Parenting & Family Quote by Jim Doyle

Doyle is doing the most durable trick in American politics: praising voters in a way that also defines what a “good citizen” is supposed to look like. The line is built like a warm handshake, but it doubles as a quiet checklist. Work. Taxes. Kids. Values. Each clause narrows the portrait of Wisconsin into a moral résumé, turning identity into behavior and behavior into virtue.

The specific intent is coalition maintenance. A governor can’t campaign forever, but he can keep campaigning for legitimacy: the state is strong because its people are decent, and his job is simply to serve them. “As I’ve often said” signals practiced reassurance, not spontaneity; it implies a steady hand, a leader who has been repeating the same civic sermon because it polls well and because repetition feels like tradition.

The subtext is more pointed. “Dedicated, hardworking” flatters labor while also disciplining it: if you’re struggling, the implied solution is more grit, not structural change. “Pay their taxes” is a preemptive strike against the usual cynicism about government, recasting taxation as proof of character rather than a contested policy question. “Raise their kids” ties public life to private morality, a way to borrow authority from family and funnel it back into governance. “Good, Midwestern values” is the soft-focus close-up: an elastic phrase that can mean thrift, modesty, neighborliness, and social conservatism without committing to any one of them.

Contextually, this is heartland branding in the post-Reagan consensus era: valorize the “everyday” taxpayer-parent, signal cultural familiarity, and make political conflict sound like it’s happening somewhere else. The genius is its blandness; it invites applause from almost everyone, while quietly suggesting that anyone outside the frame is less Wisconsin, less worthy, less “us.”