Milwaukee businessman Andy Gronik has formally launched his campaign for guv, declaring on a new website that it’s “time for a different kind of leadership in Madison.”
Gronik also used the website to take a shot at Gov. Scott Walker, saying the days of the incumbent blaming “the people of Wisconsin for the fact that his policies can’t grow our state are coming to an end.” He also wrote Walker will undoubtedly have unlimited resources, “but I am not intimidated.”
“I’m not a politician. I’m a business leader with the progressive values necessary to beat Governor Scott Walker and make living in Wisconsin better for all of our residents — that’s why I’m running for governor,” Gronik wrote.
Gronik did not immediately respond to an email from WisPolitics.com seeking comment after he announced his campaign in an interview with The Associated Press.
It looks like he’s jumping in a bit early to try to ice out other contenders like Vinehout and Evers. He has said that he won’s self-finance his campaign, so he needs to lock up donors.
“I was never asked to sign the recall petition,” Gronik told FOX6 News in an email. He declined an interview.
Gronik said he’s against Act 10, Walker’s signature law, despite not signing a recall petition.
“I support collective bargaining and find it inconceivable that anyone would ever make decisions about how to provide the highest quality education for our children without having teachers at the table,” he said in his email to FOX6.
Mordecai Lee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, questioned Gronik’s explanation.
“If they really were committed to being against Act 10 and figured that, as a Democrat, this was a symbol of how they opposed Scott Walker, you think somebody could’ve found how to do it,” Lee said. “You couldn’t go out in public and not have somebody ask you to sign the recall petition.”
First, the recall petition has been used by righties in Wisconsin to disqualify candidates for office – particularly in local races. It has been used as a litmus test to disprove someone’s assertion that they were conservative. And every time it has come up, lefties get their knickers in a twist about how they were just “exercising their rights” and how signing the recall shouldn’t be used against someone.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. A guy without a political record is thinking about running for governor as a Democrat and the fact that he didn’t sign the recall is making lefties uneasy. Is he really a lefty like them if he didn’t sign the recall? One wonders…
