Toon: Meet Mitchell Berman

I thought I'd try caricaturing the Democrat running for Congress in my home district this year, and here's what I came up with. 

Mitchell Berman is an emergency room nurse who won a three-way race for the Democratic nomination in August. The national Democratic Party sees potential for him to oust four-term Republican incumbent Bryan Steil, so Berman has gotten the benefit of some television advertising, unlike most Democratic candidates for Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District in this century.

If Berman were to win election this November, he would be the first Democrat to represent this district since Rep. Peter Barca was defeated in the Red Wave of 1994. (Barca ran again and lost thirty years later.)

Berman's first TV ad showed him fishing from the banks of a small river somewhere with his dog, offering his bone fides as a regular guy. He wasn't wearing his nurse uniform in that ad; he was, however, wearing a holstered gun on his side — a quiet nod to the sportsmen hereabouts. In a subsequent social media video, he explained that he sometimes goes fishing in areas where one might encounter a bear or wolf.

In a preliminary sketch for this caricature, I had a holstered gun at Berman's side. I had to scratch that idea when I switched which hand his fishing rod was held in. 

Most of the mail pieces from Berman's campaign show him in his nurse's smock and flag-themed do-rag. His latest TV ad depicts him on the job, talking about health care reform.

Steil, and outside organizations supporting him, are attacking Berman with the same charges of being a radical activist that Republicans are flinging willy-nilly at every Democrat. Steil's ads tout his "Stop Insider Trading Act," prohibiting members of Congress (but not Supreme Court justices, Presidents, or their families) from trading stocks while in office. The bill passed the House with a rider requiring voters to show photo identification before voting, but has not passed the Senate.

Steil's bill has "more holes in it than Swiss cheese," according to Berman, because congressional representatives are not required to divest stocks they already own.

Steil is way ahead of Berman in campaign fund raising: the incumbent's war chest is over $5 million, while Berman's was only $713,000 as of mid-September. Outside interest group advertising is similarly lop-sided in Steil's favor.