Mickey Kaus: ‘How Wisconsin Democrats Can End Paul Ryan’s Career — Next Week!’

Writing in the Huffington Post, Mickey Kaus suggests a way for Democrat voters in Wisconsin to end Republican Speaker Paul Ryan’s political career.

On Tuesday, August 9, there’s a primary for the seat held by Paul Ryan, the House Speaker. It’s in the news — Ryan is being challenged in the Republican primary by a hitherto little-known businessman, Paul Nehlen. There’s also a contested primary on the Democratic side. On Tuesday, Donald Trump pointedly refused to endorse Ryan, which doesn’t necessarily reflect any Ryan weakness in the district (more like Trump and Ryan’s irreconcilable differences.) But Ryan was vulnerable before, and he’s more vulnerable now.

That’s where Wisconsin Democrats come in: Wisconsin’s open primary tradition means you can vote in Ryan’s primary — which gives you, through a harmonic convergence of circumstance, a strange and shocking power. With one vote you can boot the most powerful national Republican in the country, an ideological zealot who will never be dissuaded from enacting policies inimical to Democratic ideas and interests. With one vote, you can kill the pending Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. You can kill the GOP’s longstanding plan to voucherize Medicare. Kill Ryan’s scheme to pack all welfare programs into one capped stream of money and let states spend it as they wish. Kill his plans to promote guest workers and in effectively encourage more immigrants to come here and bid down wages.

Why would you not do that?

In 2014, remember, thousands of Democrats in Virginia crossed over to vote in the Republican primary against ambitious GOP rising star, Majority Leader Eric Cantor. That may have made the difference in the shocking defeat of the now ex-rising star by a little-known professor, Dave Brat.

Why not do it again?

Read the rest here.