Caffeinated Politics

State Senator Dianne Hesselbein represents a district covering West Madison, Middleton, Verona, Waunakee, and villages across northwest Dane County. She’s also the Democratic minority leader and did not face a primary challenger in August. Nathan Kalmoe is running a write-in campaign against her this November. If she prevails at the polls, she will become the majority leader when the Democrats take back the chamber this fall.

I’m running as a write-in candidate because we need a real progressive representing our values at this critical moment, even as we unite to elect Crowley. My unconventional campaign will turn the general election into the primary we should have had.

I think Kalmoe is sincere and determined to bring positive change to our state. He certainly cannot be faulted for that. What I take exception to is that he seems to brush off the fact that Hesselbein is the minority leader and represents the needs and desires of her entire caucus, a body that elected her to the position.

As I write this column on my front lawn, I look out on the lake and see a canoe with two people inside. The lake is serene and without a hint of a wave. But most days it is a bit choppy. One might imagine a caucus in a larger canoe, bickering about being paddled too far to the right or too far to the left. Hesselbein needs to keep the whole boat upright long enough to get somewhere meaningful. She doesn’t have the luxury, as Kalmoe aspires, to lean into ideological heroics.

Politics is far more than taking perfectly aligned positions and acting as if everything falls into place when all the right boxes are checked. Often a minority leader is the voice of a caucus that can only agree that they are, indeed, the minority. A minority leader must understand and reflect a bevy of issues, from regional interests and ideological gradations to personal ambitions and the occasional legislator who simply enjoys being contrary. Hesslebein must speak for all of them–often at once.

I can see the view from both perspectives, as State Representative Lary (one R) Swoboda was a Democrat from the thumb of Wisconsin. He was elected for 24 years and could have taken more liberal votes, as he had developed a good bond with voters in the rural district. As his administrative assistant, I tried to show him that backing certain legislation wouldn’t undermine voting blocs. The Democratic leadership in the assembly constantly urged him to vote more boldly. But he knew his district and where he felt comfortable, and he governed from there. He was the first Democrat to serve that area in one hundred years, and since then it has been a GOP seat.

In other words, everyone in a political caucus makes up the whole. I fully appreciate this, because I have seen how rural conservatives and liberal urban Democrats need each other to govern responsibly. I tend to drift toward a caucus message tethered to a broad, durable identity where everyone can claim a role. That’s how I see Hesselbein (someone I have never met and who resides in another senate district) working to ensure the caucus is rowing toward the same shore. To use my canoe reference again.