Democrats Are Going Bland To Beat Scott Walker -- And It Might Just Work
It’s a test of a strategy Democrats could use against President Donald Trump in 2020.
By Kevin Robillard
MILWAUKEE — On back-to-back days last week, some of the most exciting Democratic politicians in the country came to get out the vote in this crucial swing state.
Tony Evers, the Democratic nominee for governor, was also there.
California Sen. Kamala Harris, who has unveiled game-changing proposals on housing and taxes, and made a mark with her questioning of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, kicked off a canvass in North Milwaukee on Sunday. On Monday morning, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — the grandfather of progressive politics, who turned Medicare-for-All and debt-free college tuition into primary litmus tests — came to the city’s branch of the University of Wisconsin.
Evers showed, and spoke briefly, at each event. But he wasn’t the main draw for either politician — both spoke effusively about his ticket-mate, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. And he wasn’t a headliner — Nina Turner, the former Ohio State senator who leads Our Revolution spoke after Evers, and for longer, at Sanders’ rally.
The big Democratic names are still coming — former President Barack Obama visited later in the week, and former Vice President Joe Biden was in the state on Tuesday. But Evers and Wisconsin Democrats don’t mind that their candidate, Wisconsin’s 66-year-old Superintendent of Public Instruction, isn’t the center of attention.
Polls show Evers with Democrats’ best chance ever of defeating Republican Gov. Scott Walker, whose moves to crush unions and subsequent political survival have made him public enemy number one for Badger State liberals. Democratic enthusiasm in the state — helped by opposition to Trump, the presence of progressive Sen. Baldwin on the ballot, and long-standing antipathy to Walker — remains high.
While Democrats in Sun Belt states like Georgia, Florida and Arizona have picked young politicians of color — Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and David Garcia, respectively — as their gubernatorial nominees in hopes of firing up Democratic voters who often don’t show in midterm election years, Democrats across the Rust Belt have instead selected experienced technocrats, and are pitching themselves to swing voters as the solution to America’s political chaos.
“It’s just who I am,” Evers said of his low-key, low-drama, low-excitement style in a phone interview a few hours after his rally with Sanders. “I think people are sick of polarization, and sick of not getting things done.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-bland-scott-walker-troy-evers-governor_us_5bd74093e4b0a8f17efab16c
