June 10, 2009

He got his start at age 9, when he convinced enough fellow fourth-graders to back Michael Dukakis over George Bush to flip a straw poll for the 1988 presidential election.

"We swung the election from 11 votes down in a class of 30 to 7 votes up," Tate recalls. "I was not a normal child."

Two decades and many campaigns later, Tate is set to become the youngest state chair in the nation of either party when Wisconsin Democratic Party activists elect him to a two-year term Saturday during their convention in Green Bay.

Tate, who turned 30 in March, will surpass Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan (34) and Mississippi GOP Chairman Brad White (32) as the youngest, according to spokespersons for both parties. He does not face any opposition.

Tate will be in charge of hiring staff, raising money, defending Democratic policies and attacking Republicans. His goal in 2010 is to help U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and Gov. Jim Doyle win re-election and keep the party in control of both houses of the Legislature.

"For a young buck, Mike has got more experience than many people involved in politics twice his age," said outgoing chairman Joe Wineke, who is stepping down after two two-year terms. "He understands the modern world of politics and is uniquely talented to move us to the next level."

Tate said some are taken aback by his age but he noted he has been a professional Democratic campaigner in Wisconsin for a decade. He organized college campuses to help Al Gore narrowly carry Wisconsin in 2000 and led Howard Dean's 2004 Democratic primary campaign in Wisconsin.

In 2006, he managed the Fair Wisconsin campaign that attemped to defeat a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Voters approved the amendment, but the campaign helped Democrats win seats in the Legislature and made the gay rights movement more of a political power in Wisconsin.

Last year, Tate helped form and run a group called Advancing Wisconsin that sent volunteers to knock on more than 1 million doors to advocate for Barack Obama and Democrats in two dozen legislative districts. Obama won the state, and Democrats won control of the Assembly for the first time since 1994.

In between, Tate has worked for state politicians ranging from Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk to Doyle. After years of fits and starts, he earned a political science degree from UW-Madison in 2005.

Tate succeeds Wineke, a former state senator who said one of his biggest accomplishments was keeping the party's factions at peace with each other. He said the party also improved databases that help campaigns reach voters and had been lagging behind the Republicans'.

Under Wineke, the party won control of both houses of the Legislature, re-elected Doyle, picked up a congressional seat and helped Obama carry Wisconsin.

Tate said he hopes to build on that success. He said he plans to hire an organizer to increase the party's outreach to voters year-round and to use new media to spread the party's message through social networking, online videos and outreach to bloggers.

"I plan to be a very aggressive party chair," Tate said. "Anybody who knows me won't doubt that."

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said Tate has a reputation for effectively turning out Democratic voters. But with his party in power amid a recession, Jefferson said Tate will have a harder job than Wineke did.

"He's going to have to justify all the garbage the Democrats are putting up these days, including a state budget that raises taxes by $3 billion," Jefferson said. "Governing can be a lot more difficult than just pointing fingers."

Tate said he looks forward to that role.

"You look at the difficult time we're facing right now and thank God we have the Democratic Party in charge," he said. "We're crafting the policies that are going to lead this country out of the recession."

Tate grew up in the Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay, where he recently bought a house with his wife of two years.

Tate credited his late mother, a teacher and principal, with encouraging him to study U.S. history at a young age and that led to an interest in Democratic politics. His father, a banker who is a political independent, has probably voted for more Republicans than Democrats, Tate said.

Tate ran his campaign for chair with characteristic precision and passion. He lined up supporters across the state, outlined his plans on a Web site (including a well-produced biographical video) and put 7,000 miles on his car meeting activists. In the end, he did not face opposition.

The consensus demonstrates widespread confidence in Tate's abilities among the party's factions, including grassroots activists and professional strategists, said longtime party activist Sachin Chheda.

"He's got experience running huge door-to-door campaigns, raising money that campaigns need, putting ads on television and getting people to call their neighbors," he said. "Mike is one of the foremost champions and practicioners of effective campaigning we've got in Wisconsin."

Associated Press