Because no political race can ever have enough moral posturing, former campaign finance warrior Mike McCabe is running for governor as a Democrat. The Associated Press is reporting:
Mike McCabe filed paperwork with state election officials Monday to establish a campaign committee. The move allows him to begin raising money. McCabe said in an email to The Associated Press he expects to announce he’ll run as a Democrat in September. He had been considering running as an independent.
Even the campaign committee name, “Commoners for Mike McCabe,” was an opportunity for moral posturing.
McCabe told the Associated Press back in May he wasn’t sure if he would run as a Democrat or as an independent. McCabe previously ran for the state assembly as a Democrat and lost.
As the former executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, McCabe was a supporter of – and lobbyist for – every “campaign finance reform” scheme that would limit free speech in Wisconsin.
At Blue Jean Nation, McCabe’s new group, he’s moved even further to the left by supporting expanding eligibility for the state’s Medicaid program BadgerCare to everyone in the state. The organization’s webpage does not say how McCabe intends to pay for the program’s costs. McCabe’s organization also supports free college for everyone and ending private school voucher programs.
The Republican Party of the Wisconsin is already attacking McCabe’s reputation as a campaign finance “reformer.”
“Phony Mike McCabe has posed for years as a reformer while in reality taking money from dark-money heavyweights and secretly practicing the sort of partisan politics he condemns,”said Alec Zimmerman, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, in a statement released Monday. “While Governor Walker has reformed our state, Mike McCabe would do nothing but mislead Wisconsinites and take our state backwards.”
The Republican Party also points out McCabe, despite claims of being a campaign finance reform supporter, took money from George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society for the supposedly non-partisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Soros is known for giving to leftwing candidates and causes.