Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will see a mix of clouds and sunshine with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:38 and sunset is 8:04 for 14 hours 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Nixon.
Some questions are easily answered, no matter how often or breathlessly asked. Below are a few questions to dispatch this Saturday morning.
1. So is Tommy Thompson running for governor in 2026?
No, of course not. Shawn Johnson reports Tommy Thompson endorses Tom Tiffany’s bid for Wisconsin governor. He was never running for governor in 2026, despite media outlets obliging Thompson’s attention-seeking. (See from 4.25.26, More Silly Speculation About Tommy Thompson: “For reasons unknown to sensible people, every so often the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will report on a possible Tommy Thompson run for governor this year. See Assessing Teasers and Speculation About Wisconsin Elections for 2026. Holy moly, the Journal Sentinel is back for more.”)
Thompson had a greater likelihood of a career as a successful swimsuit model than he did as a 2026 gubernatorial candidate.
2. Does it matter that erratic gadfly Kirk Bangstad is running for governor as a Democrat?
No. The Journal Sentinel‘s politics mailbag asks this question, but Bangstad is unknown to most people, and pointing to his campaign will prove a wasteful diversion of resources for either the WISGOP or WisDems. The serious primary field consists of Tiffany and a few leading WisDems (of whom Bangstad is not one, and never will be one).
3. Does it matter what WisDems candidate Joel Brennan said about Wisconsin not being ready for a non-white gubernatorial candidate?
No. Brennan has since ‘clarified’ his view, but the former head of Wisconsin’s Department of Administration, and former president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee,1 is well behind other WisDems gubernatorial candidates.
4. Does it matter that Rebecca Cooke, Democratic candidate for Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, once consulted for Kirk Bangstad?
No. Cooke was once a consultant in 2015 for Bangstad, but it means nothing for her primary race or the general election if she wins her primary. (Cooke is likely to win her primary; Bangstad has, ironically, endorsed Cooke’s primary opponent, Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge.)
Four questions — easily and simply answered.
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- These ‘Greater City X’ or ‘Greater County Y’ organizations are political pipsqueaks. They’re only interesting to the few stodgy types who read WisPolitics or stalk the halls of the state capitol building panhandling for public money. No one else GAF. Even if Brennan ran as a Republican, where these roles count for more, most Republican voters would, sensibly, find his résumé unimpressive. ↩︎
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.
Today is Global Big Day, a yearly 24-hour birding event where people around the world record as many bird species as possible to support conservation. Here’s a video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology about Big Day 2026 – Birding in the Five Great Forests: