Caffeinated Politics

“Wisconsin deserves better than political campaigns built around fear, racial division and millions of dollars from wealthy … donors,” said state Rep. Christine Sinicki. “This is 2026, we should not be seeing political advertising that relies on images and language that critics have described as racial dog whistles. We’ve seen this playbook before.”

You can’t ignore the racial aims of Tom Tiffany’s campaign ads against his opponent, David Crowley. In late September, Democratic members of the state legislature called out the ads and asked for some common sense moving forward.

A huge difference exists between hard-hitting political advertising and advertising that deliberately encourages voters to view their fellow citizens through suspicion, fear, and resentment. Wisconsin Republican candidate Tiffany’s campaign ads repeatedly cross that line. Whether wrapped in the language of immigration, crime, culture-war grievances, or partisan outrage, the underlying message is often the same: some people should be feared, some communities should be blamed, and some Americans simply do not belong in the vision of the state being presented. I simply resent that attitude. Especially in the 21st century.

Tiffany and his supporters will undoubtedly argue that his advertisements are simply tough, effective partisan politics. Perhaps they are effective with the base of the modern-day Republican Party. But effectiveness is not the measure of decency. Wisconsin voters should ask themselves whether this candidate’s campaign is trying to solve problems or merely exploit anxieties. The easiest path in politics has always been to identify a target, inflame public anger, and promise protection from a manufactured threat.

When Tiffany repeatedly uses imagery and rhetoric that implicitly divides people by race or ethnicity, it tries to normalize a type of politics that treats fellow human beings as caricatures rather than neighbors. We are Wisconsinites, with Midwestern values! And we must reject this type of campaign behavior.

This evening, two of our neighbors (in their early 30s) were talking on our lawn, and one asked out of the blue if there was only one brownie left in a pan and whether either James or I would take it. No, of course not. I suggested we cut it in two and share the last one. But that question and the attitude attached to it strike at the heart of who we collectively are in this state. The ads in this campaign for Tiffany don’t speak to the modern heart of this state.

Years ago, when I managed an assembly primary campaign, I was asked what one thing the candidate should consider that no party hack in the party had perhaps told him. I said that, win or lose, do the things in the campaign that will make you proud when you look in the mirror the morning after the election. NO election campaign is worth sacrificing basic standards of civic decency.

But voters like you and me have a role to play in this issue, too. We must utterly reject this darkening of the skin of Crowley and the racist stirrings of fear as simply this being “how politics works.” It works that way only when citizens allow it. When voters are presented with political ads pushing racial prejudices, they must deal with them loudly at the ballot box in November.