GOP gets dose of 'Wisconsin nice'
A few years ago, researchers at Cambridge University wanted to figure out where the nicest Americans lived so they surveyed 650,000 people from all parts of the country. What did they find? That Wisconsin residents topped the list in nearly every category — from agreeableness to conscientiousness.
Considering that the new Republican Party is being defined by a troika of politicians from Wisconsin, the Cambridge study is good news for the GOP.
Outside Washington, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is now the GOP’s de facto leader. This month, the soft-spoken union-buster has pushed Republican leaders like John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and potential presidential candidates from the top of the political headlines.
Inside the Beltway, while President Barack Obama and Republican leaders punt on big budget issues, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan seems like the only grown-up in the room.
Liberals may hate Budget Chairman Ryan for the austere budgets he authors, but his manner is every bit as unassuming as Walker’s. Then there’s that guy with the funny name who runs the Republican National Committee, who’s also from Wisconsin.
Like Walker and Ryan, Reince Priebus has a mild, Midwestern manner that makes it all the more difficult for Democrats to demonize the chairman of the RNC.
The rise of these Wisconsin conservatives on the national stage marks a new day for Republican politics.
For 40 years, the GOP has been a wholly owned subsidiary of politicos from the Deep South. Flamethrowers like Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove defined the Republican Party in a way that played well in Dixie but alienated swing voters from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore. Toxic personalities inside the party are now being pushed to the side of the national stage by downright dull Midwesterners like Walker, Ryan and Priebus.
If you want to see how “Wisconsin Nice” will shape the national debate in the future, review the past few weeks at the statehouse in Madison.
Walker’s showdown over collective bargaining has created a different political dynamic than the kinds viewed by political observers in recent years. For the first time in a long time, Democratic allies are the ones surrendering the high road in the debate by comparing the supremely bland Mr. Walker to murderous tyrants like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Hosni Mubarak. Also seen in the pro-union crowds was a sign accusing Walker of being a rapist and another painting a gun target over his face.
Like deranged Republicans who concocted conspiracy theories around birth certificates and imagined death panels, these Wisconsin Democrats played into their opponents’ hand. Walker responded to these crazed insults by appearing to be about as temperamentally threatening as Fred McMurray in “My Three Sons."
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