Our correspondent files from a state fairground press tent, where a democratic socialist and a governor's anointed successor are re-enacting a struggle that has been staged, with minor set changes, roughly since the invention of the committee.
Wisconsin's chaotic Democratic primary — democratic socialist versus the governor's pick — is reviewed as a franchise instalment, complete with a newly invented Office of Narrative Continuity issuing 'previously on' recaps before candidate forums. Invented spokespeople for both camps object on entirely predictable grounds. Satire.
The Wisconsin Democratic primary opened this week to modest crowds and the unmistakable air of a franchise that has run out of ideas. A democratic socialist against the governor's preferred pick; the insurgent with the volunteers, the anointed one with the donor list. One has seen this film in Athens, in Islington, in a windowless hotel ballroom outside Buenos Aires where the canapés had also run out.
The novelty, if one may dignify it with the word, arrived on Tuesday when the state party's newly convened Office of Narrative Continuity announced it would be issuing formal previously on recaps before each candidate forum, on the grounds that voters could no longer be expected to remember which faction had betrayed which in the preceding season.
"We tested it and comprehension improved enormously," said Marguerite Vandersloot, the office's inaugural continuity supervisor, addressing a press tent smelling faintly of fried cheese and ambition. "Ninety seconds of context. Who fell out with whom at the county convention. Which endorsement was rescinded and by fax. Then we let them argue about the same four things they were going to argue about anyway."
The recaps are read aloud by a volunteer in a folding chair, without inflection, which observers agree is the correct register. Attendees have been issued laminated cards distinguishing the establishment from the movement, though officials concede the cards must be reprinted after most weekends.
The insurgent, the incumbent, the interminable
The insurgent campaign has objected, as insurgent campaigns must. "Continuity implies the story has been going somewhere," said Desmond Ptak, a field organiser who has knocked doors in three states and lost faith in two of them. "We are not a sequel. We are a reboot. Darker. Grittier. Same finance committee, admittedly."
From the governor's camp, the response was the sort of magnificent placidity that only comes from having the party apparatus, the mailing addresses and the good parking. "We welcome the recaps," said spokesperson Helen Braithwaite-Kudlow, who was eating a bratwurst with the joyless efficiency of a woman on schedule. "We simply feel the summaries dwell excessively on the past. Voters want to look forward, to the future, in which we do broadly what we have been doing."
"Every faction insists this time is different. Every faction is issued the same folding chairs."
By Thursday the Office of Narrative Continuity had expanded its remit to include a *Where Are They Now* segment covering candidates from previous cycles, a project abandoned within a day after it became clear that the answer, in nearly every case, was consulting.
Outside, the fairground emptied in the particular Midwestern dusk that makes a man consider his choices. Two rival canvassing teams passed one another on the gravel and nodded, professionals recognising professionals, each convinced they were in the final act. One is reminded, inevitably, of every other final act one has filed from. The recap will be shorter next time. The argument will not.
Further reading, for those who prefer their politics unembellished: The New York Times.
