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No Moderate Candidates in the Democrat Party: Jim Pfaff on The Vicki McKenna Show | Aug 13, 2026

Published: August 13, 2026
Network: The Vicki McKenna Show
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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Wisconsin’s Democratic primary produced the headline Democrats wanted: moderate candidate wins. On the August 13 edition of The Vicki McKenna Show, Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff argued the label is the whole game — that Democrat Party socialism is not confined to Francesca Hong and the DSA wing, but is how the entire party governs. McKenna framed the potshots from James Carville, David Axelrod, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders at Hong as a smart play to sell Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley as a centrist in a purple state. Pfaff’s answer: there is no centrist to sell, and Tom Tiffany’s job is to hang the DSA platform on his opponent and make him answer for it — on socialism, on education, on Milwaukee’s record.

Topics Covered

• “No Moderate Candidates”: Reading the Primary Result
• The DSA Platform Is the Democrat Platform
• Tom Tiffany’s Task: Contrast, Not Platitudes
• Education: Make Crowley Defend the System He Built
• The Biden Legacy and the Milwaukee Record
• Why Sanders and AOC Walked Away
• Key Takeaways

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“No Moderate Candidates”: Reading the Primary Result

McKenna opened with the Democrats’ framing problem — or rather, their framing success. After national figures took shots at Francesca Hong, the post-primary headlines read “moderate candidate wins,” even though, in McKenna’s words, the winner is as left as they come. Pfaff rejected the premise outright:

“There are no moderate candidates anywhere in the Democrat Party right now.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

In his telling, Hong’s only distinction is candor: she says out loud what the party already believes and how it already governs, through internal party discipline built on what he called a radical socialist idealism that is against the American Republic. The strategic conclusion follows directly:

“the Democrat Party wants to overthrow the American Republic. And we have to hang what the DSA stands for on their necks.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The DSA Platform Is the Democrat Platform

Pfaff made the case by going structural. The Democratic Socialists of America do not merely share a mood with the Democrat Party — their institutional demands map onto what Democrats already attempt:

“the DSA says get rid of the Senate, put the president under control of the House”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The conversation drew the parallel out: how is that different from making DC and Puerto Rico states to add four senators, packing the court for friendly justices, or stopping a president at every turn with lawfare — dragging every executive order, every administrative move, every hire into court to stop the agenda cold? The two also ran down the policy planks the DSA and the Democratic Party hold in common: jobs guarantees, universal paid time off, government-subsidized housing, government-run healthcare, free higher education, the Green New Deal, utility subsidies. And the discussion noted Tiffany’s opponent advocates the type of policies Anthony Fauci is noted for — the kind that shut down American business, a theme TCC has covered in our analysis of Fauci pleading the Fifth. Pfaff’s summary of the DSA surge:

“It’s interesting and different than anything we’ve seen in recent years, but it’s not surprising because this is the Democrat Party.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Tom Tiffany’s Task: Contrast, Not Platitudes

Pfaff gave Tom Tiffany credit for how he has introduced himself in the race so far:

“Now listen, I think it’s been a really good thing the way that he has positioned himself as a Wisconsinite who believes in the people of the state, and he’s doing a decent job of making that statement.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

But positioning is only half the job. The other half is contrast: keep contrasting the DSA and make the opponent answer for it — call him a socialist, because he is one. Both host and guest hammered the platitude problem. Slogans like “red tape reset” sound nice, McKenna said, but nobody knows what they mean; Pfaff agreed that the case has to be direct and straightforward. He also warned against a rural-only strategy. Tiffany cannot win on his base geography alone:

“It’s not enough to appeal only to rural folks in Wisconsin. You’ve got to appeal beyond that.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The persuadable voters, in Pfaff’s view, are people rethinking the country’s situation — mostly in a positive way because of what Donald Trump is doing — who now need to be shown, in precise terms, what each set of policies will lead to. Democrat policies, he said, lead to censorship and worse schools.

Education: Make Crowley Defend the System He Built

That is where McKenna brought the receipts, laying Milwaukee’s numbers at Crowley’s feet:

“4% proficiency in reading and math for Black kids in Milwaukee schools. By the way, his high school 6% proficiency in reading.”
— Vicki McKenna, The Vicki McKenna Show

Make them defend it, McKenna urged — the 4% reading proficiency, the state of the modern classroom — because the other side will try to hang anvils around Tom Tiffany’s neck, whether from other candidates’ positions or from outright lies. She also pointed to a mailer from a group called American Transcript, built like a newspaper and targeted to Wisconsin, as the kind of aggressive messaging campaigns should be doing themselves instead of leaving it to independent groups. Pfaff’s advice went to the framing of the question itself. Asking a Democrat “what do you think about education” invites a rehearsed answer about making education better. The question has to carry the record inside it:

“You got to say more explicitly, what are you going to change about the education system that you built? This is your system.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The contrast writes itself: Republicans have offered school choice, expansions of school choice, scholarships, and phonics to fix the reading problem — and, as the show put it, Democrats have rejected all of it while kids under their watch can’t read or put words into a sentence.

The Biden Legacy and the Milwaukee Record

Pfaff widened the education fight into the national frame Republicans should be running on everywhere:

“we have to make it very clear that the Biden legacy is what Democrats actually stand for.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

“Kamala Harris is the face of the Democrat Party. This is what they want.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Emotional connection, he argued, cuts both ways: campaigns try to connect by saying nice things about themselves, but the same emotional connection comes from defining precisely what the opponent stands for and making him answer for it. McKenna supplied the Milwaukee material: 1,100 people murdered since David Crowley became county executive, a county budget he cannot figure out how to run, and a health insurance contract he could not secure for his own employees. When the white privilege attacks come, the response on offer was blunt — more Black men die in Milwaukee County at the hands of criminals than any other place in Wisconsin, and more young Black kids can’t read. Pfaff added that the argument lands in this environment: the pattern showed up with El-Sayed and in other places where DSA candidates are running, and grocery stores and drugstores have been run out of Milwaukee’s north side by defund-the-police politics and judges who turn violent criminals back onto the streets. It is the same lawlessness dynamic TCC examined in our analysis of the Madison protests and the rule of law.

Why Sanders and AOC Walked Away

McKenna closed the segment with the worry: is Crowley harder to beat than Hong would have been? Pfaff would not concede the premise — the fundamentals, he said, are relatively the same, and will be the same in a lot of these districts. As for why the socialist left’s national stars abandoned the race, he offered a theory about their actual strategy:

“one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders and AOC threw their hands up on this race is because it doesn’t fit the paradigm they’re going after, which is get socialist communist candidates winning primaries in strong Democrat districts so that you can bring them in and then continue to expand from there.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

A statewide race in purple Wisconsin does not fit that expansion model. But whichever Democrat carries the banner, Pfaff’s bottom line for the Tiffany campaign did not change:

“the dynamic is the same whether it’s Francesca Hong or Crowley. There’s no difference. The fundamentals are what we’ve been talking about.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Key Takeaways

1. No moderates to run against – Pfaff rejects the “moderate candidate wins” framing of Wisconsin’s Democratic primary: there are no moderate candidates anywhere in the Democrat Party, and Hong only says out loud what the party already believes.
2. Hang the DSA on their necks – The DSA’s demands (abolish the Senate, subordinate the president and courts to the House) parallel Democrat moves like DC and Puerto Rico statehood, court packing, and lawfare — and the policy planks match, from jobs guarantees to the Green New Deal.
3. Contrast over platitudes – Tiffany has positioned himself well as a Wisconsinite, but he must keep contrasting the DSA, call his opponent a socialist, and drop slogans like “red tape reset” that nobody understands.
4. Make Crowley own the record – 4% reading and math proficiency for Black kids in Milwaukee schools, 6% at Crowley’s own high school, 1,100 murders since he became county executive. Ask what he will change about the system he built.
5. The Biden legacy is the brand – Kamala Harris is the face of the Democrat Party; defining precisely what the opponent stands for is as emotionally powerful as self-promotion.
6. Same race either way – Sanders and AOC walked away because the race doesn’t fit their primary-takeover paradigm, but the fundamentals against Crowley are the same as they would have been against Hong.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Aug 13, 2026 on The Vicki McKenna Show.