Barca is OUT. And it was overdue

Look, it's my birthday week, so I haven't had the time to go into all of the events of the week up here in Fitwalkerstan. But I do have to give a few quick thoughts on Peter Barca being booted out as the leader of the Assembly Democrats.

Barca’s resignation — effective Sept. 30 — came after the meeting in a conference room at the U.S. Bank building on the Capitol Square during which some Assembly Democrats were planning to raise the question of whether Barca should be replaced.

Some members of the caucus have privately expressed skepticism over Barca’s leadership as minority leader.

Last month, Barca was one of three Democrats to join majority Republicans to vote in favor of a nearly $3 billion tax incentive package to lure Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn to southeastern Wisconsin, a project that could bring jobs and research money to his district.

And that mentality right there is why Barca had to go. You can't have your party leader acting selfishly and stepping on the party's message that the Fox-con is an expensive giveaway and sellout of our state's environmental laws. Sure enough, Gov Walker and the Wisconsin GOP used Barca's vote to claim the Fox-con was "bipartisan", making it seem like a reasonable deal (it is not reasonable in any way).


The past is over

Peter is a good guy and often had his head in the right place. But he still operated under a mentality from a previous time where the minority party could work with the majority to come up with a good deal. That is NOT how today's "divide and conquer" GOP plays, and Peter's inability to understand that is why he had to go. I said as much back in November, when I called for Barca to be replaced after the disastrous 2016 elections.

Peter, you did some great things during the Act 10 struggle 5 ½ years ago, but this “let’s work together on solutions” crap needs to be left in the 20th Century where it belongs. The WisGOPs do not care about solutions to real problems facing Wisconsinites, they care about grabbing as much political power and money that they can for themselves and their donors. THE END. And being seen as a contributor to that system doesn’t make you the nice guys in the eyes of a voting public who have a lot of bigger things to worry about than day-to-day politics, and it doesn’t get rewarded at the polls in less-educated, rural parts of the state that Dems need to win back.

Published reports also indicated that a lot of the newer and younger Dems in the Assembly had enough of getting rolled and losing elections, and the Fox-con was the last straw. And it looks like the new leader will be in that "younger" subset of the Assembly caucus.

Oshkosh Democrat Gordon Hintz is emerging as a top pick to lead the Assembly Democrats.

Hintz, a member of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee who had been considering a run for governor, told the Wisconsin State Journal on Friday he is running to lead Democrats in the Assembly — a caucus that has seen its ranks diminish to levels not seen in 60 years....

Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, who served on the Legislature’s finance committee with Hintz until this year, said she would not run and was “excited” to support Hintz. Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, D-Milwaukee, also said he is backing Hintz.

“I think Rep. Hintz is a really bright guy and someone who’s really good at building leaders and engaging talent and I think his ability to identify and grow talent is something that is fantastic,” said Brostoff, who added that he believed Barca was “someone who worked incredibly hard” and was “very committed” as leader of the Assembly Democrats.

Chris Taylor and Jonathan Brostoff are two opinions I take very seriously at the Capitol (in fact, Taylor would have been my first choice for Dem leader, and Hintz a close second). There isn't anyone that has ripped the Fox-con and much of the rest of the regressive GOP agenda with the accuracy and eloquence that Hintz has done in the last 6 weeks.

Those of who you read this blog shouldn't be surprised that I am completely behind the idea of Gordon leading the Assembly Dems. Hintz won't take any shit from Robbin' Vos and the rest of those cyncial, crooked thugs, and he'll be able to relate the Dem position to the public in a more effective (and often humorous) way than Barca ever could.


Let's go kick some WisGOP ass

In the 2010s, you have to have fire and appeal to the voters' guts, in addition to having some charisma and a policy position. Too many Wisconsin Dems think that this is still a debating society, and that "appearing reasonable" and "grabbing consensus" is what enourages rational voters too choose them. This decade has proven that this is not the case, and Dems need to have people who say in public "The crooked Republicans are screwing you and hurting this state."

Gordon Hintz is a great guy to do that, and I welcome the overdue move to change leadership in the Assembly.