Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:59 and sunset is 6:25, for 11 hours 26 minutes of daytime. The moon was full last night with 99.7 percent of its visible disk now illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1774, Wisconsin becomes part of Quebec:
On this date Britain passed the Quebec Act, making Wisconsin part of the province of Quebec. Enacted by George III, the act restored the French form of civil law to the region. The Thirteen Colonies considered the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts,” as it nullified Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west. [Source: Avalon Project at the Yale Law School]
Sometimes a revelation about a candidate’s writing or a reading list becomes a scandal, as with now-former candidate for governor Bill Berrien. Berrien professed conservative political views, but his private reading list showed an interest in topics and people he publicly derided. Berrien’s problem was his intolerant hypocrisy.
Today, in the Journal Sentinel, there’s a story about WISGOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany’s deletions to his private website (tomtiffany.com) that have removed far-right positions on reproductive rights, among other issues:
The Wayback Machine, which preserves snapshots of websites, shows that Tiffany had a webpage as of Sept. 17 that listed a bunch of hot-button issues and his positions on them. That includes abortion, gun rights, immigration, crime and communist China.
But check tomtiffany.com today, and you’ll notice that the “issues” page is gone, replaced by a list of bland “solutions,” such as “Protect what makes Wisconsin great” and “Lower costs for every Wisconsinite.” The new “solutions” page makes no mention of guns, one mention of immigration and China and nothing on the deficit or abortion.
But here’s what is interesting about this: Tiffany and his team made the switch in the days leading up to his announcement on Sept. 23 that he is running as a Republican for Wisconsin governor in 2026.
See Daniel Bice, Rep. Tom Tiffany erases abortion, gun rights and other issues from personal website, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 7, 2025.
Well … that’s not a bold course to take, but it’s not hypocritical. But then, no one thinks Tom Tiffany (except perhaps Tom Tiffany) is a bold man in any event.
If, however, Tiffany’s campaign thinks that removing his views from his website will change the public understanding that he holds those views, then his campaign is confused. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — now a gubernatorial candidate — is and will be associated with those positions whether or not he removes them from a website. (Indeed, for WISGOP voters, those views are among the reasons that rank-and-file party members would support Tiffany.)
Tiffany will never seem moderate to voters. His past views will be part of myriad WisDem ads, mailers, and social media posts during the campaign. He’ll not be able to distance himself from those positions. (On the contrary, Tiffany’s success in a primary depends on convincing WISGOP voters that he holds these positions; his chance of success in a general election depends on maximizing turnout among those voters.)
It’s not a scandal that Tiffany’s campaign is downplaying his past positions, but it is a sign of his campaign’s misunderstanding of the upcoming race.
A Day in the Life of a 102-Year-Old French Yogi: