A bit amusing, but not huge news. A fitting national parallel would be Mike Gravel running for the Libertarian Party nomination after being spurned by Democrats in 2008.
Zwank, who said there was "not a wit of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans," at the Dane Democrats 77th district debate, hardly expressed any sympathy with Green Party politics except for his disdain for "special interests" and the Democratic Party in general. In fact, while his primary opponents were speaking to bread-and-butter liberal issues, such as funding public education and the university, Zwank's main message was that the state budget deficit prevented any big promises for new spending. The one interesting idea Zwank did propose was indexing tuition rates based on a student family income. The problem, of course, is that a student's ability to pay tuition is not only a result of his family's financial means; it is also a result of his family's willingness to pay for it at all.
In the press release in which he announced Zwank's support, Manski attacked Hulsey for taking "$192,000 from the coal industry." Manski has never tempered his distaste for Hulsey politically in my first interview with him in July, he called the Democratic nominee "a roadblock" for certain progressive policies, including animal rights and the construction of a biohazard lab.
You'd think the former mayor of Middleton would mean something in a district that includes part (but not much) of the town. But that clearly did not translate into the primary, where Zwank got a few percent of the vote and never seemed to develop a following.
