Millions of dollars have already been raised. Millions of dollars have already been spent. And as this week’s Marquette Law School Poll shows the overwhelming leaders in the two most high profile races on the ballot in Wisconsin this year are Who Knows and Who Cares.
More than half of respondents to the poll did not have a preference in the Republican race for Governor and the Democratic race for the U-S Senate–even though some of those candidates have been actively running for months–and in some cases–almost a year now. That is despite TV advertising campaigns, press conferences, interstate billboards, stops in cities around the state, and very public attempts to insert themselves in the operations of private sector businesses. Not to mention constant social media trolling efforts of incumbents and primary opponents.
While the “Campaign Season” has grown longer and longer (you could argue that the next cycle begins the day after the previous election), the attention span of the voters has not grown with it. Campaign strategists will swear that running longer will help you develop greater name recognition and build “grassroots” support that will pay off later. What they really mean is that running longer can help you raise more money and that can be paid to campaign strategists for a longer time.
Because of what I do for a living, I am on the email lists of every candidate for almost every seat in the state. And I’m not talking about the “So And So’s Statement on the State of the Union Address” media releases. I’m talking about the actual fundraising emails that alternate between supreme confidence a campaign is on fire and that a candidate is in desperate need of your help or it will all come to an end. Emails in February claimed “Time is running out! We need your donation now!!” You know what was running out? The time before the next round of campaign finance reports.
I will admit, we here in the media love those summaries on campaign coffers. The candidate that has the most money in the bank is immediately crowned the “frontrunner” in that race–even though the numbers can be greatly manipulated. You may recall Democratic candidate for Governor in 2018 Kelda Roys took out a home equity line of credit worth 235-thousand dollars on her Madison residence–and put it in her campaign fund–just to make it look like her numbers were as good as some of the front-runners. She got around 63-thousand votes in the primary election–or about one vote for every four dollars she borrowed (with interest) on her house. And that loan was taken out just a few days after the Marquette Law School Poll had her at 3% support in the Democratic race. In case you are wondering, the Governor gets paid $147,000. I remarked at the time that if Kelda Roys ever issues a statement on “fiscal responsibility” in government, I was sending back an amortization schedule of her second mortgage.
Speaking of emails. Today the in-box is full of releases from those candidates who polled in the low single digits this week. “It’s a wide-open race!!” I’m being told. My donation now “could be the difference between 5% today and 55% in August”. Who knew there was so much hope and optimism in the phrase: “56% of people have no opinion”.
I am most certainly NOT encouraging anyone to pick a candidate now just because the campaigns are telling you this is the time to get on board. There is absolutely no reason to give any thought to an election still more than five months away–when the entire landscape of the economy, global events, and the pandemic will be completely different. And half of the people already out there spending cash like the election is tomorrow will have dropped out.
Let the political machines churn away and pretend that it is always election season. The voters will still have the final say as to when they actually give a rat’s behind.
