Doyle attacks honor of Milwaukee business leaders

SMACKDOWN! Gov. Jim Doyle has fired off a three-page diatribe to Tim Sheehy (right), respected leader of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. In it, a clearly furious Doyle (who should have counted to 10 before he started writing) essentially accuses Sheehy of dishonesty. Three times. He writes:

"If you and other voucher advocates had put your efforts into honest discussions then we might possible have solved this issue already."

And:

"I do not support the alternative recently proposed by the Department of Public Instruction, unlike what your dishonest ads imply."

And then:

"I hope we can work to resolve this issue without resorting to further dishonest attacks and high-pressure tactics that are divisive and unproductive."

Wow. These are fighting words, and they are hardly conducive to "working together to resolve this issue." By saying the ads are dishonest, he's attacking the honor of the community leaders featured in the MMAC ads as well - business magnate Steve Marcus, MPS school board member Ken Johnson, and Marshall and Ilsley Corp. Chairman and CEO Dennis J. Kuester.

It's a poor political stratagem. Doyle is already losing the PR war (although the intensity of the issue is largely playing out beneath the radar screen of the MSM, much like the gas tax revolt did). Going after the honor of prominent business leaders in a publicly aggressive way will only ensure more negativity for Doyle. It certainly runs counter to this lead in a Journal Sentinel story posted Friday, which doesn't mention Sheehy or the Doyle letter:

Gov. Jim Doyle said Friday that he hoped an agreement could be reached on the future of the private school voucher program in Milwaukee, and he appeared to send stronger signals that he is willing to negotiate an agreement in which enrollment in the program would be increased in exchange for agreement on accountability.

Oh, really? Until now, Doyle and his acolytes have been focused on slamming their typical Republican bogeymen: talk radio and legislative leaders. But now he's added prominent members of the Milwaukee business community to the list, and it's hard to see how he gains from that.

Choice kids and their advocates in Milwaukee wonder why Doyle links raising the caps to complicated financial conditions - especially in tough budget times - such as lowering class sizes in MPS. If the caps aren't raised, and the kids lose out, people will blame Doyle, because he could get this done, simply and cleanly. He can explain those conditions all he wants, but all people are going to remember is that the kids didn't get in. And Doyle's just called out some really powerful people. The whole letter smacks of him "protesting too mucheth". Clearly, this topic has gotten under his skin. It's got legs.

But rather than quietly reaching out to business leaders behind the scenes to find a face-saving measure, he picks a street fight. Doyle is battling an unusual but powerful alliance - prominent and respected Milwaukee business leaders, prominent and respected members of the African-American community (like Howard Fuller and Mikel Holt), the kids and their parents who provide the face of the debate (their showing up at the State of the State address seems to have thrown him off stride), and conservative talk radio, which provides the megaphone. The alliance is broad, and deep, and it crosses typical political lines. Ken Johnson (left), the MPS school board member in one of the ads, speaks directly to traditional Dem voters when he calls school choice caps "a true social justice issue."

Worse for Doyle, the PR nightmare is playing out in a traditional Democratic stronghold that he badly needs to win re-election. The school choice issue cuts into a traditional Democratic voting block made up of people that Democrats too often take for granted as supporters - African-Americans. No longer.