The Remarkable Election Night Story We Should All Be Talking About

2 min readDrowned out by the sound of the blue tsunami making landfall everywhere, a remarkable story took place in Wisconsin. The state's Democratic party, almost gerrymandered out of existence a few years ago and helpless, succeeded not only in electing a governor, but also majorities in both houses of the state legislature.The Democrats already enjoy a majority on the state supreme court, so I feel confident in saying that the state is now completely free of the dead hand of the administration of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their subsidiary once known as the state of Wisconsin. They also flipped two congressional seats, one of them Paul Ryan's old seat now held by one of his old aides, and that of the inexcusable Derrick Van Orden, famous corrector of lounging congressional pages.(What is truly delicious is that Van Orden was dimed out on that rampage by his fellow Wisconsin congressman Mark Pocan, who was reelected Tuesday night, though he ran unopposed.)Wisconsin's new governor made a visit to the shebeen a few years back when he was Milwaukee county executive, which is a position of some importance in state politics. (It also served as Walker's springboard.) His pathway to the governor's office was, shall we say, eccentric. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:[David] Crowley's victory caps a rise to political power that defied the odds of one of Milwaukee's most challenged neighborhoods. Growing up near north 23rd and West Burleigh streets, Crowley and his family faced multiple evictions as his parents battled substance abuse and poverty. Getting involved in youth organizations was his springboard into politics. A father of three girls, he served as a state legislator and is Milwaukee County executive.But his campaign for governor was something of a rollercoaster.Crowley's victory was unthinkable just four months ago when he dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor after failing to gain traction in the seven-candidate field. Crowley left the race and endorsed Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who had been building momentum as an alternative for Democrats who were uncomfortable with the field's frontrunner: democratic socialist Francesca Hong. But Rodriguez dropped out herself just days later after revealing her campaign was broke. That departure prompted Crowley to return to the race with the endorsement of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, scrambling the field. Crowley ultimately narrowly defeated Hong.(Hong, it should be noted, turned out to be the anti-Haley Stevens, campaigning vigorously for Crowley throughout the general election campaign. Good on her.)It was political activist Ben Wikler who turned the shebeen on to David Crowley, and Wikler is going to go down in Wisconsin political history as the guy who rebuilt the state's Democratic Party almost from scratch. And he did so in keeping with the state's proud progressive history and with the state's one-word motto: Forward.