Well, Wisconsin, we've got ourselves a Palin-esque ""Mama Grizzly"" who tweets about minivans and God, uses her self-proclaimed ""kitchen-table common sense,"" writes a fairytale for her online biography and has big hair to match her big ideas. Ultra-conservative former Milwaukee WISN-TV news anchor Rebecca Kleefisch is running for lieutenant governor on the same ticket as Scott Walker.
Haven't heard much about her issues? You're not alone. Since the primaries, the Walker campaign has almost completely silenced Kleefisch and deflected debates, interviews and press conferences.
Judging from the limited information that is available, Kleefisch appears to be an adequate GOP candidate for lieutenant governor.
She is playing off the Tea Party frenzy and can appeal to conservative voters in the Christians-get-your-guns type of way. She is also educated and experienced in communications. She graduated from UW-Madison with a journalism degree and has since worked in marketing, public relations and reporting. Using her previous campaign videos and speeches as evidence, Kleefisch can actually articulate her pro-life, anti-gay marriage, small government positions clearly and interestingly. She even has a unique vision for the historically pointless role of Lieutenant Governor. In her earlier campaigning days, she said if the governor is the CEO, then the lieutenant governor is the VP of marketing, and she would exercise her expertise to promote Wisconsin jobs.
Yet she doesn't have any political experience or realistic leadership roles, unlike Democratic challenger Tom Nelson. She also does not add much to round out the GOP ticket because she is from the same area as Walker and they are both ultra-conservative. On the other hand, Tom Nelson is from Kaukana, a significant distance north of Milwaukee, where Tom Barrett currently resides as mayor.
In her Sept. 30 column for the Isthmus, Alicia Yager pointed out some dramatic shifts in the Kleefisch campaign following her primary election. Now that Walker has teamed up with Kleefisch, however, she is avoiding the public eye entirely. She has refused interviews and press conferences with papers and declined to participate in any of the multiple debates Nelson has proposed. Also, since joining Walker, the content of her ""Issues"" page on her website links directly to Walker's.
Her religious positions are gone and replaced almost exclusively with Walker content. Why would Walker silence his running mate in such a glaring fashion? Either the Walker campaign is scared of the Palin effect that arguably debilitated John McCain in 2008, or the campaign itself do not see eye to eye with Kleefisch.
Either of those realities are threatening and demeaning to potential voters. It is a shady injustice to hide a candidate's issues from the voting public. Refusing to debate or even participate in an interview takes away the public's right to understand a candidate's positions and how exactly those platforms would translate into law. To continue in the race for lieutenant governor without any public communication and still expect support from uninformed voters is cocky and insulting.
Besides knowing the exact issues they would be supporting or opposing, the public cannot trust a candidate whose own campaign does not trust her. If the Walker campaign is worried Kleefisch will appear to be an idiot, make inappropriate comments or growl too loudly as a mama grizzly protecting her cubs, then the public should be worried, too.
The Walker campaign's refusal to support their own candidates and reveal their messages to the public does not hide whatever inadequacies they find worrisome. In reality it highlights them, proving that there is indeed something to hide, and communicates to voters that the campaign should not be trusted.
The only constitutional role for the lieutenant governor is that he or she will take the place of the Governor in the event that he or she is no longer able to serve. Wisconsin cannot afford to offer the possibility of gubernatorial leadership to an inexperienced, hidden and altogether untrustworthy candidate.
Melissa Grau is a sophomore majoring in journalism. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com
