Wall Street Journal: GOP Is Losing Grip On Core Business Vote

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) understands what Wisconsin Manufacturers &  Commerce (WMC) fails to grasp: business leaders have had enough of deficit spending, GGG (god, guns, and gays), and reckless public policy that undermines both infrastructure and human development. 

In a Tuesday, October 2, 2007 article which, unfortunately, cannot be linked, the WSJ notes the disillusionment with a Republican Party hijacked by right-wing ideologues. Tax cuts and spending for fat war profiteers makes for a record deficit and that disturbs responsible business leaders.

Here in Wisconsin we need a coalition of business and labor leaders, consumer advocates and educators to fashion responsible public policy. We will have some troublesome, contentious areas of concern: health insurance and job protection-trade issues. But it's better that responsible leaders, who disagree, deal with these matters than WMC, who can only say 'no,' and 'Wisconsin is a tax hell.'

Disclosure: beginning this month some of my services at Soglin Consulting LLC include working to combat WMC's influence.

Comments

[Stephen M. Leo]

Hey Paul!

I'm an alderman in Middleton (8th district.) I'm a biker, too! Shoot me an email, sometime.

Regards,

Stephen M. Leo

[rag]

I won't go so far as Paul...who seems to be back into that purple haze with most of the posts below...but he's right that the Republican Party has been hijacked by zealots who are out of touch with party principles.

Paul may be old enough to remember 1978 when Miles McMillan declared that the ruling Democratic Party of Wisconsin was "fat and arrogant" and as a result backed the gubenatorial election bid of Republican gadfly Lee Sherman Dreyfus.

Now it seems that both parties in Wisconsin fit that label and there's no real leadership anywhere. Too bad.

If Jim Doyle is as bad as his critics claim, then they ought to be offering up the best and the brightest.