Here's Wisconsin State Senator and recall target Sheila Harsdorf trying to put you into diabetic shock with the sugary sweetness of how she's Just a Mom Like You, trying to make her way in this wild, wacky world, and do right by her kids.
You can't blame her for it. It's something just about every politician feels compelled to do at some point. Trot out the fam, and try to make a personal connection with constituents who have also reproduced. And let's be honest, that works great. Because everyone can understand how a committed parent might decide it's her responsibility to make the world a better place for her family and the families of friends and neighbors, right? And if you're a "fiscal conservative," well, someone's got to make the tough choices Wisconsin families need made, right?
But that's what makes it so strange that Sheila Harsdorf decided that one of the tough issues she had to take on for Wisconsin's kids was ... lowering taxes on moist snuff products.
That's right. What Wisconsin's families really needed was relief from the oppressive taxation regime that makes Skoal more expensive than Beech-Nut. Why? Because chewing tobacco is taxed based on—get this—the cost of product! Can you imagine that? Taxing sales of this particular product in the way that sales of every other product are taxed? I mean, really!
No, all freedom and moist snuff-loving American children know that tobacco should be taxed by weight, so that there's none of that nasty "market distortion" that makes higher end products like moist snuff cost more than leaf tobacco. Except for the higher price, that is. The government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers, except insofar as it can be persuaded to make the losers lose by virtue of their product weighing more. In which case, it's awesome and very freedom-y.
Republican state senators Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Alberta Darling and Randy "Bed" Hopper all believe this is a serious enough priority for Wisconsin families that they fought to insert the moist snuff tax preference provision into the already highly contentious state budget.
And what's really, really weird about the curious passion these four have suddenly displayed for this bedrock issue surrounding the tragedy of ad valorem taxation of moist snuff products is that they are not alone in their zeal. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is, remarkably enough, just as passionate about moist snuff as they are! Now that is just zany! (For continuing coverage of ALEC's reach and influence, be sure to follow the Daily Kos "Exposing ALEC" group.)
It's perhaps understandable that ALEC—underwritten as it is by Altira, the parent company of Philip Morris tobacco—exhibits such a deep devotion to the issue. But what about Just a Mom Like You types, like Sheila Harsdorf? What explains her drive to save Wisconsin's hard-pressed cheeks and gums from the tyranny of ad valorem taxation of moist snuff products?
We may never know. But we do know this: Today, Wisconsin's voters—thanks to the tireless efforts of Wisconsin's truly incredible progressive activists—just happen to have a chance to tell Sheila Harsdorf and her curiously moist snuff justice-obsessed cohorts that their priorities are ridiculous, and bounce them straight out of office.
If you're in Wisconsin, here's how to find your polling place.
If you're not, here's what you can do to help.