Uppity Wisconsin

It's a little too early for this sort of bluster, but Speaker Mike Huebsch says Assembly Republicans may refuse to pass a state budget.

Before he leads his party too far down that path, Huebsch might want to touch bases with Newt Gingrich when he's in Wisconsin tomorrow.

Gingrich, you may recall, was the architect of the 1995 shutdown of the federal government, in a showdown with President Bill Clinton.

Gingrich and the GOP were emboldened by a sweep in the 1994 Congressional midterm elections which gave Republicans control.

But Gingrich and Co. overplayed their hand, and, while achieving some of their budget objectives, paid a huge political price for losing the public relations war. Gingrich left government not too long after that disaster.

And Gingrich arguably had a mandate at the time. Huebsch and Wisconsin Republicans, on the other hand, had their heads handed to them in November, losing control of the State Senate and suffering big losses in the Assembly, while Gov. Jim Doyle was re-elected handily.

This does not seem like the time to be making threats and forcing an impasse.

Milwaukeean Perfecto Rivera has a tough assignment: Rounding up Hispanics to vote Republican.

Judging from a report by WisPolitics, Rivera's job is a lot tougher than he realizes.

In its Milwaukee Notes, WisPolitics quotes Rivera as saying Republicans, including Mark Green, who insist on referring to illegal immigrants as "illegal aliens" have alienated (no pun intended) Latino voters.

It says:

Rivera chalked up part of Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green’s loss in Milwaukee to language he was using on the stump to describe illegal immigrants.

“Green lost the Hispanic vote here,” Rivera said. “Had he been able to get another 7 percent of the Latino vote in Milwaukee, we'd have a different governor.”

Something about that didn't quite ring true. Turns out that's because it's not true. Not even close.

"I think Mark Green will be a great ambassador - to whatever country," said Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem).

Green, the ex-Congressman who lost the race for governor last year, will be named ambassador to Tanzania. Maybe Huebsch couldn't remember where Green was going when he gave the "whatever country" quote. But there is actually some logic to sending him to an African country, as the Journal Sentinel notes:

Green, 47, has ties to Africa. He is the son of a South African immigrant, and he and his wife, Sue, spent a year in the late 1980s as volunteer teachers in Kenya, Tanzania's neighbor to the north.

Who says losing doesn't pay? Both Green, the losing candidate, and Rick Graber, who was Wisconsin Republican chair for the disastrous 2006 campaign, have been rewarded with ambassadorships. Graber is ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

There's precedent on the Democratic side of the aisle in Wisconsin. Tom Loftus, who lost a race for governor in 1990, was later named ambassador to Norway by President Bill Clinton.