That Was the Year That Was, which is based on the old British TV show …

… is a tradition of, well, anywhere I’ve worked dating back to years beginning with the number 19.

Thanks to poor Internet connections (this means you, Centurylink) and my overloaded schedule, this will be more brief than previous years, which is too bad because 2014 was a really strange year.

The biggest Wisconsin political news of 2014 was obviously the reelection of Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s political Energizer bunny …

… or perhaps Wisconsin’s own Obi Wan Kenobi …

and Republicans controlling both houses of the Legislature again, in fact expanding their majorities in both houses.

Democrats tried to pick off Walker in Recallarama in 2012, and failed. Democrats then came up with the focus-group-tested Mary Burke — rich businessperson with suitable liberal credentials, or so it seemed — and failed again.

Burke represents a grotesque failure on the part of Wisconsin’s news media to investigate the background of a candidate for public office. It took the non-mainstream media to point out the giant holes in Burke’s resume at Trek Bicycle — for instance, why she left — and ask such inconvenient questions as why no non-Burke could attest to her work at Trek, or whether she was qualified to be governor. The voters decided she wasn’t.

The economy seems better this year only because of the steep drop in gas prices, something opposed by Barack Obama. There is really no other reason to think the economy is better other than more money in people’s pockets due to said gas price drop.

Obama proved himself as one of the most effective presidents ever by delivering the Senate to Republican control and expanding the GOP’s control of the House of Representatives. It makes one wonder why Democrats continue to slavishly, blindly, stupidly support him.

As it happens, I got to witness the two strangest Wisconsin political stories this year, both of which involved Sen. Dale Schultz (R–Richland Center). At the start of the year, Schultz announced he wasn’t running for reelection, and said he wouldn’t endorse Rep. Howard Marklein (R–Spring Green), who announced in April 2013 he was running for Schultz’s seat.

Democrat Ernie Wittwer of Hillpoint, a retired state employee, announced he was running for Schultz’s seat. Unimpressed, state Democratic Party officials convinced Pat Bomhack of Spring Green, former aide for the phony maverick Sen. Russ Feingold, to, instead of running for Marklein’s seat (for the second time, after Bomhack lost the 2012 Democratic primary), run against Marklein. Democratic Party chair (if there is such a thing) Chris Larson even endorsed Bomhack, choosing one Democrat over another.

The early morning after the Aug. 12 primary, Wittwer was announced defeating Bomhack by two votes. That margin grew to seven after the county canvasses. Then Bomhack requested a recount, and more than 100 ballots from Monroe disappeared. That and irregularities in other counties switched Wittwer’s nine-vote win to a 33-vote Bomhack win. Wittwer’s wife and campaign manager sent a letter to 17th Senate District newspapers that burned holes in the newsprint on which it was printed over how state Democrats treated her husband and favored a pretty obvious carpetbagger.

Then, two weeks before the general election, the state Democratic Party sent out a flyer with a picture of Schultz and Bomhack together, with a quote from a Schultz story in The Capital Times:

“Pat Bomhack is a good fit for the district because his values and positions on the issues that people care about, from my perspective, are similar to mine.”

Was that an endorsement? Both Schultz and his campaign manager weaseled out of using the E word, with Schultz saying, “I think people are smart enough to read between the lines, and I encourage them to do their research and come to their own conclusion.”

Well, here’s the conclusion: Marklein beat Bomhack, and Marklein is being succeeded by another Republican, Dodgeville Mayor Todd Novak. (Who won his race by 65 votes.) So Schultz went out the door 0 for 2 in trying to influence the 2015–16 Legislature.

That, I thought, had to be the strangest thing I would witness in 2014. (Other than, perhaps, having a tornado pass within one-half mile of me and another apparently pass over closer than that, three days after a murder.) Then, two weeks after the election, I went to a speech by Madison Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Morlino. Or so I thought. A journalist is supposed to report on stories, not be the story, but I ended up doing both, continuing my professional tradition of making people really angry at me.

It was cold this year — hideously (though sadly not abnormally) cold in the winter, cold in the spring, and below-normal in temperatures in the summer. The fall was OK, November was cold and snowy, but December was warmer than normal, giving us a brown Christmas after the snow melted away. Of course, the wind chill is below zero outside today. Wisconsin weather sucks.

The Packers had a brief 2013 playoff trip (which took place in January), then won the NFC North for the fourth year in a row, thanks to a legendary last-game performance by quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who channeled his inner Favre by returning to the field after an injury. The Badgers made the basketball Final Four, which was cool. The Badgers had a reasonably good football season with another strange coda, the departure of coach Gary Andersen after two seasons. But that worked out much better than it could have. The Brewers, meanwhile, looked inconceivably good for much of the season, then deflated like the Hindenburg. One suspects, given the upgrades to the south, that there will be no potential postseason excitement for the Brewers in 2015.

 

As always, may your 2015 be better than your 2014. I would say “less interesting” too, but that would be against my professional interests.