Tom Tiffany’s On a Roll. It’s Not Good

Tom Tiffany. (Public Domain).

For months Tom Tiffany seemed to be running a smart, disciplined campaign, highlighted by strong ads. One calling him a “Wisconsin cliché” was charming and funny. Another, “It’s time to send in the dam man,” noted his years as a dam tender to tell us he will stop waste and fraud in government. Tiffany is very good in these ads: He seems natural, down-to-earth and very Wisconsin.

But in his unscripted moments, Tiffany has looked foolish in recent weeks. It’s hard to pick the worst of his stumbles.

On May 14, he appeared on the Dryden Wire podcast and said he wanted an end to the Iran War. “My position is it’s time to wrap up the war,” he declared. Noting that many voters are against the war, he added, “that’s why I say wrap it up.”

Not long after that the House of Representatives voted on a bill to roll back Trump’s war powers. The vote was 212-212, largely along party lines, and the House speaker broke the tie, voting to continue the war. As did Tiffany.

Given polls showing about 58% of voters oppose the Iran War and three-quarters of poll respondents blame President Donald Trump for the resulting hike in gas prices, Tiffany has put himself on the wrong side of a very easy-to-understand issue while looking like a flip-flopper in the process.

Then came Tiffany’s decision to oppose the deal that Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Tony Evers forged to provide a tax cut and hike education funding. This was a classic Republican deal to send refund checks of $300 to single tax filers and $600 to married couples. Republican leaders wanted a deal that incumbent GOP legislators could tout, and sure enough, a Marquette poll later found 80% of voters in Wisconsin favored it.

Tiffany could have waited for Democratic candidates to oppose the deal, which nearly everyone did, and then support the tax cut. He would have had a simple, dramatic way to contrast himself with his Democratic opponent. Instead he convinced a few Republican senators to essentially kill the bill, setting himself up for an independent expenditure ad blaming him for taking away $300 from every taxpayer in the state.

Even worse, he added more fodder for such an ad, declaring Tuesday that “We should return all of the surplus to the taxpayers,” which was exactly what the tax deal proposed (though we’ve since learned the deal would have eaten up the surplus and created a deficit.) All in all, his stand here is confusing at best and could look quite idiotic in an attack ad.

Then there is Tiffany’s high profile as an election conspiracy theorist. He is one of the leading election deniers in the nation and did everything he could to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But instead of trying to put that behind him, he continues to push the issue, supporting the FBI investigations in Wisconsin that are sure to turn up nothing.

But yesterday Tiffany went even further, offering support for the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Trump has created and which could reward the Jan. 6 rioters who tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Critics have called it a “slush fund,” and there has been blowback even from Republicans.

Yet Tiffany embraced the fund, saying, “I would want to take a look at, what was the harm that was done to those victims? If it’s significant enough, perhaps they should receive compensation.”

When asked whether those convicted in the Jan. 6 attack should receive government payments, Tiffany said, “If they were illegitimately harmed, then possibly they should.” He offered an exception for “anyone that harmed a law enforcement official.”

His stand here, along with his vote on the Iran War, will ensure that Trump continues to support Tiffany. But it could be death for him in the general election. He won’t look like a charming Wisconsin cliché, but like a Trump troll, and at a time when 58% of voters disapprove of the president, according to the most recent Marquette poll.

Francesca Hong. Photo from the State of Wisconsin Blue Book.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who has been doing surprisingly well in the primary, got hit by a CNN story citing her support for defunding the police:

“Years after mayors from Democratic cities reversed course on calls to defund police departments,” the story noted, “one of the leading Democratic candidates for governor of Wisconsin is running with a starkly different record: she didn’t just back defunding police — she called to abolish them. And unlike many in her party, she has neither deleted those posts nor renounced them.

“Francesca Hong has repeatedly called for abolishing police departments, according to a CNN KFile review of her social media posts, interviews and statements.

“Hong, a 37-year-old state representative and democratic socialist, wrote on X in 2020 she supported ‘defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.’ She later argued in 2021 that ‘police exist to uphold white supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.’”

The story noted that Democratic candidate Mandela Barnes had in the past made comments supportive of “redirecting or decreasing police funding,” something many cities, including Milwaukee, have at times discussed. But Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson used Barnes’ comments for attacks in his winning campaign for reelection in 2022. Johnson charged that Barnes wanted to “defund” the police, a word Barnes didn’t use and told CNN he didn’t support.

Hong, by contrast, “appears to have maintained previous posts calling to defund or abolish the police,” CNN reported. And offered a convoluted response when CNN asked whether she still supported abolition of the police:

“While I envision a world where public safety is not synonymous with law enforcement, I recognize that this paradigm shift is a very long-term vision and my focus is building systems of care for now and for our future.”

Whew. I don’t think that response will help Hong with most Wisconsin voters.