Saturday, March 5, 2016

Abele's Friends (With Benefits)

Last year, Milwaukee County Emperor Chris "Boss" Abele spent nearly two million dollars of his daddy's money to send out a barrage of mailers and run incessant commercials. The plan was to crush his opponent, State Senator Chris Larson, in the primary and cruise on to buy the general election.

But things didn't turn out the way Abele wanted.

Despite being outspent by a margin of more than 20:1, Larson won the primary outright.

Now, Boss Abele, in a sign of utter desperation, has gone completely negative, running a poorly run commercial trying to, of all things, to tie Larson in with Scott Walker.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Abele is trying to say that Larson, who led his fellow senators out of state to delay the Act 10 bomb, and who has steadfastly stood against the constant Republican assault on Wisconsin, was in cahoots with Walker.

Even funnier was Abele trying to present himself as "one of us."

This ad is taking a page right out of the Karl Rove playbook of attacking the opponent from one own's weakness.  You see, it's not Larson that is chummy with Walker and the other Republicans.  It's Abele that is in bed with them.

While Abele was falsely denying any consideration of a run for governor, he had this to say about his buddy:
"I ran because I wanted to make a difference in in the county. And frankly, I’ve got a good working relationship with the governor and I think between where his politics are and what he’s doing in the state and what I’d like to do at the county I would like to get as much positive out of that and productive change as possible.

[...]

But in office, Abele has emphasized his desire to work cooperatively with Walker.
And Walker isn't the only Republican that Abele is cozy with.

Three years ago, when the extremely right wing radical Rebecca Bradley was running in her first election, she had Abele's endorsement and support:
In other words, she has been and is bad news for the Milwaukee County court system.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that some other people that want bad things to happen to Milwaukee County would support her.

People like Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who wants to make Milwaukee County a plaything for himself and his uber-rich friends at the Greater Milwaukee Committee, even though Abele has proven himself to be exquisitely inept at doing the job he's got now.
Now, given, Abele's endorsement might have stemmed from the fact that he and Bradley were more than just friends.

But the same can't be said for State Representatives Dale Kooyenga and Joe Sanfelippo. Abele gave both of these rabid Teapublicans campaign donations in return for favors rendered. Kooyenga wrote the bill giving Abele the authority to take over and privatize Milwaukee Public Schools. Sanfelippo is the one that pushed through two of Abele's other power grabs - usurping power from the county board and taking away the mental health system from the people's purview.

And for Abele, sometimes donating to Republicans just isn't enough.  So he holds fundraisers for them, like he did with Deanna Alexander.

It's not only right wing politicians that Abele is chummy with. He also loves him some of that right wing corporate media. A fine example of this is when Abele used county email to have a whinefest with Aaron Rodriguez, the anti-union and pro-education privatization calumnist for the local paper.

Furthermore, the dark money propagandist group, Media Trackkkers, has done repeated hit jobs on Larson. The gentle reader should wonder why this right wing group would help Abele by going after Larson if Larson was such a good friend of Walker's. If you said that it's because Abele is the Walker Mini-me and not Larson, give yourself a pat on the back. You got it right!

As a last note, it is important to be an informed voter. So keep in mind that despite Abele's desperation and histrionics, Larson is tied in with neither Scott Walker or dark money special interests.

Abele, on the other hand, is very cozy with Walker and the other Republicans. However, the plutocrat Abele, with all of his daddy's money, is not only tied up with the dark money special interests, he is one.

No comments:

Post a Comment