Fearless Sifting

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said Monday she’s building a relationship with the state’s largest business group, which her predecessor has slammed as an impediment to economic development.

Martin said she’s had separate meetings in recent weeks with the board of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and its president, Jim Haney. She said she’s tried to focus on common interests of improving the state’s economy.

…

WMC spokesman Jim Pugh would not comment on the impact of Wiley’s criticism. But he said the group was interested in building a stronger partnership with the state’s flagship university, which he said creates the workers and leaders of its members.

“We have a very strong and vital relationship and we think that’s only to grow under the leadership of Chancellor Martin,” he said. “We’re going to look for ways that we can partner on projects and ideas.”

Only time will tell if Chancellor Martin’s much heralded talents in building personal relationships will be able to repair the damaged relationship the UW has with the WMC. At this point both sides seem to be saying all of the right things, but that is to be expected.

But after growing criticism from Wiley and others, WMC toned down its tactics during this year’s election cycle in which Democrats won control of both houses of the Legislature.

Right now is about the only time we have to evaluate the effects of Wiley’s hardball strategy at the end of his tenure before the changes brought by Biddy’s tenure start to sink in. I think that analysis above is spot on. Compared to the Gableman-Butler election in April the WMC was virtually non-existent leading up to this November. While it obviously can’t be definitively attributed to Wiley’s scathing column, it definitely speaks well of his confrontational approach.