This Week's Sneak Peek

I have an update for my recent caricature of local congressional candidate Mitchell Berman.

Contribution reports for the third quarter have Berman outraising Incumbent Congressman Bryan Steil; Berman's principal donors include labor unions and the Democratic Party, but the majority of contributions have been smaller donations from individuals.

The punditocracy is chattering about Democrats having a chance here this year, and Steil has taken notice. He has a new ad on TV in which a woman, who appears to be in her bathrobe in her kitchen, says she has hear that "radical activist Mitchell Berman went to a local school and confronted school officials. With children inside, he was escorted out. His actions put the school in lockdown."

She doesn't want Berman's antics at her children's school, or in Congress. A black-and-white photo of Berman takes over the screen, and a narrator pronounces him "too radical, too crazy."

Racine County Eye fills in the missing details of this story.

Long story short: Berman lives in Raymond, a rural township in Racine County. Moms for Liberty candidates won a majority on the Raymond School Board in 2021; the next year, they decided to fire Raymond School Principal Jeff Peterson for being gay.

That's not the official reason, of course. They just wanted to replace him with a principal who wasn't gay.

Peterson had grown up in Raymond; his mother had been in the Raymond Parent-Teacher Organization, his father had served on the school board, and his sister taught at the school. He had supporters in the community, and Berman was one of them.

In December of 2022, the Raymond School Board met at the home of one of its Moms for Liberty members, in violation of the state's open meetings law; they later claimed that it wasn't a "meeting" but a "retreat." On September 27, 2023, Berman went to the Raymond School to ask for the minutes of that meeting. He was eventually told that they couldn't find the minutes, and he was escorted out of the building.

Berman's behavior during his wait depends on which side of the Peterson business you're on. For some reason, someone decided to put the school on "soft lock-down," while Berman reportedly sat quietly scrolling through his phone. 

Superintendent Michael Garvey did not respond to direct questions from the Racine County Eye. Instead, he sent the statement the school issued reiterating there was no threat to students, just a fear of disruptions.

There were panicked parents who came to take their children home due to the soft lockdown, so that "fear of disruptions" was a self-fulling prophecy.

And a conveniently scary campaign ad.

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. Hence the side arm.

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 scrubs 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.