When Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly defeated his predecessor, one of the people he thanked was Ald. Joe Pieper who walked door-to-door with him campaigning. Reilly talked about meeting the voters and asking for their votes.
Eight years later, I’m sad to report none of the candidates running in my area deserve my vote. Not one of them has bothered to ask for it, even though my wife and I vote in every election. Since my son turned 18, he has voted in every election, too. Yet no candidates have knocked on our door and introduced themselves this year.
So I’m not voting for any of them. If my vote isn’t worth a candidate’s time, they don’t deserve it.
However, there are two local candidates out there that are working to get your votes and deserve them. We rarely endorse candidates at RightWisconsin, but we do make exceptions to the rule. These two candidates are friends of RightWisconsin and would have our support regardless. The endorsements were not solicited by the candidates.
These two candidates are not just good candidates for the offices they are seeking, they are examples of what you should be looking for in your own local races.
Patrick Foy for Stone Bank School Board Member
Note the words “Write in” on the campaign graphic. Foy discovered nobody was running for the school board and decided to step up himself. He is not doing this for the “fame” of being a school board member, he is running because he is feeling the call to serve his community.
Foy is a businessman with real world, practical experience. He has a lot of common sense. He has deep roots in his community. He is conservative.
He is also working for your vote, campaigning door-to-door to win a write-in campaign. Foy’s campaign is registered with the clerk’s office, so this is a serious, legitimate campaign.
What Foy is not is some sort of fringe kook. He is not some transient or perennial candidate for office. He is representative of the values of his community and will bring sound judgment to the school board.
Rohn Bishop for Waupun City Council
When most Wisconsinites think of Waupun, they think of a prison. When Rohn Bishop thinks of Waupun, he thinks of home. Few people promote a love of his community like Bishop. After campaigning for so many other candidates, now it’s Bishop’s turn to run for public office.
Public service isn’t new to Bishop. He is probably best known for being chairman of the Fond du Lac County Republican Party. Despite a tense relationship with the Trump wing of the Republican Party, Bishop was unanimously re-elected chairman because of his commitment to building the party.
Despite Bishop’s well-known public opposition to the conspiratorial factions of the GOP, and his opposition to GOP efforts to overturn the election results, the current establishment in Waupun is trash-talking Bishop in an effort to stop his campaign. They fear that he’ll use a seat on the Waupun Common Council as a spring board for a campaign for mayor.
They have good reason to be worried. Someone with Bishop’s commitment to building a better community cannot be contained. He is taking his campaign door-to-door, asking voters for their support. Bishop knows from being involved in other candidate’s campaigns that the personal approach is the way to win.
Bishop is an occasional contributor to RightWisconsin and an unofficial advisor to our website. Our own experience with Bishop is that he is hard-working, principled, conservative, and fiscally responsible.
He is also someone who is authentically enthusiastic about his community, just as he is about his family and, unfortunately, the Chicago Cubs. He actually makes you want to visit Waupun. Just not while wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.
The public could be served much worse than by voting for #RohnforWaupun.