Is Ben Wikler the Most Important Democrat in America?
Updated at 7:40 p.m. ET on August 13, 2023
The man who has been hailed as “the best state chair in the country” is not a national household name. He’s not even a household name in his own state. But on a recent afternoon in the small village of Grafton, Wisconsin, Ben Wikler might as well have been Bono.
Two dozen middle-aged and retired volunteers stood in line to clutch the hand of the chair of the Wisconsin Democrats. “Thank you for everything you do,” they said, beaming at Wikler as he took a lap through the Ozaukee County party headquarters. “We’re so happy you’re here.” Like proud children before an admiring parent, the volunteers told him how much money they’d raised and how many doors they’d knocked on this summer.
“This is Connie,” someone said, patting a woman’s shoulder. “She just won the school-board race.” “Yay, school board!” Wikler cheered.
He was there to kick off the last day of door knocking for a Wisconsin state-assembly candidate who had very little chance of winning in solid-red Ozaukee County, an exurban district on the shore of Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee. But the point was not to win, it was to lose by . That afternoon, Wikler managed to deliver a speech with almost the same inspirational zeal as Aragorn at the Black
