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6/19/2008
Wigderson: Railing on Jim Doyle
Last week we had a teaching moment on the size of government in Wisconsin. Last Tuesday, in the midst of the flood damage from the worst weather in Wisconsin that any of us can remember, the governor took time out of his day to go golfing with his contributors. It was a fundraiser for his campaign at $1,250 per player.
The temptation, of course, is to make light of the situation. We can wonder at the size of the water hazards the governor faced that day. We can ask whether the emergency phone’s ringing kept interfering with the governor’s concentration while he was putting. We can even speculate if he was using colored golf balls in case an errant shot landed in a flood plain.
I think most of us would agree that during one of Wisconsin’s worst disasters, it was really unwise for the governor to be out golfing with his contributors. And if we caught one of Doyle’s advisors at an off moment, they would probably concede that he shouldn’t have been out there either.
Nobody has suggested something was not properly done by the state government because the governor wasn’t in his office. Of course, we may never know the real answer to that, either. At this point it would be pure speculation.
But we also know it wasn’t proper either. It would be like learning that avid golfer President Kennedy was out on the course during the Cuban Missile Crisis. One would naturally suspect that the government was doing everything it could to handle the crisis, but we would wonder at the president’s judgment.
In the governor’s case, I think it fair to say that not one of his contributors who showed up for that game of golf would have blamed the governor for canceling at the last minute so he could be in his office the entire time during the weather emergency.
But the governor still made time to meet his contributors and play golf. It’s a reminder that while great events are occurring, the constant need of those dependent on the state government for its largesse is really driving much of the state’s agenda. At that moment, when the governor should have been in his office, those seeking favor from the governor commanded his attention.
We’re then confronted with two defenses. I’ll deal with the lesser one first. The governor’s defenders quickly found out that his chief Republican rival Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker was at a golf outing the same day. Fair enough, although we should point out the much more limited position Walker has compared to the governor. Homes in Milwaukee County were not washing away with the river. Dams were not overflowing in Milwaukee County.
The upside to being the governor is that you have the wider authority. The downside is that you have the wider responsibility.
The other defense we heard is that the golf outing is good evidence of the need for campaign finance reform. This assumes that the governor was caught up in impersonal forces that compelled him to be there with his contributors rather than a failure of his character. It also misses the point. If the governor was not there for his own campaign fund, then surely he would have been there raising money for something else, say a 527 organization with the goal of electing bald liberal Democrats as governor.
But the golf outing does confront us with the need to shrink the size of state government. If the lobbyists and campaign contributors have nothing to gain with the governor’s favor, they would have had no reason to be there. It’s the size of the government that creates the demand for the governor’s attention which in turn distracts him just when his state needed him most.
Perhaps the next time a spending bill expands the size of state government, creating more beneficiaries of the state’s largesse, some member of the legislature would be kind enough to shout, “FORE!” as a warning.
James Wigderson blogs regularly at Wigderson Library & Pub.
COMMENTS
It would be like finding out that County Exec Scott Walker was attending fundraisers in Rhinelander and Hayward that same day, while Milwaukee County was hard-hit by the flooding. That is, actually, how Walker spent the day.
xoff (Thu Jun 19 13:02:57 2008)
"It would be like avid golfer John Kennedy was out on the course..." Or maybe like learning that Bill Clinton was with Monica when he was taking important calls?
EMILY MATTHEWS (Thu Jun 19 18:35:20 2008)
Three brief questions:
A) what actions did Doyle take that he shouldn't have because he was golfing?
B)what actions did Doyle not make because he was golfing but he should have made?
C) what state programs should be cut so as to reduce the influence state largesses has on campaign contributers.
Comment: Comparing the Cuban missile crisis to this is absurd, not only in the gravity of each situation and the complexity but in those days communication was obviously very limited. I would rather compare Doyle's response to Bush's during Katrina.
dave allen (Thu Jun 19 19:50:42 2008)
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