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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – A forthcoming news article will take a closer look at Wausau’s now-concluded mayoral race. Of course, there must be analysis when a liberal darling like Katie Rosenberg was turned out of office after just one term.
A source tells me that Rosenberg was asked by a college newspaper reporter in the UW system whether the drumbeat from the big, conservative radio station in town was the reason she lost. Her reported answer: “Yes, it was.” It can’t possibly be that her policies, and the breathtakingly-high spending she championed, were unpopular with voters.
Actually, I agree with former Mayor Katie. Certainly it was this radio station which informed a very large audience that despite a record increase in state aid, property taxes still went up. We raised many questions about the sky-high water bills and a lead pipe replacement program.
And, yet, the mayor was invited each month to be interviewed for our non-partisan Mayor’s Monday video blog. She never missed a month – and always explained how she was making the right policy choices and was putting the city on the right path. It’s fair to say the voters were not quite convinced. The mayor once referred to us as ‘yip-yap radio’… a media outlet with a long list of complaints about her. And yet she knew that our radio station has too big an audience not to engage. There is a very small, liberal radio station in town. Our audience, usually the largest in Central Wisconsin, is measured in the tens-of-thousands. Theirs is measured in the hundreds.
Politics is full of comeback stories. Katie Rosenberg could camp with a political action group, or take a job buried deep within the Evers or Biden administrations. She could meet the right people who could bankroll a future run for political office. For now, though, she’s damaged goods. The 85th state assembly district was re-drawn to cover almost all of Wausau. Should she run for the seat, what could her response be to an opponent who says “after one term, voters had enough of her”? Pat Snyder, the current seat holder, will be running in a slightly less-friendly redistricted 85th, but the voters know him and have sent him back to the state assembly for five terms now.
Did this radio station kill Katie Rosenberg’s mayorship? Well, Meg Ellefson and I each have only one vote. But we certainly did pursued a lot of people to choose a different direction for the city.
Chris Conley
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