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Wisconsin Watershed: Tony Earl and the New Politics of the Democratic Party
Hardcover
Political BiographiesRegional: MidwestUnited States Politics
ISBN13: 9781611866001
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
Published: Mar 1 2027
Pages: 274
Language: English
In 1982, Tony Earl stormed into the Wisconsin governorship with a sweeping victory, rallying blue-collar Democrats around a progressive political platform. Four years later, observers were stunned when he was soundly defeated by conservative Republican Tommy Thompson--not because of any failure as governor, but because, as Dave Cieslewicz notes, the Democratic Party and American politics had undergone a dramatic transformation.
Wisconsin Watershed traces Earl's journey from Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the U.S. Navy, through his years in Wisconsin politics and his single, controversial term as Wisconsin's governor. Earl tackled acid rain, comparable worth, AIDS policy, and tax reform with equal force; he kept American Motors in the state and pulled Wisconsin from a fiscal crisis. Yet voters could not connect his name with his accomplishments. The progressivism that energized new constituencies also alienated the working-class Catholics who had formed the Democratic Party's backbone. It's not the taxes, one legislator explained. It's the desks--the name for Earl's symbolic offices to advocate for Native Americans, African Americans, and women.
Earl refused negative campaigning, and he believed that good policy would ultimately prove good politics. His defeat marked the beginning of the end of an era of civility. Through Earl's story, we witness the Democratic Party's evolution from New Deal coalition to the emergence of a modern campaign culture that values image and anger over good governance.
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Wisconsin Watershed: Tony Earl and the New Politics of the Democratic Party
Cieslewicz, Dave
Paperback
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Cieslewicz, Dave
Wisconsin Watershed: Tony Earl and the New Politics of the Democratic Party
Cieslewicz, Dave
Paperback
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