Dear Capital Times: Tom Tiffany's Record Makes Him the Better
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
The pilot is 73. The plane went down in a lake. Tom Tiffany and Lenny Boltz swam to shore with minor injuries, and the first thing one Wisconsin reporter wants the internet to know is that the water was “only 30 feet.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Earlier this month, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany's plane experienced an emergency and was forced to land in Lake Wausau. Tiffany and the pilot, 73-year-old Leonard "Lenny" Boltz, suffered minor injuries but were able to escape the plane and swim to shore.
Of course, the Wisconsin media tried to minimize this near-tragedy, with Journal Sentinel reporter Hope Karnopp saying Lake Wausau was "only 30 feet." Karnopp tried to explain away this by saying she meant the situation could have been much worse — so why didn't she say that from the outset?
Her job is literally to report facts and communicate with readers, yet her original X post and the follow-up (now both deleted) failed to make this clear.
Original source:
Read at TownhallHow We See It
New Republican Times Editorial Board
The pilot is 73. The plane went down in a lake. Tom Tiffany and Lenny Boltz swam to shore with minor injuries, and the first thing one Wisconsin reporter wants the internet to know is that the water was “only 30 feet.” Only 30 feet. As if depth is the only way to measure a forced landing on water.
Hope Karnopp deleted the posts, but the damage to her credibility is done. Her job is to communicate facts, not manage perceptions for a gubernatorial campaign she clearly doesn’t favor. If she meant the situation could have been worse, she could have said that. Instead she chose a detail that made the whole thing sound less frightening. That’s not reporting. That’s damage control dressed up as journalism.
Nobody expects every reporter to fawn over a Republican candidate. But a near-crash is a human story before it’s a political one. Tiffany and his pilot are lucky to be alive. The Capital Times crowd tells you everything about how they view conservatives: even when we almost die, they’re looking for an angle.
Tom Tiffany’s record as a consistent America First conservative is why the left is nervous. They know he’ll hold the line on the border, on spending, on Wisconsin’s values. The media’s sneering won’t change that. A plane in the lake was still a better outcome than a reporter in the skies..
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.