H 32°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°A couple weeks ago, Herald Managing Editor Kevin Bargnes stirred controversy with a column about former UW College Republicans Chair Sara Mikolajczak. Bargnes argued Mikolajczak was “bad for UW,” because, among other things, she promoted an agenda of social conservatism that was wildly out of touch with the UW student population. According to the article, Mikolajczak had a nasty habit of making inflammatory statements that gave students the impression the GOP is a far-right party that is hostile to basic expectations of reason.
I, for one, am mourning the loss of Mikolajczak, and anybody who has paid attention to politics in recent years should, too. Frankly, the prospect of a CR chair as careful in her word choice as Crystal Lee is frightening. It means Republicans on campus are trying to convince students they are moderate. Nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t have to go to South Carolina to find a right-wing lunatic in a high position within the GOP. Right-wing lunacy is the guiding tenant of the GOP in Wisconsin.
In the 1946 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, incumbent Sen. Robert La Follette Jr. — successor to the great progressive tradition started by his father, “Fighting Bob” — was defeated by a demagogue from Appleton named Joe McCarthy. Although poor Wisconsin had the misfortune of becoming associated with the briefly powerful sociopath, Wisconsinites were nevertheless shrewd in sending McCarthy to Washington, where he was forced to attack foes too powerful to crush, such as the Army. Had he stayed in the Badger State, you can bet he’d have changed our school colors in an effort to cleanse Wisconsin of its Badger redness.
Of course, such a prospect would not be ludicrously unrealistic if today’s Republicans were in power. Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, the man who Assembly Republicans put in charge of the committee that oversees UW affairs, has made it his personal mission to micromanage the political views of UW faculty. He even pushed for a McCarthyite “code of conduct” for UW employees, including a pledge that they not make anti-American statements. Explaining the policy, Nass’ puppet master — excuse me, chief of staff — Mike Mikalsen, cleared up the controversy with a soothing touch of xenophobia: “Part of the issue is we have foreign-born professors. Those professors say things.” I’m glad he cleared that up.
Of course, crypto-fascism is certainly not restricted to the state Capitol. D.C. Republicans welcome the lunatics we send them with open arms. They appointed Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., to head the House Judiciary Committee, where, among other things, he proposed making indecency in the media a crime and has become the leading voice (outside of Fox News shows) against “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. Sensenbrenner so brazenly flaunts his hatred for the undocumented that he once told a New York Times reporter he uses a machine-operated car wash for his Caddy to avoid the risk of dealing with the undesirables. “[The machine tokens] don’t have Montezuma’s picture on the front of them,” Sensenbrenner quipped.
Badger Republicans who aren’t interested in restricting civil liberties (far and few) over invisible threats nevertheless prove their loyalty to the fringe by ridiculing the ones that actually exist. Extending the system of health care now available to seniors and veterans to everyone is decried as “government takeover” by the GOP’s new point man on health care, Rep. Paul Ryan. If you point out that it’s not government takeover but government competition, he says it’s unfair to private business. You know, kind of like how public schools put private schools out of business … oh.
Even if global warming were written in the Bible, the GOP would find a reason to call it false, just like it has found a convenient reason to ignore every other part of its guiding document besides Leviticus 18:22.
Although Republicans don’t like to admit poverty exists, the record shows their
favorite policy in Wisconsin is prison construction. Gov. Tommy Thompson — considered by many to be a model of Republican moderation — nevertheless pursued a fanatical crime policy that doubled the state’s prison population between 1995 and 2002. Today, Wisconsin spends more than $1 billion a year on prisons, or virtually the same amount that it does on the UW System. The damage has only begun to be undone by Gov. Doyle, who was the spineless attorney general going along with the “truth in sentencing” craze back when it was in fashion.
Within the context of Wisconsin politics, Sara Mikolajczak was about the most accurate representation of the Republican Party you could ask for. At least she was honest. She believed global warming was a lie and was proudly opposed to any type of public health care. Even though her organization didn’t take a position on the marriage amendment, she admitted voting in favor of it. Center-right fiscal conservatism is not an accurate representation of the GOP, as the current CR leaders are attempting to argue. Radical right-wing fanaticism is. It’s just too bad that Mikolajczak isn’t around this year to remind us of that.
Jack Craver ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and editor of a local politics and culture blog, The Sconz (thesconz.com).
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“Bargnes argued Mikolajczak was �bad for UW,� because, among other things, she promoted an agenda of social conservatism that was wildly out of touch with the UW student population.”
Maybe, but so are liberals.
“They appointed Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., to head the House Judiciary Committee, where, among other things, he proposed making indecency in the media a crime and has become the leading voice (outside of Fox News shows) against �amnesty� for illegal immigrants.”
Indecency in the media isn’t necessarily a crime if parents are careful what their kids watch. We college students, however, are adults. Sensenbrenner also pushed the Real ID bill through Congress by tacking it on to a military spending bill. And even Democrats voted for it.
Honestly, most Americans are finally fed up with both Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have had a monopoly on power, a monopoly that needs to be broken ASAP. The overwhelming majority of voters are not party loyalists anymore. They’ve learned from experience what loyalty is really worth.
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Here’s the problem: neither side is reasonable, and neither side can compromise. Shame.
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The image that you are portraying is the image you personally want people to see. To somehow make the argument that all Republicans are in the McCarthy/Nass/Sensenbrenner mold is illogical and downright silly.
Is Olympia Snowe, the senator from Maine, a hard right winger? I doubt it. There are many republicans in congress that can be viewed as liberal republicans. The same goes for the state assembly.
As a republican, I would certainly say that Sara was a poor choice to lead the CRs. And I would certainly agree that her focus on social issues was misplaced. However, I think this article indicates a slight sense of fear from the author. I think he fears that a shift towards a more economic message by the CRs may in fact prove detrimental to the liberal stranglehold that exists on this campus.
UW will always be a liberal place. But maybe Cristal Lee and the CRs new message can help them make inroads.
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11:10 � I think your point would have been right a couple decades ago. Olympia Snowe is a moderate, but she is one of perhaps only two in the Senate (the other one is also from Maine) and a handful in the House. The GOP, like the Democratic Party, used to be more ideologically diverse, but it is not so today.
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2:22
Just because Republicans have united on the health care debate does not mean that there are no differences of opinion among the party’s leaders. It certainly seems right now that all Republicans agree on all issues, but that is largely unfair with health care dominating every headline. There are certainly hard liners on the Republican side, but there are many more moderate players too.
It’s important to understand that politics are being played at our current stage, and Republicans have realized that to be succuessful in 2010, they have to have a rallying cry. They have picked health care as a stand-together issue. But there are still many more moderates than just the senators from maine. John McCain would be one of them (stances on illegal immigration, campaign finance reform are hardly hard right wing stances)
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On a quick read, I won’t disagree with a single statement in here.
However, you should start turning your crosshairs on the democrats, as well. Articles like this reinforce the childish ‘my team is better than yours’ sentiment that plagues U.S. political discourse.
Both sides of ‘the aisle’ are littered with thieves and liars.
On the subject of Mikolajczak: I still can’t get over how she would rather validate the subjugation of women than see a non-Republican President.
http://thecriticalbadger.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/sara-mikolajczak-has-an-oops-moment/
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Bravo sir! A fine piece indeed!
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This isn’t journalism. This is trash. I’m a proud liberal and Democrat and this is just indecent. While I disagree with the Republicans on almost every issue, making such sweeping generalizations and (still?!) attacking a former CR Chair are not only dishonest to readers but it slants Republicans in a way that is dishonest to them. With horrible articles like this being fed to the student body, how do you ever expect there to be honest debate here at UW? Our liberal homogeneity that we seem to have here is nice, sure, but if we really want to educate our student body we should be honest and present both sides, both parties accurately. Not all UW students are poli sci majors and have the benefit of having class discussions where differing opinions arise. Many of us are engineers, nurses, or working towards degrees in more science-related fields and sometimes our only life line to hearing differing opinions are the articles in the Badger Herald. If the Herald won’t stand for the core journalistic principles it reports to have, it is nothing more than a half-assed rag where opinionated undergrads bitch and whine as it were their blog. Geeze Herald, get back to journalism.
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Ahhhhh Jack, practicing your brand of hate speech, as usual. Your venemous hatreds really come through in your gush of verbal vomit and tupitude.
How boorish. How devoid of intellectual honesty.
How utterly pathetic….
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Yes, Republicans suck. But Democrats suck just as much.
Can we just stop the finger pointing?
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Things were going well until 2006 when the Democrats took over both houses of Congress.
Republican Congress and Democrat President seems to work out least badly. Maybe that’s what we’ll have after the 2010 elections.
Even I may vote for Barry HO if that happens - LOL.
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Things were going well because of the Clinton 8 years. Bush was just reaping the benefits. Everyone knows that’s how it works.
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so does that mean things are economically turning up under Obama cuz of what Bush did?
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AHHHHHH!! SARA WAS CRAZY!!! AHHHHH!! WE’RE NOT GONNA STOP WRITING ABOUT IT!!!!!!
Sure seems like she made an impression on you guys. Must mean that she was doing her job well.
To Sara: YOU GO, GIRL! We REAL Republicans wish we could have you back instead of the no-values good-for-nothing moderate in charge now. She won’t be half the success you were and I won’t let her ruin all the great work you did for the campus GOP!
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The same REAL Republicans who endorsed John McCain, who is certainly no true Republican? Face it, the College Republicans, just like the College Democrats, are so out of touch with reality right now that they’re going to do whatever they think their party is instructing them to do.
If the College Republicans really are trying to make a move toward the moderate, well good for them because the majority of the country is moderate at this point in time. But does anybody really think that’s going to make a difference in their endorsements or viewpoints?
As for the Democrats, it boggles my mind how they can pretend to be moderates yet they all have a hard-on for Barack Obama, who was by far the most liberal senator in the US and whose policies border on Socialism. Yeah, real moderate.
This is why I’m so fed up with US Politics. Partisanship has destroyed our government and electoral process, and has divided the US population to levels unseen since the civil war. And unfortunately, this isn’t as simple a geographical split as north/south.
All of you need to stop doing what your closed-minded parties tell you to do and start searching for your own views. God forbid we think for ourselves and actually vote for the candidates that most closely represent our ideals, rather than being drones of the misguided political parties that currently dominate our government.
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Shame on you for your broad, biased, and generalized stereotypes of Conservatives and Republicans in Wisconsin.
You point out that Republicans in general and Sara in specific, gloss over the facts of life and argue what you might consider “complete truths” for the hell of it to make their points. You’re the one who completely ignores that, scientifically, there is less proof of a global warming trend created and caused by, or even significantly sped up by, humans. And I HIGHLY doubt Sara would say no to a health care option that would include reforms but wasn’t government led or funded.
You should really try to at least mimic some SEMBLANCE of balanced, unbiased journalism if you want to be taken seriously.
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This is the opinion section. It’s not supposed to be unbiased journalism.
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I think its time to leave Sara’s legacy behind once and for all. She graduated, the chapter is moving in a new direction don’t be scared. Without a conservative voice in this nation we might as well kiss democracy goodbye. You should be thanking us for sticking up for our views, so you and your friends don’t run so far the other way that this country becomes unrecognizable.
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took me two reads to realize how sarcastic this piece is… now I like it.
Though I have been out of the College Republican sandbox for quite awhile, I still keep in contact with many current and former CRs from both in and out of madison and across the state and country and there was close to a consensus on one think: Sara Mikolajczak was crazy. And yes she did have a nasty habit of making inflammatory statements, that she presented as mainstream republicanism.
I will step in and defend Crystal Lee this far: by any measurement, following Sara she will look moderate and tame but also logical thoughtful and articulate, though all indications are, she’s neither, though she wants to bridge the rift that Micolajczak created during her tenure.
For your next piece I am going to encourage you to take aim at Micolajczak�s �Do as I say Not as I do� moral values.