Democrats walk a fine line

Last week, while Wisconsin politicians flocked to Foxconn announcements faster than it takes Chris Christie to get in the face of a heckler at a baseball game, some notable holdouts emerged. When asked if she would attend President Donald Trump’s announcement that the Taiwanese company would be pouring $10 billion into a factory near her district, Milwaukee Rep. Gwen Moore waved it off.

“My constituents have no interest in me entertaining the president’s desire to be used as a backdrop in this photo op,” Moore said.

Forget the fact that Foxconn has pledged to create up to 13,000 jobs at an average salary of more than $53,000 per year plus benefits — many of which could go to Moore’s constituents. She simply wanted no part in participating in anything that might benefit Republicans, even if it meant ignoring what may be the single biggest investment by a foreign company in American history.

Moore’s conundrum is one Democrats in the state must face: praising the Foxconn deal means acknowledging it’s a big win for Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Criticize the deal, and you look like you’re a member of the deranged lefty echo chamber rooting against the state’s economic success.

So far the most effective Democratic strategy appears to be, as the kids say, “ghosting” — hiding under your Capitol Hill desk and waiting for all the announcements to blow over. Then, whether the deal works or doesn’t, you can take credit either way.

This appears to be the tack taken by Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who was at the Trump announcement but was not on the stage. While the biggest business deal in her state’s history is hammered out, Baldwin is trying to steer the conversation to literally anything else. On the day of the Foxconn announcement, she did call the deal “a promising opportunity” but also pushed off responsibility for its success or failure, saying “Governor Walker must get this right and make sure this deal works for taxpayers.”

In the meantime, Baldwin’s website contains exactly zero mentions of the Foxconn deal, and, in the past two weeks, her Twitter feed has more mentions of National Ice Cream Month (one) than it does of a high-tech company raining billions of dollars on her state.

That’s not to suggest the Foxconn deal is perfect, or that there aren’t Democrats who deserve credit for helping put it together. Recently, the state has had a spotty record in providing tax subsidies to businesses, and the $3 billion in tax credits and other aid the state has pledged to Foxconn amounts to pushing all of Wisconsin’s chips to the middle of the table. (Walker repeatedly points out that the tax benefits only kick in when the jobs Foxconn has promised materialize. He also added that critics of the plan can “go suck lemons,” which is downright Trumpian for him.)

But attempts from the left to denigrate the jobs being created at Foxconn on the basis that they’re not the “right” kinds of jobs or don’t pay a “living wage” are simply obnoxious. These are the people who would rather see a blight-infested inner city lot remain vacant rather than building a Walgreen’s on the spot.

At this year’s state Democratic convention, Moore unveiled a sign inviting Republicans to “Go to hell.” But by snubbing the GOP lawmakers who made the Foxconn deal happen, she might as well have been saying the same thing to the state that elects her.