Louis Weisberg from the Wisconsin Gazette has an excellent article about Millie Coby and Laura Manriquez, two “Democrats” who are vying to unseat progressive Democrats with the help of conservatives like Scott Suder and Scott Jensen.
State Reps. JoCasta Zamarripa and Sandy Pasch, along with their supporters, charge that their Democratic primary opponents’ views are more in line with Republicans than with mainstream Democrats.Laura Manriquez, who hopes to unseat Zamarripa in the 8th Assembly District, calls herself a “lifetime Democrat.” But she has the backing of Scott Suder, the right-wing Republican Majority Leader of the Assembly.
Manriquez touts Suder’s support as evidence she can work in a bipartisan spirit to get things done. She denies his Tea Party connections, even though he’s a headline speaker at Tea Party meetings around the state and has consistently voted with Gov. Scott Walker.
Pasch’s leading challenger in the 10th Assembly District is Millie Coby, who filled out a questionnaire for Equality Wisconsin in which she linked gays and lesbians to pedophilia. She refuses to take a stance on choice, and she’s a licensed minister in the fundamentalist Church of God in Christ, as well as a member of Christian Faith Fellowship Church, whose pastor is stridently anti-gay.
Opponents say both Coby and Manriquez are receiving support from the American Federation for Children, a right-wing group that supports a school voucher system giving parents government money to pay private school tuition. Public education supporters like Pasch believe this would decimate the current system by draining scarce funds from already strapped public schools for private and parochial school coffers.
Well, let’s go out a bit further on the Limb here, and see the pattern. Ethnic, economically disenfranchised groups that put forth Democratic candidates ought to be expected to support charter schools, and oppose gay civil rights. So far, so good…
Am I reading this correctly, as the tip of a trend? In plain terms, if We don’t Have Ours Yet, we are not that concerned that Some of You don’t Have Some of Yours.
Well, makes sense from a basic needs point of view, but doesn’t do much for progressive causes at large.
Education is the key here, I think. If one has been exposed to the Great Ideas floating around in the Liberal Culture, one is going to get behind them. The Hispanic and African-American communities are still struggling with how to treat their gay members fairly, and how to best educate their children thoroughly.
Public schools are rightly not trusted to get results for black and Latino kids, yet. It is clear that the achievement gap is happening because of factors like income and intact families, not simply race or ethnicity. Peer pressure to NOT succeed is also a real problem.
Charter schools are NOT the way to go, for the kid’s sake. They are often a chance for adults to profit from, and also program a non-secular agenda, for education of children. Our democracy does not need either of those things. You have to get them on your own nickel, not the taxpayer,s. That is how it was, and should continue to be.
I do find it ironic that, for decades after the Civil War, the “conservative” South voted Democratic because Lincoln was a Republican. Now, conservatives from traditionally liberal ethnic groups are voting and running as Democrats, because the White Power Structure is so Republican, even though their personal political views run contrary to Democratic Party values.
The South went Republican when “Christian” and other social conservatives united with fiscal conservatives. Perhaps it is time for social conservatives of whatever background to find their true party affiliations. Herman Cain and Marco Rubio seem to have no problem with this idea. They both have to run in the party of the Arizona governor, though…ick
I do not make these comments with irony or sarcasm. I think it is right for conservatives to run as such, and progressives to do the same. I could cross over and vote for the least desirable Republican candidate in the Senate primary, but will not do so, because it is not my business to decide who Republicans will have as their candidate. It IS my business to clarify the Democratic field, and parse the details there, because my voting choices and my party’s Caucus are at stake.
MBB
Thanks Zach.
Probably too late, but if Dems could tie American Federation for Children AKA, 1% for screwing the 99%, to the Bradley Foundation, that opens up the possibility of referencing the Bradley Foundation’s funding of the “Bell Curve.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_%28author%29#The_Bell_Curve