Mike McCabe: Pessimistic Optimist

Mike McCabe has to be an optimist. Mike’s the head of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, and he is a relentlessly positive person. He has to be, since he spends his professional life pointing out the corrupting influences on our state government, knows about all the ugly, squirming things hiding under the rocks of state politics, and seems constantly enthusiastic that some day real change will come.

His post earlier this week, titled “Damned Either Way”, had a pretty hard edge to it. McCabe echoes the sentiment that basically, we have two bankrupt political parties bankrupting the country.

I’ve said plenty of times in the past few weeks that the wind of change is blowing pretty hard, not just around here, but all over the nation. The Democrats, who control Congress and our state legislature, have failed miserably. A lot of Dems are going to get the heave-ho in a few weeks. But, as McCabe points out, if a recent Associated Press survey is to be believed, the electorate hates the Republicans even more than it hates the Democrats.

So….that leaves….the TEA Party??? No thanks.

Madison television is saturated with some of the most stupid, nasty, negative political ads we’ve seen since the last state Supreme Court election. And in most cases, it’s tweedle dum and tweedle dumber. Russ Feingold has gone negative. Feingold’s challenger, Ron Johnson, who insists government doesn’t create jobs, tells us he’s running for U-S Senate so he can create jobs. Am I the only one who sees the idiocy and hypocrisy in that assertion?

Tom Barrett has some fuzzy-edged magical plan to take us back to the days of milk and honey when Tommy Thompson held forth from the east wing of the Capitol. Scott Walker is going to reduce taxes, balance the budget, and create jobs. (Wait a minute….here’s another Republican telling us the government, which doesn’t create jobs, is going to create jobs.)

McCabe joins the ranks of those who are beginning to wonder if we’ve reached a point when the existing two-party system is no longer sustainable. I think we passed that point some time ago.