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Gun-Friendly Sheriff Wins Primary in Milwaukee
Well, this is encouraging:
Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. edged Milwaukee police Lt. Chris Moews early Wednesday in a Democratic primary race that drew national attention and more than $600,000 in outside spending.
Clarke led by more than 4,700 votes with just the absentee ballots in the city of Milwaukee left to count, and shortly before midnight, Moews refused to concede. Shortly thereafter, Clarke told supporters he felt good about his chances but would not declare victory until all ballots were counted.
“We like where we’re standing right now,” he said.
When the last of the absentee ballots were counted early Wednesday, Clarke had beat Moews by 4,644 votes.
“Without the air support of talk radio, this would have been very difficult to do,” Clarke said.
Sheriff Clark — though not perfect — became famous within 2nd Amendment circles for airing public service announcements that encouraged citizens to own and become well-trained in firearms “so you can defend yourself until we get there.”
That kind of rhetoric wasn’t a once-off thing, either: Clark has spoken out about citizen defense before. It was enough to attract the notice both the NRA (who supported his campaign) and of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun organization, which spent $150,000 advertising against the sheriff. Money well wasted, it seems.
So between Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and Sheriff Clark– who, again, is a Democrat — inquiring minds want to know how Milwaukee produces so many forward-thinking politicians. Something in the water? The beer?
Pass me a Miller.
Published in General
Milwaukee County is a very diverse (and segregated) place, both demographically and ideologically.
Sheriff Clarke is able to win reelection by patching together a somewhat unlikely coalition of working class white conservatives in the southern and western suburbs, along with poor and working class blacks in the central city. The main opposition to Clarke comes from the middle and upper class white liberals that live downtown and the north shore suburbs.
From the reason.com link purporting to show that Clarke is “not perfect”:
This is one of the biggest aspects of Clarke that appeals to the central city black demographic. It is perfectly fine for the north shore liberals in Milwaukee, and the academic pontificators at reason.com, to decry the plight of so called “non violent offenders”, so long as these offenders don’t wind up living in their own neighborhood.
Inner city blacks are willing to accept a tough on crime message from Clarke, because they trust him. This scares the ever loving [expletive] out of the white liberal power structure, which is why they spent obscene amounts of money trying to defeat him.
The water in the beer?
This is soooo… delicious. Nannie Bloomberg dumped $150,000 into this sheriff’s race to defeat David Clarke. Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele is widely rumored to have contributed $300,000 of his own money to defeat Clarke, although Abele has neither denied nor admitted this. That means he did.
Bloomberg and Milwaukee’s leftist establishment have saved their most visceral hatred for Sheriff Clarke because he’s a staunch Second Amendment supporter who advises citizens to get a gun and learn how to use it in order to defend themselves from criminal attack. This makes the soft-on-crime lefties apoplectic with rage. They thought this was finally the time they were going to get Clarke out of office.
Chris Abele probably wanted to see Clarke defeated because Clarke is an outspoken critic of the soft-on-crime policies by the court system in Milwaukee County, aided and abetted by the county government of which Abele is the chief executive. Milwaukee is becoming almost as crime ridden as Chicago.
Sheriff David Clarke is the one public official trying his best to change that. He is the automatic winner in November. Milwaukee has no Republicans.
Abele was also attempting to aid his close friend, Mayor Tom Barrett. Now that Clarke has won reelection, there is a strong chance that he runs for mayor in 2016.
He’s the first Democrat I’ve ever voted for. You’re spot on MBF about the North Shore Libs – I live in Whitefish Bay and the Moews signs outnumbered the Clark signs by 30 to 1. I really hope he runs for Mayor.
I also got to vote against Gwen Moore (again).
Not a bad night.
Thanks MBF, TeeJaw, and WI Con, and Tom for the thread. This really is Ricochet at its finest.
It occurs to me that my mentioning everyone else might be taken as a slight; that wasn’t intended. I smiled at this comment.
I want to hear how those “All criticisms of Obama are obviously racist” folks are spinning Lord Michael trying to oust a black sheriff.
I saw him speak at the NRA Convention. He may have been the most popular speaker, and there were a lot of big name speakers. His message was simple. He doesn’t like criminals, he has no problem with honest people carrying guns, and he needs the help of those honest people to make the streets safe and put the criminals (he called them scum, and other not so attractive names) where they belong. He was a very good orator, and passionate about what he does.