Brett Hulsey, Madison-area state rep, announced Monday he would challenge Democratic candidates Mary Burke, Marcia Mercedes Perkins and Hariprasad Trivedi for the Democratic nod for Governor.

Hulsey isn’t your average lawmaker. He’s been lurking on the fringes of the Democratic party since he was elected to the assembly in 2010.
He’s been cited for dunking a 9-year-old into Lake Mendota, threatening a police officer with karate moves and hijacking sitting governor Scott Walker’s press conference.

Welcome to the world of a whack-a-mole.

Hurley’s troubles with state Democrats stem from what we will call a failure to communicate. Or failure to know when not to communicate.

He forged endorsements from retiring Rep. Spencer Black on fliers for a campaign to fill Black’s west Madison seat. He said Democratic Assembly leader Peter Barca was “running up the white flag of the French army,” because Democrats weren’t introducing enough amendments to the state budget.

And he accused Madison mayor Paul Soglin of pulling strings on a conspiracy after he was cited for inappropriate contact with a minor in 2012.

Here’s what happened:

Hulsey flipped a 9-year-old boy off an inflatable chair and into the water at Spring Harbor Beach in Madison on Independence Day 2012. Then he whipped out his iPhone and snapped a few pictures. Of the sunset and sailboats, not the kid, he told police.

Don’t worry, he didn’t “touch” or “molest” the boy or anything, he later said.

But Hulsey was running out of jokers with state Democrats before he was cited in the beach fiasco.

He re-labeled Walker’s 2011 budget repair bill the “budget despair bill” in a press release a couple hours after reading it. Just one in a long string of bad puns.

Hulsey stood hand in the air at a Walker press conference in 2011.

When he wasn’t called on, he hopped behind the podium and began holding his own impromptu press conference over a disabled mic and the din of people filing out the doors.

And in the summer of 2013 he used $1,200 in campaign funds to buy a red 1987 Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible. For “parades,” he said.

Hulsey asked Government Accountability Board administrator Jonathan Becker in an email if the car could be considered legitimate on a campaign expense ledger, according to the Capitol Times.

“Lots of people go to parades in convertibles but I don’t have one,” he wrote. “(I) am looking to buy an old one for $1,000 to use for that and campaigning.”

It’s illegal to use a campaign vehicle for day-to-day transportation, but Hulsey has been spotted pulling up to the capitol building in the 27-year-old ride.

More strange behavior:

• In early 2013, an aide reported Hulsey to Madison police after he brought a box cutter to the office and told her he was going to reserve a room for training against a box cutter attack, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She refused.

• That same day, according to a separate report, he showed a police officer the un-extended box cutter, put the officer in a compliance hold and said he was going to use karate on him, the Journal Sentinel reported

• About a month before the box cutter incident, Hulsey asked a police officer if he could bring a musket into the capitol building to protest concealed carry laws.

I don’t have enough space to lay out every odd thing this guy has done. He has a long way to climb to secure the Democratic nod for
governor.

But Hulsey doesn’t seem to mind.

“I like a good David and Goliath story,” he told the Capitol Times Tuesday.

Let’s just hope he fills his armory with rocks, not muskets or box cutters.