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and Now.
>> This week's Inside

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Wisconsin Politics dug
further into the governor's

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primary, including the
heightened national

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attention on Francesca Hong
and the democratic

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socialist movement.
>> I know a lot of

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political observers
nationally were looking to

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Wisconsin. As for a lesson
in terms of whether

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democratic socialism that
has played well in other

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states can play in a
Midwest swing state. What

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lesson can they take away
from our race?

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>> The obvious takeaway is
it didn't. It didn't work

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this time. But all the
caveats being the

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coordinated effort by
establishment Democrats,

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moderate Democrats to make
it make sure that it

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doesn't happen. So I would
say at face value, yeah, I

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guess it didn't work out.
And it came pretty close in

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the effort to stop the far
left progressive candidate

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in the Senate race in
Michigan. The closeness of

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that, plus this, maybe it
changed the conversation.

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I've seen some pundits
online talking about well,

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hangs campaign collapsed at
the very final moments

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because of the way she
handled those media

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interviews at the national
level.

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all the polling said she
had along the way. The

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difference is, the people
that hadn't made up their

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minds chose elsewhere. I
think those were about

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electability concerns. I
think there are legitimate

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questions about how she
answered those questions

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when the national spotlight
was on her, and whether the

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people in Wisconsin that
had been paying attention

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were starting to think more
about electability than

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about policy. But I don't
know if collapse is the

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right word when she's still
got 40% of the vote or

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thereabouts. And that's a
really strong showing from

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any candidate, especially
someone from her background

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who doesn't have a long
track record of politics in

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Wisconsin and hasn't spent
a long time developing

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those relations around the
state. So she had a very

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impressive showing from
that context. We talked on

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this podcast about
Francesca Hong Thanksgiving

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tweets and some of the
things that were coming up

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out of her past. Give me
your impression of

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Crowley's ascent with
everyone rallying behind

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him, including the money
and then the wave Francesca

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Hong handled the amount of
national attention she was

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getting.
>> Well, I mean, the

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national window for our
race was just so brief.

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There were. National media
was paying attention to

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Michigan before us, and
then all of a sudden we

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were the next big thing. I
think it's fair to argue

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about whether or not people
should focus on a tweet

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from 2020, but they did. I
was visiting my dad the

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weekend before the election.
He lives in Illinois. He

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watches all the Sunday
shows religiously, and

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every one of them talked
about that Thanksgiving

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tweet. My dad doesn't know
who Francesca Hong is or

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David Crowley or much about
the governor's race in

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Wisconsin, but he got an
earful about that tweet

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that weekend. And if he'd
been watching those shows

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in Wisconsin, he would have
been seeing ads in between

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saying to vote for David
Crowley. So that stuff

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matters and the timing
matters. But it's how

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elections are won and lost.
And so in a race that was

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won in this case by David
Crowley by 4000 votes, a

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little less stuff like that
can matter.

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>> In other closely watched
>> In other closely watched
