Thursday, June 4, 2009

When The Spin Starts To Whine

More than a week ago, Michael Horne of MilwaukeeWorld.com reported that Scott Walker's campaign website was created by an Ohio firm. In itself, it's no big deal. But given that Walker has taken great pains to criticize Governor Jim Doyle for letting jobs leave the state, the fact that Walker went out of state for his website highlights Walker's trademark hypocrisy.

Lefty bloggers and eventually Channel 12 news picked up on Mr. Horne's story. Ignoring the bloggers, Aaron Rodriguez of the Hispanic Conservative hyped up the hyperbole and called Channel 12's coverage as being a "hatchet job."

Dan Cody pointed out Rodriguez' hyperactive hyperbole (as well as that of James Wigderson) regarding the story. This caused Rodriguez to go from spin to whine real fast.

First he tries, and horribly fails, to minimize Walker's hypocrisy. He tries to claim that it was not a matter of Wisconsin losing a job, but just losing a chance to bid on the job.

In other words, according to Rodriguez, Walker didn't take a job from the Wisconsin-based web designer, he only took away the chance for the web designer to have the job in the first place. Isn't that so much nicer?

Then Rodriguez comes up with this:
No, in Aaron’s world, consumers don’t appreciate a news network making the news rather than reporting it. Perhaps Walker had a contact in Ohio that promised a better price than Wisconsin contractors? Who really knows? But is seems rather obvious why a gubernatorial candidate might want to employ an out-of-state vendor for the job, and it's called confidentiality.
Unfortunately for Rodriguez, while he can have his own opinion, he can't have his own facts. I would refer the gentle reader back to Mr. Horne's post, in which he has added this addendum:
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 -- Harris Kane of Heartland Hollar was kind enough to fill in some blanks for us.
According to a message he sent to Milwaukeeworld:

"Great post on the Walker website. I think I might have the Ohio connection for you.
"Walker's former campaign manager, Bruce Pfaff, works for Ohio congresswoman Jean Schmidt.
"In the last election there were questions raised about the mixing of public and political work, something familiar in Wisconsin."
It wasn't a matter of who had the lowest bid or of confidentiality. It was about who had the political connections. Given how Walker has managed contracts for the County, having them almost all no-bid contracts to supporters, that this behavior would fall over into the way he is running his campaign is of no great surprise.

Of course, this isn't the only bit of controversy tied into Walker's campaign or his staff.

Harris Kane and Cory Liebmann have both written on how Walker's top adviser, R. J. Johnson has his own conflict of interest. Apparently, he is working for Walker's own political campaign, but also for the allegedly independent right wing front groups of Coalition of America's Families and Club for Growth-Wisconsin.

In the past, Walker has also liked to hold onto campaign workers, like Tim Russell, by giving them sweetheart jobs within his administration, even when they were clearly unqualified for it.

Sorry, Aaron, but just because you don't like the message, it doesn't mean the messenger is biased in any way. And going from spinning to whining does not add to your credibility.

9 comments:

  1. Chris,

    I'm not sure what the whole point of your blog post is. If you can't see the difference between losing a single-sourced income position and losing bidding opportunity, then there is no hope having a reasonable discussion on the matter.

    Before I became a paramedic, I was a painting contractor. Frequently I was not included in bids because my company was too small to do larger jobs. Where one bidding opportunity was lost, another one was gained by looking somewhere else.

    As a painting contractor, winters became tough to find work. For web developers, however, their market is hot and their customers are willing to pay through the nose for projects. For WISN to make a big deal about the loss of a web development bid as if it were the same thing as losing a full-time paid position at some industrial plant is really grasping for straws.

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  2. Considering his keep jobs in Wisconsin mantra, that Walker (and his spokespeople) claimed that it was alternately too difficult and too expensive for a local contractor to do without even putting it up for bid is insulting to both the industry and the public.

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  3. William,

    Walker's concern is with job losses that involve annual incomes or full paid positions. These types of losses hurt the people and leave them with no source of income. Who really cares if a contractor doesn't get to bid on a project. That's the name of the game in contracting, and every contractor knows that. As a contractor, you cannot expect work to land on your doorstep, nor should you complain because a politician didn't ask for your expertise.

    Second, it's not insulting to go out of state for a project because there is better talent there or because it's cheaper. The latter is most likely the case. Even if it were insulting, since when does insulting a contractor become the headline story of a news organization?

    Any reasonable person that doesn't have a political dog in the race will see that the story was slanted against Walker. Only liberals find this story newsworthy.

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  4. Aaron,

    It doesn't matter how tightly you close your eyes, or if you have your fingers in your ears while singing as loudly as you can, the fact still remains that this is just another example of Walker's hypocrisy.

    And you claim it was an issue of bidding. It wasn't. He didn't take any bids. He didn't look around. He went with the crony, which is another pattern of his.

    I really wonder if you are just that unwilling to see or if you are being as dishonest as Walker.

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  5. Aaron said, Walker's concern is with job losses that involve annual incomes or full paid position

    The web developers who work at the firms here in Wisconsin are all full time people who have annual incomes.

    If they don't get enough clients/work, they cease to be so!

    What a silly defense you're putting forth.

    Still waiting for the day you're willing to accept feedback on your own website by the way.

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  6. All you guys are funny.

    Web developers are contractors, they provide themselves a source of income by hunting for work. This is really apples to oranges folks. Heaven forbid a local politician not inviting all of the local talent in before making a decision.

    And like it has been said already, losing a chance to bid isn't losing a job. You have to have the job first before you can lose it.

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  7. And like it has been said before, it is just another marker in the long line of hypocrisy from Walker. The man is simply unable to be honest.

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  8. Dan,

    The Hispanic Conservative is changing servers right now, so the comments option will be available in the next few days.

    Sorry for the inconvenience.

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  9. Good for you Aaron, look forward to it.

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