Tom Tiffany Hammers Francesca Hong on Her Radical Policies and Non-Answers

Tom Tiffany going after Francesca Hong twice in one day tells you something. Campaigns don't waste ammunition on candidates they think are non-threats. They spend it on the ones whose own words are doing the damage for them. If Hong's answers on her policy positions are as slippery as this piece suggests, that's not a messaging problem Tiffany created. That's a problem she brought with her.

Wisconsin isn't Madison writ large, whatever some of Hong's backers seem to believe. It's dairy country and factory towns and people who want their kids to be able to afford a house someday. When a candidate for governor can't give a straight answer on the specifics of her own agenda, voters notice, and they should. Non-answers are usually non-answers because the real answer wouldn't play well outside a state assembly district.

None of this means Tiffany wins by default. He still has to make the case for himself, not just against her. But there's a reason "radical" sticks to certain candidates and not others, and it's rarely unfair when it's backed up by their own record. If Hong wants to shed that label, the fix isn't a better spin operation. It's actual answers, delivered plainly, that a factory worker in Wausau can understand without a translator.

Wisconsin voters have punished evasiveness before. There's no reason to think this cycle is different, especially with the stakes this high.