The Weekly Screed (#695)

A political scene we’d like to see
by David Benjamin

(A proposed script — without talking points — for Mary Burke, Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate, at Friday night’s second debate.)

“Good evening, everyone. I’m Mary Burke. So what, right?

“Most of you don’t know me from a hole in the wall. Even more of you don’t give a woodchuck’s tuchis. And I don’t care that you don’t care. Doesn’t matter.

“Because right here next to me (Let’s give him a hand) is a guy you know all too well. You’ve been stuck with this shmuck for four years, and if you’re not sick and tired, you oughta be.

“Think back, people. Four years ago, Scooter came on TV and pulled the same folksy, aw-shucks, Joe Cheesehead-meets-Father Flanagan routine that you’re gonna see all over again tonight. For a while, we actually fell for it.

“That was then. By now, you should know better. The guy’s not regular folks. He’s rich now, and he wants to be richer. He’s mean, and his friends are meaner.

“Try to remember. No sooner did Scooter occupy the Governor’s chair than he went Jeff Dahmer on every wage-earner in Wisconsin. He attacked public employees, pitted union against union, firefighters against teachers, police against nurses. He turned family reunions into bar fights. He sent out troopers to arrest senators. He took the first steps toward living out the century-old right-wing dream of destroying the public schools. He transformed America’s friendliest state into the cast of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Look around. We’re still bickering.

“And almost half of you out there — I know, I’ve been talking with you. You hate this guy — just hate his guts. You’d rush for your twelve-gauge and shoot the two-faced flim-flammer if he walked in the door. I don’t blame you.

“Yes, but who’s to say I’d be any better? Well, I am better, but you wouldn’t know that without a little research. And most of you won’t bother to do that. But that’s OK, because the point is: You might not know me, but nobody starts brawls at the dinner table over Mary Burke. You might not like me. You might not trust me. We might not agree on anything. But, with me, that’s as bad as it gets.

“I haven’t lied to you about my intentions, demonized your neighbors, ruined your Thanksgiving, stripped your old man’s pension, wasted your taxes on phony charter schools or strip-mined your back forty to help fossil-fuel tycoons frack for gas in North Dakota. I just make bicycles and nobody hates me.

“Hey, even if I’m good for nothing else, won’t it be nice again to have a governor who doesn’t throw people in jail for singing protest songs in the Capitol rotunda? Here’s a promise: When I’m governor, I’ll come downstairs, send the Capitol cops out for coffee and join the sing-along.

“And I’ll stay in Wisconsin. No trips to Manhattan to speak at right-wing (or left-wing) fundraisers, no junkets to Vegas to kiss Sheldon’s ring. No pilgrimages to ‘retreats’ in Arizona to eat caviar and snort Koch. And I won’t be shlepping every week to Iowa and New Hampshire — as soon as this election’s over — so I can pander to Tea Party primary voters.

“You see, I’m running for governor. Right here. In Wisconsin.

“This guy — you must know this — is not gonna stick around unless he has to. Scooter here — bless his power-hungry little heart — wants to be president.

“OK, stop laughing. I know. Considering his record, the idea is just silly. But Scooter’s got the one thing that every tunnel-vision political hack needs. He has richer-than-God friends in faraway places. You know who they are, and he knows how far backward he has to bend at their behest. He knows  — from experience —  how far up their assets he has to shove his nose to get their handouts.

“He knows exactly how much quo he has to pro to collect their quid.

“And that’s the point: To keep Scooter in Wisconsin, doing his job, you can’t afford to pay his asking price. I can’t afford him either, and I’m wealthy. When it comes to dialing for dollars, we’re all way out of Scooter’s area code.

 “As long as King Midas and the Mysterions are Scooter’s first priority, you and I, the people of the once-neighborly little state of Wisconsin, are not his target demographic. He may talk about some fictional little old lady in Eagle River named Agnes living on Social Security, but he doesn’t care about Ag, or Eagle River. He may visit some grubby little non-union tool shop in West Bend and talk about the spirit of free enterprise, but if the owners can’t pony up six figures for his super-PAC before he exits stage-right, he’ll never look back.

“Look at his travel schedule and you can see what’s happening here. Scooter’s moving on. He’ll only hang around this one-horse state if he absolutely has to. And the only way that will happen is if you vote him out of office, crush his pathetic presidential pipe-dream and ship him back to Waukesha.

“Because here’s the scariest thing of all. We all know that if Scooter gets re-elected now, he’ll be running for president in 2016, which will keep him out of Wisconsin for at least a year, maybe longer — leaving our fate in the hands of a lieutenant governor who makes Lucy Ricardo look like a Rhodes scholar. But once Scooter loses — and we all know he will — he’ll be back. He’ll be pissed. And he’ll take it out on all of us.

“As miserable as things were in 2011 when the whole state hit the barricades, Scooter’s revenge could turn out to be even uglier.

“It comes down to this. You might not know me, but you know my bikes. You trust them, because they work. But from this gonif, would you buy a used car?

“Or, to put it in the immortal words of George W. Bush: ‘Fool you once, shame on you, er… me. Fool me again, shame — wait. Um, fool you… no… um…’”