October 29, 2020 at 1:10 p.m.
A big thanks to Tiffany, Zunker in congressional race
A big thanks to Tiffany, Zunker in congressional race
While other contests in the Northwoods were vandalized and disfigured by the campaigns of certain candidates, both Tiffany and Zunker ran races in which they respected the voters and stuck to discussions of their beliefs and their policy positions on issues.
From issues ranging from how to handle the pandemic and restart the economy, to criminal justice reform and social media censorship, and more, the candidates laid out two very clear and two very different agendas about the direction they would like to take our nation and the seventh congressional district.
That is as it should be. Instead of running campaigns largely devoid of substance but focused instead on a desire to tear down our communities, these candidates offered positive visions. They both offered voters a reasonable choice, especially for independents, more moderate Republicans, and more conservative Democrats.
To be sure, we continue to express our preference for Rep. Tiffany. We believe his vision of a smaller and more limited federal government better aligns with the vision of most people in northern Wisconsin. His recognition that the federal deficit is a top priority in a post-pandemic world is of critical importance, and he gets the nod on fiscal matters.
We also think Rep. Tiffany will be less swayed by environmental special interests who would ban all mining in the state and who refuse to recognize that wolves should be delisted.
There's another reason we give our checkmark to Mr. Tiffany, and that is, he is from Minocqua. That is not to say we would ever urge him to discriminate against constituents in other areas to give a favor to us. Not at all. But it is rare when a U.S. representative actually lives in your town. It is a point of honor, but it also gives us a stronger voice than if the congressperson lived three hours away, or even an hour away. That's just common sense. It's true that, in every race, some community enjoys that advantage. In this case, it's us, and it's not meaningless.
But let us give a tip of the hat to Ms. Zunker, too. She is an articulate, informed, poised candidate with impressive credentials - president of the Wausau school board, an associate justice on the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court - who in this campaign has served the Democratic Party and, indeed, all voters well.
For one thing, she offered up reasonable policy positions rather than riding the wave of the fringe - a problem these days in the Democratic Party. For example, she resisted calls that emanate from many in her party to defund the police.
She also broke ranks with the Democratic House leadership by saying she would vote for specific pieces of COVID stimulus aid that both sides could agree on rather than hold out for the all-or-nothing approach advocated by House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the latter a strategy that has denied millions of hurting Americans any help at all.
In many ways, Ms. Zunker reminded us of Democratic Party candidates of the past, respectable candidates who, while more liberal than we, likewise respected their supporters, their party, and their communities, and who often won their elections because of that respect.
In that regard we recall Democrats such as Dave Obey, who represented the North in Congress for decades.
And we mention former state Sen. Jim Holperin, who campaigned with the same dignity and respect for others.
We point out that Mr. Holperin was not a fan of this newspaper, and yet year after year he gave election interviews to The Times, just as Ms. Zunker did this year, even as some 2020 Democrats boycotted the interviews, denying readers their perspectives on the issues as well as any real choice in the election.
We recall some pretty vigorous discussions with Mr. Holperin, and we offered up to the community his viewpoints, as we do with any candidate. Mr. Holperin gave those interviews not because he liked the newspaper, but because he loved the communities he would represent.
Ms. Zunker is cut from the same cloth as Mr. Obey and Mr. Holperin, and it is refreshing.
We hope she stays involved in our communities and in the Democratic Party, and we hope that cloth is big enough to cut and produce ever more candidates in the future, for the Democratic Party's sake and so our communities can have real and serious choices in elections.
In this election, we don't know whether Mr. Tiffany or Ms. Zunker will prevail, but in any event the real winners this election season have been the people of the seventh congressional district.
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