Somewhere along the way, however, Democrats decidedthey were far more comfortable in their usual state of disarray.
And as media turned increasingly tabloid, someprominent leaders had prurient details of their personal lives passed aroundfor our entertainment.
Here’s a review of some of the more bizarrepolitical developments of the year.
TheIncredible Disappearing Governor: Gov. Jim Doyle has to take most of thecredit for heading off the Great Democratic Unity Scare.
Doyle’s budget vetoes intentionally alienatedMilwaukee Democrats by blowing apart hard-won agreements on transportationfunding, assistance to the poor and even his own initiatives to reduceincarceration.
He came out foursquare for a divisive proposal totake power over Milwaukee Public Schools away from the elected school board andgive it to whoever Milwaukee’s mayor might be.
Then, when the governor had Democrats and many oftheir most active supporters at each other’s throats, he announced: “Oh, by theway, I’m out of here.”
The MilwaukeeAphrodisiac: While Doyle was dabbling in Milwaukee politics to divide theDemocratic base, the state Republican and Democratic parties suddenly appearedto fall head over heels for Milwaukee’s leading politicians despite thelong-held belief that no Milwaukee candidate could ever be elected governor.
With Doyle leaving an open governorship, bothparties seemed enamored of pitting Republican Milwaukee County Executive ScottWalker and Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett against each other.
The dozen or so voters outside of Milwaukee Countywho go to the polls could tip the election either way.
The Milwaukee Aphrodisiac, Part II: MilwaukeePolice Chief Edward Flynn, whose first year coincided with nationally fallingcrime rates to make him a hero, fell a bit himself by failing to do a properbackground investigation.
Jessica McBride, a local journalist who firstcovered and then married former Waukesha District Attorney Paul Bucher afterhis marriage broke up, seems to have a thing for law enforcement. Flynnpublicly apologized to his wife and family, as well as the community, forhaving an affair with McBride after she wrote a story about him.
Bucher, who once had aspirations to higher office,has learned well how to work the media. For gossips, it’s the gift that keepson giving as new accusations and details keep surfacing.
ZeroTolerance Lives: The peremptory firing of Darnell Cole, president ofMilwaukee Area Technical College, a week after he was arrested for drunkendriving set a horrible public precedent for dealing with alcohol abuse.
Management and unions almost universally agree thatfirst-time misdemeanor drunken driving should be dealt with through employeeassistance and treatment that can change lives forever for the better.
Treating an African-American college presidentdifferently because unions and board members at the school opposed him forother reasons was bad public policy promoting intolerance and unequaltreatment.
Too MuchTolerance: On the other hand, the Wisconsin Supreme Court was way tootolerant of unethical conduct by its own members.
The court previously handed down a reprimandarather strongly worded tut-tutagainst Justice Annette Ziegler for failing torecuse herself as a circuit judge from cases involving a bank where her husbandwas on the board of directors that coincidentally also had loaned her and herhusband $3 million.
Now the court’s on track to issue no punishment atall for Justice Michael Gableman, who was charged by the Wisconsin JudicialCommission with lying in a racially inflammatory ad that helped him defeatformer Justice Louis Butler, the only African American ever to serve on thecourt.
To head off all those pesky challenges for theirunethical conduct, the Gableman-Ziegler majority on the court also votedagainst recusing themselves from cases just because one of the parties may havecontributed millions of dollars to their election campaigns.
SickBusiness: One of the positive developments at the beginning of 2009 wasthat Milwaukee voters in the November 2008 elections had votedwith 69%approvalin a binding referendum to require employers to provide some paid sickleave to employees who get sick.
Since most decent employers already provide sickleave, the common-sense ordinance mainly served to protect the public healthsince an overwhelming number of employees without sick leave work in foodpreparation.
Even as the swine flu pandemic hit Wisconsin harderthan most states, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce went tocourt and used its political clout to get local Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper todeclare the ordinance unconstitutional.
Now protecting the public will depend upon appealingto the Wisconsin Supreme Court where Ziegler and Gableman won’t have to recusethemselves just because business interests contributed millions of dollars totheir elections.
