Journal Sentinel Swallows Disinformation?

330 Kilbourn, where the Journal Sentinel offices are located. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

James Wigderson is an interesting figure in Wisconsin politics, a longtime Republican who served as editor of Right Wisconsin but became so opposed to Trump and the radically changed Republican Party that he could find no way to continue at Right Wisconsin and shut the publication down.

Today Wigderson writes an often whimsical column on Substack that can be insightful and amusing. His most recent, titled “It’s a Secret Memo,” ridicules a Journal Sentinel scoop that consultants for the campaign of Republican candidate for governor Tom Tiffany had written a memo declaring that Francesca Hong was the Democratic primary candidate they most feared and was the “very probable nominee” to emerge from the Democratic primary.

“We Need To Take Francesca Hong Seriously,” warned the subject line of this alleged memo, “and suggested a strategy for how to prepare for a general election contest against a candidate who identifies as a democratic socialist,” JS reporter Jessie Opoien wrote.

Only someone stoned on weed would believe that Hong was the candidate most feared by Tiffany or that this memo was real, Wigderson wrote:

“Opoien is normally a pretty good reporter, but she doesn’t even put ‘leaked’ here in quotes. Nor does she explain how the memo was supposedly ‘leaked.’

“Did she get the memo from Edward Snowden? Was it left on the photocopier in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom? Was it on Hunter Biden’s laptop? Was it left on a barstool at Wolski’s? Did Ian’s Pizza deliver it? Did it appear in her email sent to her by a Nigerian prince along with news she’s now worth $100 million?

“Was it found in a house with a mouse? A box with a fox? A boat with a goat? A plane or a train? Here or there, or anywhere with green eggs and ham?

“Because the Tiffany campaign would just love to run against Hong, a Madison Democrat and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, who was recently endorsed by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. If they could get away with it, the Tiffany campaign would probably make donations to Hong’s campaign to help her win the Democratic nomination in August.”

In short, Opoien and the JS got snookered, no doubt promised exclusive access to this disinformation intended to convince Democratic voters, whose number one concern is choosing a candidate with the best chance of defeating Tiffany, that Hong was the one causing sleepless nights for Republicans. The paper was so proud of its scoop that it did two stories on this, the first suggesting Hong’s campaign was on the rise, with the secret GOP memo as a key exhibit, and the second entitled “What a leaked GOP memo says about the candidacy of Francesca Hong.”

Wigderson’s eye-rolling answer, I suspect, is one that captured the likely response of both Democratic and Republican campaign operatives.

The secret memo was just the latest example of the Tiffany team’s creation of fanciful campaign memes. Two weeks ago they released a breezy ad with Tiffany saying Democrats like to say he is “too cliché” and then acknowledging he is a Wisconsin cliche who grew up milking cows on a dairy farm and loves “the Packers, Brewers, Badgers, old fashioneds, everything Wisconsin.”

Needless to say, no Democratic candidate has called Tiffany a Wisconsin cliche. An extremist, an election denier, yes. The closest I could find was this from Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Emily Stuckey: “Tiffany is a walking, talking cliché of a D.C. politician.”

Curiously, Tiffany’s definition of a true Wisconsinite doesn’t include rooting for the Milwaukee Bucks. Too urban? The NBA team’s omission is unintentionally revealing.

But it’s an amusing and very effective ad. Democrats underestimate Tiffany at their peril.