Sarah Godlewski, the EMILY's List candidate for the Wisconsin Senate seat, caught my attention this week when she-- and the other multimillionaire in the race, Alex Lasry-- both came out against Medicare-for-All at an online candidates forum. She's apparently written off the progressive vote and was too busy tending to her millions to have paid attention when Bernie beat Hillary in the 2016 Wisconsin primary 56.6% to 43.1%, winning 71 of Wisconsin's 72 counties. In 36 counties, Bernie didn't just beat Hillary, he also garnered more votes than Trump. And in bright blue Dane County, election day should have caught everyone's attention:
Bernie- 102,585
Hillary- 61,072
Ted Cruz- 26,320
Trumpanzee- 20,884
Kasich- 20,055
Anyway Godlewski and Lasry-- the other person who believes he can buy the nomination and who wasn't living in Wisconsin-- have chosen to go with a more status quo-preservation approach in a hope to win over mainstream Republican voters or Reagan Democrats, and hope real Democrats will be split their vote between all the other candidates who either are fighters for or give lip service to a progressive agenda.
Basically, Godlewski, despite EMILY's List efforts to reinvent her, is basically a former defense department contractor/Washington consultant for sleaze ball firm Booz Allen Hamilton and whose husband/business partner, Maxim Duckworth, was banned from energy trading after he was the managing director at Constellation Energy when they paid $245 million for market manipulation in the largest settlement in energy trading history. Godlewski lived outside of Wisconsin for 16 years and returned to start a career in politics. They self-financed the last race to the tune of $150,000.
She's already managed to make herself an enemy of local environmental groups for her proximity to fossil fuel and corruption. Basically, she's a consultant-built candidate like Alison Lundergan Grimes, Sara Gideon, Cal Cunningham.
Godlewski constantly refers to herself as a "small business owner." That word "small" is absurd and purposefully misleading. Democrats don't want to attack her for it, but count on the Republicans to go right for the jugular. Her $5 million stock portfolio is eye-popping and filled with potential conflicts of interest. Hoping to see antitrust action from the Senate? She owns tens of thousands of dollars in Google and Apple stock. And her opposition to Medicare-for-All can be seen through the prism of huge investments in Abingdon Health, Pfizer, Merck, Humana and other healthcare and insurance stocks.
What "small" businesswoman owns over 10% in more than a dozen businesses as well as 6 rental properties worth millions and is an officer or director on 7 corporate boards?
Bottom line is that she's rich and her whole campaign narrative about being a small-town working mom/small business owner is false. She's a rich person who made her name outside of Wisconsin and came back to run for office.
Last night, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted in a headline that "Ron Johnson's anti-science crusade sets back the drive to vaccinate more people in Wisconsin." Unvaccinated people are still being infected and dying and Johnson is still misleading people about the vaccine. "Instead of encouraging more people to get vaccinated so we can be rid of this plague once and for all," the editors wrote, "Johnson has chosen to use his taxpayer-financed megaphone to draw attention to a vanishingly small number of people who believe they suffered a serious side effect. And he has continued to cast doubts about science, research, masks and other public health measures while promoting 'cures' with no evidence behind them. He is the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s... Johnson’s anti-science views attracted powerful backers. The Koch brothers, whose businesses were heavily invested in fossil fuels, helped launch his political career and backed him for years... Johnson continues to put his own interests ahead of yours. He continues to put himself first and democracy second. And he continues to show why he is not fit to be your senator."
It helps explain why Wisconsin Democrats need to get their nomination right. Big Business' Sarah Godlewski is the wrong person for that, barely any better than the other sad joke in the race, Alex Lasry.
applying logic to WI is a fool's errand. About all you can do is watch whatever insipid result occurs and then say: "well... it's fucking WI"