If you’re not from Milwaukee County or you don’t spend hours of your time watching Fox News, you may not know who David Clarke is. He is and has been the Sheriff of Milwaukee County for upwards of 10 years.
He’s notorious in Milwaukee for a number of reasons. While most of his rhetoric is complete nonsense, a couple of incidents from the past years and months come to mind in order to best explain who Sheriff Clarke is.
A few years ago, Clarke put out a “public service message” telling residents of the county that “the police can’t protect them” and that citizens have a duty to protect themselves because the police might not be able to. Basically the whole add is a smaller scale advertisement for the NRA.
More recently, though, Clarke has gotten in trouble for attempting to detain a man who told Clarke he disapproved of him, giving a speech where he discussed reaching across the aisle to “grab a democrat by the throat” and tweeting about it being “pitchfork and torches time in America.”
The guy is an embarrassment to Milwaukee and to all of Wisconsin.
For a long time I thought that Clarke might just be gunning to be the next head of the NRA, but given how warped the Republican Party has become, apparently conservatives see him as a potential future candidate.
In the last few weeks, there have been whispers of conservative groups backing Clarke in his potential bid for U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin’s seat in 2018. His ego is probably loving it. While most Democrats in Wisconsin are probably terrified of the prospect of Clarke running, I’m not.
In fact, I really hope Sheriff Clarke runs. I think he would make a terrible senator and his campaign would be an absolute joke, but that’s kind of the point.
Key takeaways from Wisconsin conservatives at Republican National Convention
For years now, he’s been running in Milwaukee County virtually unopposed. He always wins because suburban conservatives know he’s actually conservative, while urban voters who don’t ever have interactions with the Sheriff’s department just assume he’s a Democrat.
If Clarke had to endure the statewide and nationwide scrutiny that comes with running for the United States Senate, my bet is that he will fold like wet cardboard.
I want Clarke to run because Clarke needs to be put under enough of a spotlight so those in Milwaukee who actually care enough will vote him out of office. Since nothing seems to have worked to this point, the only idea I’ve got left is to have him get absolutely beaten to a pulp in a race against Senator Baldwin while he says crazier and crazier things along the way.
So Sheriff Clarke, please, please run for Senate in 2018. You’ll lose badly and embarrass yourself on a national scale, but on the bright side, hopefully it ends the joke that has been your political career.
Connor Touhey ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science, history and journalism.
