vote for, anyway.
That. Is a reason to vote Eric Hovde and
That! Is a reason to get this waste of a lawmaker-out of office.
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