Wait in politics and pay the price.

That’s an important message in this race as some key influential folks who could have been players are now all but irrelevant.

The right side of the contest is Jeff Stone, the Greenfield republican who will follow Scott Walker’s lead, minus the charisma.

On the center and left philanthropist Chris Abele and County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic have sewn up much of the support out there. Unless something big happens, the rest of the candidates who have said the are running will be a bunch of “also rans”.

An interesting surprise in this race is that Abele has teamed up with millionaire businessman Sheldon Lubar. Lubar has taken the same position as we have here — eliminate County government.

There will be no deficit of Milwaukee County Executive candidates this spring. Many candidates think they have what it takes and several of them do, but the voters will certainly find themselves watching an amusing primary.

That being said, the position is not even yet open as County Executive and Governor-elect Scott Walker, who is expected to vacate his County seat at the end of the month. As of now, who will run is a matter of great speculation.

County Board Chairman Lee Holloway is rumored to be considering a run. Realistically, Holloway is unelectable County wide. His spate of bad press and some poor decisions could easily be exploited by any viable candidate who makes it through the primary. That being said, if there are more than 4 candidates, Holloway could win enough votes in the primary from the African American community which, if the pattern and the election numbers of recent years is a good indicator, will support Holloway if he is the only minority candidate. Holloway is also expected to be assuming the Executive’s seat as interim County Executive when Walker leaves so Holloway would be running from the position of being the incumbent, albeit self-appointed, but the incumbent all the same. Holloway’s chances of emerging through the general are slim to none.

State Representative Jeff Stone has already announced his intentions even before Walker has vacated it. He is Walker’s hand picked successor. Stone represents the City of Greenfield and other parts of the Southwest side of the County and will have a base. Plus, he is expected to be the only Republican to be entering this non-partisan race and for nearly a decade has been one of the darlings of right-wing talk radio. Stone is likely to emerge from a primary race as he has both his district and talk radio on his side.

Multi-millionaire philanthropist Chris Abele will soon announce. Little is known about him other than he donates to democrats. He will certainly have a monetary advantage as he could easily self-fund his own campaign. Abele has supported some worthwhile causes as well as candidates in the past. But little is known about him personally. He has never before, to the best of our knowledge, expressed an interest in running for elected office. Abele is a likable guy and to his credit, he has already lined up some great campaign advisors. One of those advisors is businessman Sheldon Lubar who has publicly stated that the County system should be disassembled, the same argument we have made here at Watchdog Milwaukee. The entry of Abele would serve to make that possible if he were to essentially advocate a position that would put himself out of a job. One thing that was not expected of Abele was his connection with Lubar. It is possible that this would put Abele in contention for more conservative votes, changing the entire recipe of a Jeff Stone candidacy.

County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic who represents the Bay View neighborhoods on the southside will certainly be the darling of the left side of the blogosphere. At just 29 she is smart, young and charming. She is said to have been the leader of some key County legislation that has made unions very happy so she has the potential to garner union support. That being said, union support in recent years has waned as they have made up a small portion of a candidates overall campaign funds. In most cases the unions have not bothered to do anything on races that would benefit their members. Dimitrijevic would be a good candidate as she already has a voter base as a sitting County Supervisor. She has been a vocal opponent of County Executive Scott Walker. All of that being said, Dimitrijevic would certainly have a leg up on the competition as she is expected to be the only female candidate and if she makes the right overtures, could garner a great deal of campaign funding from EMILY’s LIST.

County Supervisor John Weishan, who served his country as a Marine, represents West Allis and has been a leader on the County Board. As one of the most vocal opponents of Walker, he has gotten a decent amount of media attention in the past. He also has a sizable base of voters as his West Allis district has a respectable percentage of residents who vote. Weishan’s challenge would be campaign fundraising. That being said, if he runs he could be a formidable candidate in the general election.

County Supervisor Johnny Thomas represents a portion of the northwest side. He isn’t known to be a dynamic or proactive Supervisor and he would not be able to raise the kind of campaign cash necessary for a race of this size. Plus he has angered unions by voting for a contract in committee only to vote against it when it went to the full board.

State Senator Jim Sullivan who has served as a Navy Reservist and as Chairman of the Veterans Affairs committee, has the largest political base of any candidate in the field. Novices and partisans will incorrectly point out that his loss reflects his electability. A look at the numbers shows they would be gravely wrong. Sullivan’s State Senate district includes Republican strongholds in Waukesha County which Sullivan lost. If the race were held in just the Milwaukee County portion of his district, Sullivan would have retained the seat he narrowly lost. Having just come off of a race in November, Sullivan would still have the campaign organization and volunteers from his last race who he could fairly quickly mobilize. His populist message would resonate well with Milwaukee County voters. If Sullivan chooses to run he would be the immediate front runner as he would have a base of approximately 30,000 people who have already voted for him.

County Treasurer Dan Diliberti left the County Board to run for a seat with no legislative impact and no influence on legislation. He has served in the peace corps and is known to be a supporter of veterans issues. Perhaps he misses the policy aspects of County politics but there is no apparent, nor obvious attraction that Diliberti could have. He currently holds a primarily administrative constitutionally elected seat that has little influence on the policy workings of Milwaukee County. He would likely draw from the same base that Jeff Stone will draw from as his voting record as a County Supervisor were certainly to the right of center.

Former State Representative Sheldon Wasserman would certainly make a formidable candidate if he ran but that is unlikely since Chris Abele is in the race and Wasserman has said he would not run against Abele or Sullivan.

It is always admirable when a person in elected office does his or her best to keep taxes affordable while maintaining core service. Sadly, Milwaukee County is not providing even a basic, responsible level of services to the mentally ill.

Eliminating security, including removal of metal detectors at the Mental Health Complex was a bad idea. Some mentally ill patients can turn violent, especially if left unmedicated. To eliminate metal detectors in a division which has potentially dangerous patients, especially patients who are cognitively unable to defend themselves or even flee a crisis situation, is reckless and irresponsible.

Milwaukee County will, sooner or later, find itself on the ugly, expensive and indefensible legal situation if they do not take action to correct their own neglect.

There are a few ways to correct this. Among them, the State could and probably should, take over care for the mentally ill. The state is better equipped to handle the costs associated with running a large area such as the mental health division. The County, which almost exclusively relies on the property tax for their revenue, is ill equipped to handle such a monumental task.

County Executive Scott Walker will soon be leaving his post and beginning his new role as Governor of the State of Wisconsin. Walker certainly must understand this issue and knows the best way to handle the looming mental health crisis is for the state to take it over. However, that is unlikely to happen and the problem will soon be Walker’s successor in the Executive’s office.

A reader sent me this today. Click on it for a larger copy.

He claimed that he could get the federal government to let him use the $810,000,000 earmarked for high speed rail in Wisconsin for highway and other projects but Governor elect Scott Walker has failed. It now appears that he had no insight or inside information whatsoever, but rather a big pile of chutzpah when he made his claim.

The money will now to go California, Illinois and New York who do value commerce and the jobs that a high speed rail project will bring.

This is a huge turnaround from what has been happening in recent years. Governor Jim Doyle, a high speed rail supporter, had said he was going to push forward with plans to get rail moving in Wisconsin even between the time that Walker was elected in November and the time Walker took office in January.

Governor Doyle backed away from that. But really, who knows what the result would have been. Had Doyle moved forward with planning and engineering, Walker would have likely not moved forward with the plan for rail anyway so you can hardly blame Doyle for putting the grinding halt on the project.

Another nuance that is being lost here is that Walker has promised to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin. His actions though run contrary to what he is saying. He’s going to be starting out his term by eliminating the thousands of jobs that would be created in both manufacturing the trains and in running them.

So if he is going to create 250,000 jobs, does this mean that he will be creating 254,000 jobs now to make up for the extra 4000 Wisconsin jobs he just killed?

If Walker is creating jobs, he’s certainly not creating them right here in Wisconsin.

Democrats may have taken a shellacking in the mid-term elections this past November, but President Obama is pursuing a strategy that will not only cost democrats more seats, but the Presidency as well.

Where are the democratic values in his recently announced deal with Republicans on tax cuts? Gone.

Where are the principles that democrats stand for that say that the rich ought to pay their fair share? Gone.

Where is the courage and fire that President Obama had to stand up to the status quo when he was elected?

Gone, gone and gone.

Republicans will get their tax cuts for the uber-wealthy. Obama capitulated on nearly ever demand the Republicans wanted. In exchange he gets a short extension of unemployment benefits.

Americans are left holding the bag on this one. The uber-rich haven’t been spending more of their wealth during this recession and that won’t change.

The President screwed up. He is pursuing a policy of appeasement with the Republicans. He is angering his own political base and those democrats who believed him that we should and can have HOPE have been disappointed.

Already Democrats are upset about the continued war that then candidate Obama promised to get us out of. Money continues to be spent on a war in Afghanistan that is unwinnable in a terrain that is impossible. The only people happy about this is war profiteers. Most service personnel will receive only a minimal raise this year and some will receive a pay freeze. Yet, we can afford huge tax breaks for the wealthy?

The American people want you to talk directly to them and show them a man who knows how to fight. So Mr. President, I’m going to talk directly to you in words I hope you take to heart.

Two years ago when you were elected, you came on with a decisive mandate. After being elected you were immediately criticized by Republicans. They kept their criticism up for years. Your response was to say that you would work with Republicans. You let democratic bill after democratic bill get killed or watered down because you wanted to “work with” Republicans.

How do you think this looks Mr. President? To those of us who are your base, those of us who rallied behind you in the primaries instead of the more conservative Hillary Clinton, it looks like you forgot why we elected you in the first place. It looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.

It makes you look like a bumbling amateur.

This next two years will be tough Mr. President. These next two years will earn you ire from Republicans just like the last two years. That’s what they do — they play the role of opposition very well. They are consistent. They are angry. But if you capitulate, if you continue your policy of appeasement to Republicans you will lose many battles. And what’s worse, you will certainly lose the general election.

Remember what happened two years ago when they lost power and you and the democrats rode in on a wave of hope? All of those policies, the ones that the American people elected you on were liberal policies. Do you remember what the Republicans did afterwards? They turned to their base. They said they were punished for not being true to their conservative values. Well Mr. President, they seem to understand something you do not — they understand that they cannot win an election without their base. They could not have won these victories last month without motivating their base and neither can you.

If you want to lead the Democrats, then act like a Democrat. Americans don’t want Republican-lite. If they wanted a Republican they would have voted for one two years ago. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you will win the hearts of people who never supported you in the first place by caving in to their wishes. You could give them everything they wanted, and you still would not earn either their love, or their respect.

What’s worse, you’ve already lost the love of your base. Now you are killing their respect for you as well.