Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Was Sullivan Recall Just A Publicity Stunt?

WisPolitics.com is reporting that CRG's attempt at recalling State Senator Jim Sullivan bombed out, just like it did with both of its attempts at recalling Governor Doyle:
The group trying to recall Sen. Jim Sullivan over his support of a statewide smoking ban hasn't been able to collect enough signatures to force a recall election, according to the CRG Network's Orville Seymer.

Seymer, who assisted a group led by West Allis tavern owner Bill Savage, said the plan was to enlist bar and restaurant owners in the district to help collect recall signatures against the Wauwatosa Democrat from angry customers. Seymer said they were expected to provide the bulk of the signatures with a limited amount of door-to-door canvassing needed to collect the rest.

But organizers didn't fully implement that plan and the recall petered out, Seymer said.

The group filed the recall June 9 and had 60 days to collect just less than 18,000 valid signatures.

A spokesman for the Government Accountability Board said today it had not received any signed recall petitions from the group.
If they only needed 18,000 signatures, why didn't they put forth the effort to implement their plan? Was it because they met too much resistance from bar owners that thought the recall was a dumb thing to do? Or were they just trying to get some cheap publicity to help them with their doomed attempt to recall Doyle?

Odds are it is that they met with a lack of interest, since they were giving a rather lame excuse to try to veil their blatantly political move. However, I can't help but wonder if there was more to it.

I think it is that they are afraid that their favorite gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker won't be able to keep up with Mark Neumann in the Republican primary.

Neumann is reported to have a lot of personal wealth and there has been speculation to how much of it he might commit to his campaign. Combine that with the fact that Neumann has also been backed by James Klauser, who is known to be influential among the state's moneyed Republicans, and that is a formidable problem for Walker, who came in third as far as campaign war chests go. And now, he could lose a big bunch of that paying off fines for not filing a complete campaign finance report.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if CRG was hoping to successfully recall Doyle before Neumann was ready to run in the hopes of allowing Walker to weasel his way in. The recall attempt of Sullivan would most likely, in that scenario, to be just another way to draw attention to themselves and their recall of Doyle.

All they managed to do was make themselves look even more ludicrous.

3 comments:

  1. They seemed to think that they'd collect signatures and get enough activists from smokers in bars. My brother went to a West Allis bar and they harangued him to sign the recall petition even after he refused. So he finished his beer and will never go back there.

    My sense is that it was a Hail Mary at an attack on another Democrat and they were surprised at how many people actually supported Sullivan's efforts toward a smoking ban. I think the recall organizers were also looking at generating a list of hardcore Republicans who they might enlist in the next normal election cycle.

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  2. I'm a smoker and I supported Sullivan. Some, not all, bars are so smoke filled that I leave there and my lungs hurt and I smell so bad I can't stand it!
    I think what this really proves is that CRG has lost it's credability with the public and they are nearly a nonentity in the political circle. That's an opinion that a number of folks have shared with me. Mr. Seymer's personal attacks against people by targeting them through open records requests to their employer hasn't helped his credability. Folks see that as a "thug" move to try and get them to shut up and it makes them mighty angry. Take that thing he did to County workers when he got info on them and then put their social security numbers on the web. Why would any decent person do that? He knew they were there. He should have removed them but he was making a power play. There should have been more serious repercussions to that than just being told to take them off? And weren't thiose records obtained from Walker's top Dog in County Administration? If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat, you can't call it a Kitty Kat...
    An Ex-CRG Member

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  3. Seymer never did help the group much. Between his inane comments at listening sessions to his legal problems, he is a crackpot to be sure.

    Kleismet isn't as crazy, but he has his own issues the belies their front and reveals what his real agenda is.

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