I’m only convinced that Barrett will be an adequate governor. I don’t think he’s the next “Fighting Bob” by any stretch of the imagination. He lacks… substance.So my question is, shouldn't we elect someone who we do not need to plan to keep in line before they are even elected? as Capper brilliantly put into words today, don't we owe it to the hundreds of thousands who stormed the Capitol and those who fought for these rights before us, to not settle for adequate?
That being said, Sly’s an important voice, mostly because those of us in the progressive world don’t really have a local voice in Wisconsin. And he’d better be on board with finishing the job this time next week. He can hammer Barrett and keep him in line after he’s in the Governor’s chair (and frankly, I wouldn’t mind if Sly did just that).
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Discussion Question of the Day
There has been much discussion the last few days regarding who is the better candidate - Kathleen Falk or Tom Barrett. The Barrett supporters seem to think that he is the most electable candidate while the Falk supporters(myself included) seem to think that she is the most progressive. Many times, the Barrett support, even amongst his most fervent supporters, comes with caveat(as seen in this posting):
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Thanks for spelling it out Jeff. Falk kissed your ass and pandered to you and therefore you should reciprocate.
ReplyDeleteMe? I'd rather elect someone who will GET IT DONE. And you and I know that the stupid "veto the budget pledge" practically guarantees that Falk won't be able to get it done.
And way to play into the whole "Falk is a puppet of the unions" meme. DUUUMMMBBB! And frankly, the veto pledge and pandering makes it far too likely that we get stuck with the one result we KNOW won't return collective bargaining rights- having Scott Walker win this election. That's not an acceptable outcome on any level.
Union members like me know that collective bargaining rights in merely piece in a much larger puzzle of corporate control and power-grabbing. That's what driven me out the Capitol time and again these last 15 months. The Falk campaign has failed time and again to connect these dots, pandered to small narrow interests over the big picture, and it has sunk any chance that she has.
Go ahead and vote for her- she's definitely qualified. But anyone who wins the Dem nomination will fight for your rights to be returned, and people you and me will make damn sure that happens. (we should be keeping them in line, instead of relzing on our laurels). And make damn sure you're on the team come May 9 with the eyes on the big prize- ending Fitzwalkerstan. Deal?
You know, Jake, for a smart man, you're awfully dense at times.
ReplyDeleteIf you think for one instance that Falk is only about the unions, you are either lying to yourself or just refuse to admit to the reality.
Furthermore, Barrett's idea of going "Pleeeeeease!" isn't going to work. They'll just laugh at him. And even if it did work, guess what? It wouldn't matter because he's made it very clear for anyone paying attention to more than the latest poll that he isn't interested in fixing things.
This is Wisconsin, not IKEA. We want to fix things, not have to craft something from scratch and not have it be what we wanted.
capper- I don't think Falk's all about the unions, but that's sure the perception that's put there, and she hasn't done anything to stop it. It's one of her biggest failures in this campaign (and there have been more than a few).
ReplyDeleteAnd stop soft-selling Tom. You know better than this. Anyone who's seen Tom in person over the last 2 months knows he's in it to win it, and will actually do the job. By the way, does it even matter if collective bargaining rights come back if Falk deep-sixes the budget and GOPs in the Legslature Tea-bag it so badly that public schools and local governments are cut worse than they are. I'm the one that;s gamed this out, and that's exactly how that'll work.
. Go ahead and vote for her, I got no problem with that difference. But stop the denigration and dishonesty, and stop waving your pom-poms - it makes you look petty and Republican
Look at Barrett's record over the past eight years. you'll vote for Falk.
ReplyDelete"By the way, does it even matter if collective bargaining rights come back if Falk deep-sixes the budget and GOPs in the Legslature Tea-bag it so badly that public schools and local governments are cut worse than they are."
ReplyDeleteIt ain't about the children is it?
"You know, Jake, for a smart man, you're awfully dense at times." Ditto...
People need to realize that the only way to really get collective bargaining back is to return the assembly and senate to the Democrats. Vetoing the budget is not going to work unless there are enough legislators afraid of the consequences of no budget. I'm not even sure how the state requires that situation be handled. But that's completely beside the point; we have to get the democrat elected before that comes into play.
ReplyDeleteThat's not going to be easy no matter which candidate wins the primary. It will be even less likely if the fervent supporters of one candidate go home because they didn't get what they wanted. Walker doesn't give a damn who he faces (you're deluding yourself if you think he does), he's got ways to attack all of the challengers. This is going to come down to passion of the base to get out and vote and reasonableness of the candidate to the moderate voter (who isn't passionate for or against Walker, admittedly there aren't many of these, but they could be the difference).
As for Tuesday's primary, I'm going to vote for who I think would make the best governor in the climate we will have for the next 2.5 years. I still haven't decided who that is yet.
Good comment. I agree with you.
DeleteBashing Milwaukee is the line Walker's ads are playing now, certainly an unfair attack as noted in these pages.
ReplyDeleteWe do live a society where facts rarely find themselves into Republican TV spots. And restricting our vote based on a perception to what GOP spin the Dem nominee is playing into seems self-defeating.
Walker will spend $millions creating an alternative world no matter who is elected in the Democratic primary.
On image, appeal and facts, whomever the Dems elect brings a compelling alternative.
But, to Jake, consider: Using the Koch brothers and Walker's union-bashing as a guide to whom we elect as our nominee is foolish, and effectively capitulation.
If the GOP appealed explicitly against black Americans, would you similarly advise against not playing into this GOP-created nonsense? Of course not, nor should you when the GOP targets working families organized in progressive unions to sell their labor.
I got frustrated with some of these posts, so I went back and ran the numbers from Falk's run in 2006 and Barrett's run in 2010, you see that Falk underperforms Barrett vs. other Dems by 7-10%. And Barrett got his voters out in Milwaukee, and beat Falk's 2006 figures by 11% (74-25 vs. 69-31) in a year where Dems in general did 10%-12% worse than in 2006.
ReplyDeleteOh, and let them try to bash Wisconsin's largest city, Barrett can remind folks that he had to deal with Scott Walker messing things up for a much longer time than the rest of this state did. Kathy Falk's never had to have Walker dragging down her ideas like Tom has had ever since he became Mayor in 2004.
And the coded race-baiting that inevitably goes with Milwaukee won't help the GOP either.
Having lived in both places, let's just say that it's not hard to have Dane County be pretty prosperous, because the best and brightest choose to live here for a lot of good reasons which have very little to do with Kathleen Falk's moves from 1997-2011. I could certainly argue Barrett's done more with a lot less to help him in Milwaukee.
MAL- this isn't about people like you and me who view unions as a good thing to maintain the balance of power away from corporate slime. Whether you want to admit it or not, Falk has been painted into a corner on the budget and in union rights that will be damn near impossible for her to get out of in most of the state.
You can ahead and vote for Falk, I won't hold it against you. We'll all be on the same team on Wednesday. But don't say she's the most "electrifying" or "electable" candidate when all evidence points otherwise. And last I checked, if the Dems don't beat Walker, it doesn't matter what pose the Dem candidate strikes, does it?
"Don't we owe it to the hundreds of thousands who stormed the Capitol and those who fought for these rights before us, to not settle for adequate?"
ReplyDeleteWe owe it to ourselves to win. This is going to close. We can't risk losing this election by rallying behind a weaker, yet more ideologically pure candidate. Falk supporters want to spin the polling to make it look like she has as much support as Barrett, but they are deluding themselves. It is imperative that we go with the candidate with the best chance to win.
GOTV in Milwaukee is the key to victory. If we can turn out MKE Dem voter participation by a few percentage points more than in '10 we win convincingly. I am going to canvass in Milwaukee for whoever is the Dem nominee. It is going to be a lot easier to convince a waffling MKE voter to go to the poll and support the city that the GOP is going to target as a wasteland due to Barrett. Milwaukeeans know that is BS. It is going to be harder to convince someone that Falk isn't a union puppet after her budget veto foolishness.
Jud neatly lays out the folly of feeding into Walker's anti-union rhetoric, like our friend Jake, Barrett and the Walker troll are advocating.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why Walker wants Tom Barrett to win.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I watched the debates last night along with our son(8th grader). All of us liked Falk the best, seconded by Vinehout. Falk was more clear about she planned to do, seemed to be truly excited about the opportunity. Barrett looks really nice, but I can't tell from what he says what he is going to do. He is vague. I surmise that Barrett has some national backing. Perhaps he would be most likely to get us some transit money? That is the only advantage I can see to him. He is certainly pleasant. Vinehout is the only one with charisma, but perhaps Falk knows how to govern right away. I will support any one of the four...but am probably going to vote for Falk.
ReplyDeleteI should add that we are not union people, but we support the unions, because of the weekend issue, etc.
Personally, I don't like it that Vinehout and La Follette aren't taken seriously by the media. I understand that bloggers have their favorites, but I don't really like it that blogs pick favorites and then use reasons like "pick Barrett because Falk will be perceived by Republicans as being a Dane County liberal and being bought out by unions".
ReplyDeleteI just don't like people telling me who to vote for. I don't like everything about Falk either. I didn't like her saying she wanted to be our mom. I think the mom I would want is Vinehout, I don't know why, but she is the most honest one. I like her the best.
If you're still not sure who to vote for on Tuesday, may I suggest voting for Kohl-Riggs? That is the strongest way to register your distaste with Walker, and lets the people who are actually passionate about the democratic race decide who we will run against him. Unless of course, Kohl-Riggs wins the primary, which is always a possibility if enough Repubs cross over or stay home.
ReplyDeleteI dislike Walker's style and policies immensely, but I do not want to vote for Kohl-Riggs. I admire Kohl-Riggs and am glad that he is running as a "real Republican". I do not want him to be governor, so I won't vote for him.
DeleteI am carefully reading about the 4 candidates and will vote for the one I like the best on May 8th.
I'm voting for Falk. I met her last Friday here in Superior. Very nice woman, and I can tell she is strong willed, which is part of what we need. I also like her past experience regarding the protection of our environment. I believe that is soooooo important right now, with all the legislature that seems to be rolling back on protections. No matter...the important thing is to get involved and VOTE!!
ReplyDeleteSome progressive. Barrett supported raising the private school voucher cap, voted for No Child Left Behind in Congress, and spent months courting Rocketship (a privateer charter school) to Milwaukee. As a teacher and someone that values public education, I could never vote for Tom Barrett. He's a corporate democrat. We can do better!
ReplyDeleteRahm hates facts like these. Vote Barrett for more of the same.
DeleteI think a lot of people voted for No Child Left Behind originally, before they knew the impact of it, so I wouldn't hold that against Barrett. Raising the cap on vouchers is not the best plan, in my opinion.
Delete