Let's say a group of wealthy people -- some who live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and some who live elsewhere -- want to enact their own political agenda in that city. Milwaukee's ripe for the picking, with its abundant challenges and imperfect leaders. Let's call the members of this group the Ideologues, and let's call their goals the Agenda.
To enact the Agenda, the Ideologues need the local school board -- which we'll call the Milwaukee Public Schools Board -- to take certain actions. But the MPS Board doesn't agree with the Ideologues and their Agenda.
So let's say...
So let's say that the Ideologues look at the calendar and see that some of the MPS Board members are up for re-election in 2009. They see an opportunity to replace incumbents who disagree with the Agenda with new board members who would help them enact the Agenda. All the Ideologues have to do is to put up candidates who agree with the Agenda, and then get those candidates elected.
But, to make this more interesting, let's say that the Agenda isn't very popular with voters. And maybe the Ideologues themselves aren't popular with voters. So the Ideologues can't run themselves, and they can't promote the real issues of their Agenda.
If they're going to enact the Agenda, the Ideologues have three jobs ahead of them: (1) They have to downplay the real issues of their Agenda and devise a Popular Agenda instead, to hide their real Agenda behind. (2) They have to find candidates who not only agree with the real Agenda and who are willing to run on the Popular Agenda, but who appeal to voters, too. And (3) they have to present a public face that hides the Ideologues themselves and that isn't threatening to voters.
So the Ideologues pool their resources and organize a handful of like minds -- a few parents, a few community leaders and a few public figures -- to devise and promote the Popular Agenda, the set of issues and ideas that voters might like.
Maybe this handful of like minds hires a local consultant to help them roll out the Popular Agenda and to serve as the spokesperson for the group, someone who the Ideologues can trust to understand the strategy and to do a good job. They send out feelers to identify and recruit the challengers who fit the basic criteria. Maybe they even set up some training exercises for their recruits, to help them become better candidates for office. Maybe they even give those candidates some help in fundraising and campaigning.
For the Ideologues, so much depends on this election, and the election will be decided by voters. This is the one part of the Ideologues' plan that has the most risk, because voters aren't always reliable. For one thing, voters don't always pay attention. Even if they pay attention, they don't always believe what they hear. Even if they believe what they hear, they don't always agree with adopting radical new ideas or going in radical new directions. And even if they pay attention, believe what they hear, and agree with adopting radical new ideas and directions, they don't always vote. There are a lot of moving parts that can break down along the way, so it's especially helpful if the Ideologues can count on the local mainstream media to report only what serves the Ideologues' strategy, and not to report anything that might impede its success.
In the case of Milwaukee, such a group of Ideologues might be grateful to have the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel as the major local news media. Because if the Journal-Sentinel doesn't report what happens, then did what happened really happen?
Well, it happens that in Milwaukee, a group of concerned citizens -- a few parents, a few community leaders and a few public figures -- organized itself about a year and a half ago and adopted the motto, "Students are our only special interest"...