After losing the February primary to state Sen. Chris Larson, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele apparently decided that the only way he’s going to have a chance to hang on to his job is to go negative against his opponent before the April 5 election.
Now we learn that not only has Abele governed as essentially Scott Walker-Lite, he is now using the strategy of the right-wing Republican political consultant Karl Rove with his campaign. For Rove, it is attack your opponent for your own weakness or attack your opponent on his or her strength. For example, George W. Bush served in the National Guard when he was in his 20s, so Rove attacked John Kerry, who served honorably in Vietnam, as someone who was unpatriotic and unwilling to serve his country. Using the Rove playbook, Abele is, believe it or not, now trying to tie Larson to Gov. Scott Walker. Other than the fact they are both guys who live in Wisconsin, there aren’t many other legitimate comparisons.
So we weren’t surprised when Abele’s newest ad was a hit piece on Larson’s record as a state senator. What is shocking is that Abele is trying to link Larson to Scott Walker—when, in reality, it’s Abele who has worked closely with Walker and Republican legislators who share his agenda.
Abele’s hit piece alleges that Larson supported big banks and Walker’s agenda when he voted for a few bills, including a noncontroversial, bipartisan bill that allows retailers with their own credit cards to write off bad debt that they cannot collect. Larson voted for it in the spring of 2014, along with fellow Democratic senators Bob Jauch, Jennifer Shilling and Kathleen Vinehout. This bipartisan vote didn’t make a blip in the media, yet Abele has dug deep to find this alleged dirt on Larson to use in his campaign ad blitz.
But is Abele right when he says Larson is just a Wall Street-backed Scott Walker crony?
Let’s look at the candidates’ entire records in office and see which one is following the Scott Walker playbook:
- Power grabs: Walker signed into law a bill pushed by Abele, the conservative business community and tea party Republicans that gutted the powers of the Milwaukee County board and gave those powers to—that’s right—Abele himself. Larson opposes Abele’s power grab and wants to repeal it.
- Land sales to insiders: When Walker was county executive, there was always the threat that he would privatize the parks, the airport and other county assets by selling them off to his developer friends. But those rumors became real when Abele became county executive. Walker signed a last-minute budget item pushed by Abele that enables the county executive to sell non-park land with just one other person’s signature and no public debate or competitive bid. That’s how Abele was able to sell nine acres of Park East land to the majority Bucks owners for $1 and why everyone is so concerned that he will sell off valuable land and other assets, including the zoo and the airport, that aren’t zoned as park land. Larson has disavowed these powers and introduced a bill to repeal them and require supervisors to vote on all land sales.
- School privatization: Walker signed into law a bill that gives Abele his own school district that is unaccountable to the voters, which gives him the power to take over struggling Milwaukee Public Schools, fire the teachers and turn over the schools to private charter school operators. Larson rejects Abele’s public school takeover.
- Workers’ rights: Walker’s claim to fame is busting the public employee unions via Act 10. Abele has balanced his budgets on the backs of workers, vetoed a living wage bill for low-paid county employees, and vetoed a small but significant cost of living increase passed by county supervisors last summer. His treatment of employees is so bad that transit workers went on strike last summer for the first time in decades. Larson fought vociferously against Act 10, respects workers’ rights and supports raising the minimum wage.
- Parks stewardship: Walker famously ignored more than $200 million of deferred maintenance in the county’s parks while he was county executive. Abele rejected the five-year parks maintenance plan carefully conceived by his parks director, Sue Black, then fired her and continued ignoring deferred maintenance in the parks. Last summer, he vetoed $5 million for parks repairs, calling the funds “flippant and irresponsible decision-making.” Supervisors overrode Abele’s veto, and now he’s trying to take credit for the funding while he uses it for temporary repairs to the Mitchell Park Domes. In contrast, Larson has supported a 1% increase in the sales tax to pay for parks, transit and other county services so that they will be taken off the property tax rolls and be properly maintained.
- Even worse than Walker: Going beyond Walker’s lack of respect for county landmarks, in an interview with the Journal Sentinel last week Abele derided the beloved Mitchell Park Domes as “McDonald’s-y” and said he’d be willing to tear them down. Larson, in contrast, is trying to preserve the Domes for future generations.
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Looking over their records, it’s ridiculous to say that Larson is a close ally of the Republican governor.
After all of the above facts and many more, it is clear that Abele is not only following Scott Walker’s playbook as Milwaukee County executive, but that as a candidate for re-election, he is following Karl Rove’s strategy of attacking your opponent based on your own weakness. In this case, Abele is trying to cover up the fact that he’s close allies with Walker by accusing Chris Larson of doing the same thing. Don’t fall for Abele’s version of the truth. Chris Abele can try buying ad time to create a false reality, but he can’t change his Walker-Lite record in office.
