Wisconsin Soapbox: What A Tangled Web We Weave – Chris Abele Edition

A few days ago Wisconsin Soapbox posted an excellent piece about Milwaukee County Chris Abele that’s worth a read.

Here’s a snippet.

I don’t think Chris Abele is somehow a bad person, or even not a Democrat. The man pays dues and donates a ton of money to the party. (Check the finance reports people.) He’s got a card.

No, my problem with Abele is that when you hold one of the most powerful positions in one of the two epicenters of Democratic politics in Wisconsin, YOU NEED TO BE A TEAM PLAYER. Abele’s good on many, many issues except the one that Milwaukee MUST be the leader on – Labor. Chris Abele is an abysmal failure on labor issues and carrying a Democratic message.

Abele and his supporters play this off as him somehow straddling this fine-line middle ground, which by in large is FRUSTRATINGLY true. But when you’re the County Executive of Milwaukee, that’s NOT what you should be doing. Your job is NOT to cast off labor, but to work with them! Show the rest of the state how to work together with them! Madison is the college-liberal artsy side, we are the working class bread and butter side of the party. You don’t have to cave in to them, you don’t need to bow at their feet, but you shouldn’t be beating them down like a Republican.

Chris Abele is an abysmal failure as a Democrat in my eyes because he doesn’t understand that.

If you want to make changes to the Co. Board, you don’t go about donating to Republican Rep. Joe Sanfelippo and have him eviscerate them through state level legislation while building your own power. That’s NOT being a team player. If you’re a labor Democrat, you realize that board members are working people with family supporting jobs and you’d know how to use them to your advantage, not see the need to break them at the knees. (Oh, and building the Democratic bench…)

The list goes on. If you want to restructure the way union contracts are done in the wake of 2011 Act 10 and save money, you don’t publicly go against every union you have.

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1 thought on “Wisconsin Soapbox: What A Tangled Web We Weave – Chris Abele Edition

  1. Good article, from what I can tell the labor issue is really the top issue in this state. Part of the issue also is not so much Abele, but Milwaukee County gave the state Scott Walker. If the labor movement in Milwaukee County is this weak, I don’t know how state wide change in support of the labor movement is possible. Hopefully activists in Milwaukee County can elect labor movement candidates to office or at least put the movement on Abele’s radar where he will want to be a champion of the labor movement.

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