Tom Tiffany's election denying pilot

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I don’t think there’s any question that Tom will win if we can stop some of the cheating. Again, we’re not going to stop it all, but if we can stop some of the cheating, I think, certainly, Tom is going to win… Cheating is all they’ve got. They’ve got to cling, they’ve gotta hang onto cheating, and they gotta get cheating. It’s the only possible way.”

– Leonard Boltz, Langlade County GOP chair who has personally flown Tiffany across the state at least a dozen times speaking at a party meeting

The man who has flown Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany to at least a dozen campaign events — and was lauded as a hero when the plane crashed with Tiffany on it earlier this month — has a long history of connections with some of Wisconsin’s most prominent election deniers. Henry Redman and Baylor Spears report on the beliefs of Leonard Boltz and his relationship with Tiffany, who has tried in recent weeks to distance himself from his own election denying past.

Wisconsin Superintendent of Schools Jill Underly gave her sixth annual state of education address on Thursday. In the speech, she said Wisconsin urgently needs to update its school funding formula, Spears reports.

When our reporters approached Tiffany for a comment on the Boltz story outside of a campaign event in Oconomowoc Wednesday evening, two of his staff members physically blocked Redman from following as Tiffany ducked into his car. On Thursday, the Tiffany campaign prevented two Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporters from covering an event, claiming one is a “liberal activist.” Redman reports on the denial, which came days after Tiffany said he believes in the press having access to his events.

Last weekend, President Donald Trump revoked the White House press access for reporters from CNN, MS Now and Politico. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the White House to restore the credentials, Jane Norman of our DC Bureau reports.

In a commentary, Editor-in-Chief Ruth Conniff connects the dots between Trump and Tiffany’s aversion to negative press coverage and the fringe views of Boltz, writing that the mask has slipped from Tiffany’s efforts to portray himself as a friendly, normal moderate.

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