McCabe joins crowded race for governor
Reform advocate is fourth to enter Democratic field
MADISON - Government reform advocate Mike McCabe on Tuesday joined an increasingly crowded Democratic field to challenge GOP Gov. Scott Walker next year.
Already in the race: state schools superintendent Tony Evers, businessman Andy Gronik and state Rep. Dana Wachs of Eau Claire. The August 2018 primary will determine who will face Walker that November. McCabe is staking out turf on the left end of the Democratic spectrum, campaigning for “a living wage for every worker, health care for all, debt-free education and job training, and high-speed internet to every doorstep.”
For 15 years, McCabe was the face of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a group that lobbies for having taxpayers finance political campaigns to reduce the influence of special interests. He routinely called out Republicans and Democrats, frustrating elected officials and party staff on the left and right.
His group was influential in banning the legislative caucus staff that performed campaign work on state time. It also helped pass laws that created a public financing system for state Supreme Court races and established the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board to oversee elections and ethics laws — though both those laws were later repealed by Walker.
McCabe left the Democracy Campaign in 2015 and founded Blue Jean Nation, a group aimed at helping everyday people challenge the political establishment. He’s seizing on the same theme with his campaign for governor, naming his website www.governor
bluejeans.com and calling his political committee Commoners for Mike McCabe.
“Now is not the time for same old, same old,” McCabe said in an interview. “I’m running to shake up and transform the political system and get our government working for all of us and not just the wealthy and wellconnected.”
McCabe, who launched his campaign Tuesday at the Clark County farm where he grew up, said he wanted to set a minimum wage as close to $15 an hour as possible. He wants to couple that measure with repealing Act 10, the 2011 law signed by Walker that all but eliminated collective bargaining for most public workers.
He also wants to allow every Wisconsin resident to buy into BadgerCare Plus, the state’s Medicaid program that provides health care to low-income people. “BadgerCare should be there for all Badgers,” he said.
McCabe says he does not belong to a political party but is seeking the Democratic nomination because there are so many barriers to successfully running as an independent candidate. In a picture on his Twitter page, he sports a T-shirt that says: “Neither elephant nor ass.”
State Republican Party spokesman Alec Zimmerman called McCabe a “phony” for decrying the influence of special interests while the Democracy Campaign took money from the foundation run by liberal donor George Soros. He said McCabe would “take our state backward.”
Gronik welcomed McCabe to the race, saying in a statement: “Wisconsinites deserve lots of alternatives to Governor Walker — whose policies have failed miserably.”
Wachs campaign manager Jake Hajdu said by email that Wachs was a “lifelong Democrat” with a record of helping working families.
“Dana Wachs is the only candidate running for governor who can beat Scott Walker,” he said.
Other potential Democratic primary candidates include Milwaukee attorney and former state party chairman Matt Flynn, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin and state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma.