Clarke ‘being groomed’ for race, Baldwin says
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and her political team have been largely silent about the possibility of a challenge by Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. That changed over the weekend. Baldwin’s campaign sent out an email solicitation that suggests the conservative sheriff is “being groomed” to run against Baldwin in 2018. The note plays up Clarke’s strong ties to President Donald Trump and the sheriff’s December 2015 trip to Russia.
“He’s exactly the type of person President Trump would love to have as an ally in the Senate,” says the email.
“Sheriff Clarke checks all the boxes. He has four shady PACs raising money in an attempt to get him to run. His offensive, stream-of-consciousness tweets are eerily similar to Trump’s. And, wait for it … He has ties to Russia.”
As usual, Clarke did not respond to a request for comment. He has said he’s not ruled out challenging Baldwin but says there is a less than 50% chance he would run, adding that he would need to be pulled “kicking and screaming” into the race.
Craig Peterson, a political adviser to Clarke, said it still remains unlikely the sheriff would take on Baldwin because he’s “focusing on being Milwaukee County sheriff.”
But Peterson added, “It’s fascinating that everybody is making money off of David Clarke’s name, except David Clarke. Maybe he should consider licensing his name.”
In truth, Clarke has done well for himself, earning five-figure fees for his speaking gigs and publishing a memoir titled “Cop Under Fire.”
“I can’t put words in his mouth, but it certainly is flattering that she recognizes that he would probably be the most formidable candidate out there,” Peterson said of the Baldwin solicitation. “Obviously, the message he is telling people is resoundingly strong.”
Several out-of-state groups are raising money trying to draft Clarke to enter the race. The official Draft Clarke campaign has raised more than $300,000 and is led by Trump allies and Duane “Dog” and Beth Chapman from the reality TV show “Dog the Bounty Hunter.” A couple of those pro-Clarke groups have attacked Baldwin for being a lesbian.
In her campaign email, Baldwin mentions that Clarke served as a surrogate for the Trump campaign and continues to speak out for the first-term Republican president on Twitter and TV appearances. The sheriff runs as a Democrat because he couldn’t win in Milwaukee County otherwise.
“Like many others on a growing list of big-time Trump supporters, he’s had contact with the Russian government,” the Baldwin email says, along with a Clarke photo from the visit. “Sheriff Clarke visited Moscow in 2015 and met with the Russian deputy prime minister while he was there.”
Clarke traveled to Israel and Russia in late 2015 as part of a delegation from the National Rifle Association, a $40,000 trip paid for by the NRA, NRA board member Pete Brownell and Right to Bear Arms, a Russian gun rights group. The trip has been getting attention among left-wing media outlets and with at least one Democratic member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee because Clarke was there at the same time that former national security adviser Mike Flynn dined with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gala for Russia Today.
What’s not clear, however, is whether Clarke was supporting Trump at the time of that trip. The sheriff declined to say in March 2016 whether he was voting for Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and began speaking for Trump only in the late spring.
“Wisconsin deserves better than lies, bigotry, and ties to Russia,” Baldwin writes in her solicitation. “Help us make sure we have the money to handily defeat him if he runs.”
Of course, the state’s junior senator gets to keep the donations whether Clarke runs or not.