Monday, April 20, 2015

Kerry Trask - Messenger of Doom

"Bernie, you are the conscience of the Democratic Party!"  Kerry Trask to me
"Kerry, if your conscience isn't bothering you then it isn't working."  Me to Professor Trask

A shrinking parade
Manitowoc County Dems PR photo: Trask at left
Professor of History (Emeritus) Kerry Trask has many credits to his name.  He was a fine lecturer of early American History.  He can use his stentorian voice to deliver a stirring speech on Democratic and Progressive values.  Together his image and communicative skills should add up to great leadership and electoral success.  As it turns out, not so much...

 While on the right side of all the issues his own political career has been marked by abject failure.  For starters he is Canadian and when he ran for Assembly had only just become a U.S. citizen after being in the country for decades.  This did not go down well with a suspicious working class electorate but his ego told him that all he had to do was show up and impress.

Also, as a UW Professor he has developed a persona of talking down to people and although he is considered a rock star among the party faithful he is utterly unable to talk to ordinary people.  In fact he was remarkably uninterested in doing so.  Though I had set aside my own desire to run that year in order to support him with his higher name recognition he refused my offer to assist him in campaigning in the rural areas.  He lost by more than 3000 votes.


Trask is quite capable of explaining the ironies and moral ambiguities of Andrew Jackson or the Black Hawk Wars but when it comes to the sins of contemporary politicians his insight has been painfully lacking.   In practice, his judgement in sorting out the less than faithful from the hanger-ons and merely ambitious has been non-existent preferring instead to practice an insular form of cronyism leaving most of the Progressiveism for the speeches.  In reality he takes his advice from those he sees as important and successful rather from the moral underpinnings of the party platform he claims to adore.

His management skills are equally non-existent using his volcanic temper to intimidate rather than make his case or solicit support, a particularly problematic approach when in the role of party chair.  Trask's inability to assess people as anything more than obedient students or differentiate between political power and political goals has enabled a train wreck in the county party.  Party policies and constitutional rules have been subject to his own individual interpretation and accountability be damned.  Any opposition to his edicts immediately evoke a scowl.  Dissenters need not apply.

The most obvious case was his allowing lobbyist Todd Holschbach to sit on the executive committee while not so much as applying for party membership.  Though the son of former Dem Legislator Verne Holschbach and working for Nature Conservancy Todd was actively working against Democratic interests by supporting Right To Work Republican Mike Howe for office.  Apparently the pedigree was more important than rules.  Holschbach is still listed as a Democratic office holder on the Manitowoc County Dems website.

Brey campaign photo
(cropped)
I've already documented the Brey debacle and Trask's efforts to undo the election of at-large committee members at Brey's and Holschbach's behest.  According to Trask I had to be held accountable for subjecting Brey to public ridicule.  It is equally interesting to note than when a deliberately and deeply personal attack on me by Brey and the allegedly Liberal Mayor Justin Nickels appeared on the web no such equivalent censure was brought.  In fact Trask dismissed both Brey and Nickels as "... not intellectual giants." and seemed to say that Nickels was not a player in the party at all.  Nickels is currently vice chair here and the apparent golden boy chosen by Mike Tate to prove that his program was working.  Obviously, both cannot be true.

Trask's stories have a strange way of morphing depending on the occasion.  When he sanctioned elections of at-large members he wrote in the newsletter that it was for two year terms.  A year later after being dissatisfied with the results wrote that the terms ended at one year and sent letters of termination to the elected members.

In the end, you have to look at the results.   According to the blog "Jakes Economic TA Fun House" Manitowoc County had the largest pro-Walker swing of any other county in the State - 22.1%

Swings between 2012 Presidential election and 2014 Gov election 
Lafayette- Dem +15.4 to GOP +3.3 (18.7 swing)
Trempealeau- Dem +14.1 to GOP +6.0 (20.1)
Manitowoc- GOP +2.8 to GOP +24.9 (22.1)
Buffalo- Dem +2.9 to GOP +16.4 (19.3)
Richland- Dem +16.1 to GOP +1.7 (17.8)
Forest- Dem +5.4 to GOP +15.1 (20.5)
Kewaunee- GOP +5.4 to GOP +25.5 (20.1)
Jackson- Dem +15.0 GOP +2.6 (17.6)
Crawford- Dem +20.0 to Dem +2.8 (17.2)
Shawano- GOP +10.0 to GOP +30.9 (20.9)

Most disturbing is the fact that Trask ran unopposed.  What this says about the general condition of the Democratic Party should be raising great alarm.  The fact that it hardly raised an eyebrow should have everyone filled with a pending sense of doom.


2 comments:

  1. You need to practice this. Also: at least someone is willing to run for office and represent people instead of themselves, their business or skeletons. This is called a truth sandwich. If you can master the technique, it will make for better reading. Your post, as it stands, sounds like sour grapes. Deviating from my usual mercenary behavior, here you go: First suggested by GeorgeLakoff, the three-beat, "truth sandwich" method is a way of reporting on dubious claims, strategic deception and public lying WITHOUT giving undue publicity to a false or dubious claim, which can help it spread. This short thread explains...
    Here are the steps:
    1.) State what is true.
    2.) Report that a false or dubious claim has been made. (But only if it's newsworthy, meaning important for the public to know it happened. Otherwise use silence.)
    3.) Repeat what the truth actually is.
    Now for an example...
    A "truth sandwich" lede:
    There's no clear evidence that hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, protects against Coronavirus. Donald Trump said today he's taking it, but his doctor would not confirm that, and medical experts have said it could have dangerous side effects.
    As you can see from the example, the idea is to bracket the troublesome claim between accurate statements so that it is neither the first nor the last impression in a news bulletin. This is not a solution to the problem of how to report on false charges and likely BS, just a better practice that is not hard to learn, and could become newsroom policy tomorrow. Now you might ask, if it's a false charge or probably BS in the first place, why report it at all? Good Q. My A: sometimes the fact that someone is trying to put one over on us is news.

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    Replies
    1. It is interesting to note that as part of this I referenced Lakeoff to Trask at this time when I quoted his piece about "framing" but Kerry blew it off.
      I have long been an advocate of purging the party of fake Democrats - this is no secret.
      My disappointment in Kerry is that he not only looked away as an anti-choice anti Clean Water Act anti-gay marriage candidate was running in the Dem primary he succommed to pressure to purge ME - Progressive instead.
      I have my self run for 25th Assembly which is how much of this came to light. Hosbach and Nickels were only interested in party activities as long as I was an emerging figure. Once I left so did they. THAT is your truth sandwich.
      I suggest you read some of the other pieces here to flesh this all out or maybe quiz Ron Kossik about it who had a front row seat to all this.
      I found it rather interesting that at a Dem meeting this winter Kerry asked me if I would run again. I declined siting my theater activity. If I had known we would be shut down I might have thought differently.
      All that being said, I am supporting Trask as I support Biden - because the alternative is so much worse.

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