Executive Action

"Vemen tzu nemen, un nisht farshemen?"
(Whom to take, and not be ashamed?)
Balalaika, Yiddish folk song

Of course these lyrics refer to Milwaukee County voters who must select  the next County Executive from five candidates  ( Chris Abele, Lee Holloway, Jim Sullivan, Jeff Stone and  Ieshuh Griffin)  on this Tuesday, February 15. The top two candidates from this primary will run-off  on April 5.

Sunday morning, February 13,  the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  endorsed Abele for the job.   The editorial noted that "he has the real world experience of running a business"  and that "Abele hasn't paid state income taxes." (1)   But if his business ventures were successful, would he not have  a state income tax liability?  And if they lost money, is that a good sign for how he would manage the County?   If all the residents of Wisconsin, of whom the vast majority have far less than Abele  (a multi-millionaire), could arrange their financial affairs so as to legally avoid  paying the state income tax, the receipts from that tax would be zero.

 Ironically, the same issue of the paper noted on page 2A, in the Rulings Roundup of the Politifact column,  that   Abele's  claim that  "Property tax exemptions can be granted to small businesses that move into Wisconsin" was "False,"  because the state constitution requires uniform  taxation of real estate.   Politifact  has previously determined  that Abele's  claim that he saved the County $200 million  was also  "False."   It is indeed amazing that the Journal Sentinel would endorse someone whom the paper itself had found  to  have made two major  false claims during a short campaign.

 But Abele is clearly the choice of the City's  downtown Establishment  (Bud Selig, Sheldon Lubar, etc.); he always got invited to the right cocktail parties, joined the right charity boards,  hob-nobbed with the right people and served on the Greater Milwaukee  Committee.   The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a longtime pillar of  that Establishment, could not be expected to reject one of their own just because he paid no tax and lied   twice to win the election.

Chris Abele has spent about $800,000  on the primary, mostly  his own money (that he never had to earn), so he will probably finish first on Tuesday.   Of the remaining candidates,  Stone is the darling of the Republicans, Sullivan of the Democrats,  Griffin of the angry black females  and Holloway of the slumlords.  Stone and Sullivan have both served honorably in the Wisconsin legislature, and Sullivan has also served  in the military.  Both are capable and have good records.    Holloway is the most experienced of all the contenders in County affairs, but  has proved himself a terrible manager.  If  he cannot manage 15 properties without incurring  200 charges of building code violations, I would not trust him with the  $1.5 billion budget of Milwaukee County. 

Since Miss Griffin has neither political experience nor  wealth,  she cannot win.  But her race has not been in vain:  in her next campaign she can run as "NOT the County Executive."
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(1) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 13, 2011, page 3J.

Holloway Channels Pratt

In some respects, the race for Milwaukee County Executive seems like a replay of another election.  Mayor John Norquist resigned in January, 2004, and was succeeded  (on an interim basis) by the black leader of the Common Council, Marvin Pratt, who then sought the office in the  spring  election.

County Executive Scott Walker resigned in January of this year, and was succeeded  (on an interim basis) by Lee Holloway, the black leader of the County Board, who is now seeking the office in a special election.

But there is a twist: under state law, the Chairman of the County Board  appoints  a new Executive to serve until the election.  He can appoint himself; but if he does, he must relinquish his seat on the County Board.  Holloway, in  a master political move, has  appointed  former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt to  this position.   This choice  should virtually guarantee that Holloway will  be a finalist for the job on April 5.   Let's look at a little history:

As alderman, Marvin Pratt was never a racially polarizing figure, like  his colleague   Ald.  Michael McGee  (senior or junior, take your pick.)  He was known as a conciliator, which is how he became  President of the Common Council.  But  as a candidate for Mayor, he used the ambiguous slogan  "It's Time" ,  which presumably meant  "It's time that Milwaukee had a black mayor."   With massive black support, Pratt finished first in the  10-person primary, with 38%  percent of the vote.  Former US  Rep. Tom Barrett came in second, with 32.6%. (1)

Although neither candidate "played the race card" in the  hotly-contested  general election campaign,  a  geographical analysis of the  vote  shows that the contest was highly polarized along racial lines.  For example,  in the  overwhelmingly black Sixth District, Pratt garnered  89% of the vote, while in the  white  Eleventh  District, Barrett took nearly 88.5%.   Barrett won that contest with  86,493 votes (53.5%)  over Pratt, who  received  74,361 votes (46%).  (The other 0.5% of the vote went to write-ins.)

By appointing Pratt  as interim Executive,  Holloway is  capitalizing on Pratt's  popularity with the  African-American population of the City, no doubt expecting that it will rub off on  him in the crucial February 15th primary.  Although there is another black on the ballot in that election by the name of  Ieusha  Griffin (2),  the Pratt connection should be enough to solidify the black vote behind him. 

About 60% of the population of Milwaukee County  lives in the City of Milwaukee, and about  40% of City residents are black, so  African-Americans constitute nearly 25% of the population of Milwaukee County.   If they turn-out on Feb. 15 in the same proportion as whites  (about  35% in my estimation),  and they are solid for Holloway,  he could sail through the    5-candidate primary on  the strength of their support.  My guess is that  Chris Abele will take  the other spot on the general election ballot  with humongous spending on TV ads, which no one else can afford to match.

But unless Holloway can generate  major support from  the County's   Caucasian  voters, he will face a very difficult uphill battle  on April 5.   And for that,  his alignment with Marvin Pratt will not help.
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(1)  Milwaukee Election Commission  Report:  2004-2005.

(2)  After losing her court battle to be identified on the  ballot for State Representative as "Not the White Man's Bitch", she   received only  7% of the vote in November, 2010.

Five for Exec

    Five names will be on the February 15th primary ballot for  Executive of Milwaukee County.  All of them participated in a candidate forum at Marquette University Law School  Friday, January 21.  Questions were posed by four journalists, and an audience of about a hundred other people were present.   Here are my impressions of the candidates:

Lee Holloway arrived early, and spent about 15 minutes shaking hands with everyone in the room.  He lost the primary for Mayor in 1988, but has won every   county supervisor  election he entered since, including an unsuccessful attempt to recall  him.  He is the epitome of a black, urban politician.
Holloway answered most questions by referring to his 18 years on the County Board and his one month as Acting County Executive.  Although he was  very knowledgeable about all the issues, he does not speak well;  he drops final  "g's"  from words ending in "ing" and frequently makes grammatical errors, such as "what you and them have in common."   Holloway blamed his  well-known problems with his apartment buildings on the bad economy,  which  resulted in his tenants' inability to pay rent.  He said he is curing all his building code violations.

Chris Abele, a thin young man with glasses,  long hair, a moustache and goatee looks like a  "computer nerd."   Although very well-informed about county affairs, he lacks the commanding presence one would expect in an executive.  He noted that he doesn't need the job, and will not accept PAC money, if any is offered.  Abele emphasized his independence from political parties, and stressed the need for co-operation between government entities and politicians of different parties. 

Jim Sullivan, tall, muscular  and crew-cut, looks about 19 years old, but is really in his early thirties.  Unlike Abele, he is a partisan Democrat, and lobbed a number of  verbal grenades at  Scott Walker for "8 years of decay and neglect." Although he is supported by former Exec Tom Ament, he declared that the County was already "moribund" when Walker took over.
Sullivan  favors a small county sales tax dedicated to transit cost.   As if to emphasize his youthful appearance, he spoke often about his late father's service in the Coast Guard.  He declined to answer a hypothetical question about whether he would be in this race if he had been re-elected to the State Senate. 

Jeff Stone, a Republican state representative from Greenfield, is also tall, but looks about 40 years old.  Stone stressed his background in business, as well as in the Greenfield city council and state legislature.  Stone promised not to raise taxes. At all. Period.  He spoke well, but is not an exciting speaker.

Ieusha  Griffin, a young black paralegal who won fame last year for trying to run for the Assembly on the slogan "Not the White Man's Bitch",  explained that she did not mean the slogan racially, but only as metaphor for the power structure. ( She is not using the slogan in this campaign.)   Although  she spoke well and showed good command of  financial  matters, she could not cite any experience that would prepare her to  administer the $1.5 billion county budget.

I predict that Holloway will survive the February 15 primary,  mainly on the strength of  the black vote.   If Abele really spends a  million dollars of his own money on the primary, he will probably get through it, too.   Sullivan and Stone both have an electoral base  (Wauwatosa and Greenfield, respectively) and  a party base  (Democratic and Republican, respectively), but I doubt that either one can match Abele in crucial TV advertising.  Griffin cannot  possibly survive the primary, but if she gets more than about 10% of the vote,  she just might be able to sink Holloway into third place.

But even if Holloway comes in first in the primary, I contend that he has too much "baggage"   (which the Journal Sentinel will keep on Page One) to  win over any of the possible rivals  on April 5.