And remember, these folks called out in this
Cleveland Plain Dealer coverage are allied with their ideological counterparts in the Wisconsin - - specifically the Assembly's GOP leadership, State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), and the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce,
et al.
Last week, back in the city where I grew up--that would be Cleveland--I got a close-up look at Ohio State legislator, Tim Grendell.
ReplyDeleteHe's a silk-stocking lawyer from "horsey" country, that swath of exurban land south and east of the big city--Chagrin Falls, Chardon, Gates Mills and Chesterland. These suburban enclaves are roughly equivalent to Pine Lake and Beaver Lake, or Fox Point and Bayside here in the greater Milwaukee area.
The area he represents is really quite different from New Berlin in most ways. New Berlin was, for the longest time, entirely low-rent. Its Muny hospital was Osteopathic, fire department was volunteer, property values were at the lowest of the low-end. Most of the burg wouldn't perc and the local government was (still is) straight out of Beverly Hillbillys.
Mary Lazich is a clown, the perfect New Berlin legislator--combative, irrational, shrill, easily-led, uninformed, shrill, primed with talking points written by Jim Haney, (did I mention shrill?) and only too happy to find an alter ego like Grendell to help her fan the flames of the Great Lakes Compact bashing that has become her only issue.
She acts like Grendell would welcome her into his circle of high-minded swells, that she and Tim are brethren (and sisteren) under the skin. In fact, Grendell is only too happy to have this down-scale hyper-shrill hick from muck-farm land as part of the claque that lauds him as savior of the uppa class, the swells, the horsey set.