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Ed Garvey’s website features a strangely flattering piece about me… actually slightly more strange than flattering:

 

 

The Republicans' Sykes problem

 

 Seems that Bill Kraus, a former aide to Lee Dreyfus, has also bought into the puppet-master theory.

 

  

Here’s the flattering part:

  

 

 “Charlie not only defines Republicanism, he runs the admissions department. If you claim to be a Republican and do not accept the Sykes agenda in toto and to the letter, he brands you as a RINO (Republican in name only) or worse.”

 

 

 Then comes from the strange part:

 

 “The question is not whether Charlie has the right to do this. The question is why the Republicans believe him and are deathly afraid of Charlie’s censure.

“His audience is in southeast Wisconsin which is predominantly Democratic territory. His broadcasts are in the morning, when all good Republicans are or should be at work and out of range of Charlie’s daily vitriol.”

  

 

Here’s a thought: maybe some of Bill’s friends could give him an updated Blue Book for Christmas this year: the one with stats on Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee Counties, which tend to be the reddest counties in the entire state. Also, somebody needs to tell him about the whole Scott Walker thing.

 

  

Kraus finds all of this puzzling:

 

  

“We know that Republicans are scared to death of AARP and the golden oldies they claim to represent, of the NRA and the thousands of gun lovers who take their marching orders from them, from the tax oppressed residents of the northern suburbs of Milwaukee and of Waukesha County and, of course, from the theocrats of every persuasion.

“But Charlie Sykes? Whatever is it about him that scares Republican legislators into foolishness like un-indexing the gas tax?”

 

Unindexing the gas tax? Repealing an annual tax increase that required no vote? And this is mysterious to Kraus? You’ll recall this issue was so potent that even Democrat Jim Doyle signed the repeal.

 

  

So what is this “Sykes problem”? The opposition to high taxes? Wouldn’t that be the “Republican’s Reagan Problem?”

  

 

 

And would Republicans really be better off sounding more like Ed Garvey, which Bill Kraus has been doing the last few years?

 

  

His point seems to be that my show shouldn’t be a problem, because nobody really listens. Otherwise, he might have to admit that the real problem isn’t me, it’s the audience… the voters who have this idea that Republicans who run as conservatives ought to govern as conservatives.

  

 

At some level Bill Kraus must get this, because he's probably noticed that even though he rails against conservatives on a regular basis, nobody has detected even the smallest sign that the Republicans have a “Bill Kraus problem.”