Mary, Mary, ------ Why Ya Pollin?

By Jeff Simpson

Madison School Board member Mary Burke is the first to be considering a run for Governor against Scott Walker.

The most interesting news so far about the looming 2014 governor's race was Associated Press reporter Scott Bauer's scoop that Wisconsin Democrats have been poll-testing a run by Madison's Mary Burke. Within a day of the Dems' telephone poll, Bauer reports, someone registered six Internet domain names with different combinations of the words "governor" and "Mary Burke."

My initial thoughts - 1.  I hope they are not using a polling firm from the last two years.  That did not work out too well.  2.  If they have enough money to poll Mary Burke for Governor they must be loaded and have no need of money from you or I. (Personal Note here - IF you want to know what people think, get out and talk to them, NOT JUST the party faithful.  There are hundreds of activists, willing to work tirelessly knocking on doors etc, that have really nothing to do with the internal Democratic party and had zero interest in attending the (insiders only) convention.   Instead of paying to poll, fill your tank up and go talk to them.While I do not agree with everything in this post, there is a reason she wrote it!)

In our great democracy, I think it is great when anyone runs for office, so I welcome her run, even if she is a very flawed candidate. As my colleagues at Forward Lookout point out here and here). I will not even get into the fact that the one quote you can find of her's is wanting to cut teacher pay(which gave righty extremist and former state worker Dave Blaska a thrill up his leg.)   (Edit note - when your quotes make Blaska giddy, your probably NOT going to turn out the progressive base.)

The problem with this Burke candidacy, is the infatuation of money.   The sudden love affair with Mary Burke and the fact that she could finance her own run, are not coincidental.   The problem with that is when has that been successful?   Ron Johnson self financed Pacur financed Ron Johnson's successful run for Senate  and his lack of intelligence and emotional curiosity, combined with his poor speaking skills,  embarrasses himself and our state on an almost daily basis.   Chris Abele, self financed his run for County Executive and that led to a complete dictatorial takeover of the County Government!  Herb Kohl self financed his runs, also and while a nice guy, he had a very average Senatorial career to go along with running a mediocre basketball team!

When Dick Morris embraces the idea, its usually a very bad idea! 

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:10

 2014 is an incredibly important year, Scott Walker has been a miserable failure in his two plus years of running our state.  We have plummeted in jobs, wages, test scores and consumer confidence, businesses are closing at an alarming rate,  we have Rambo wanna-be's hired by payday loan operators roaming our pristine Northwoods and the only thing they have accomplished under his reign is to arrest people for chalking and trying to end safe abortions(edit note- His even failed in both of these instances.  Walker can not even get this right).  

Under Scott Walker, the only categories we lead the nation in are - Out of State fundraising trips by a seated Governor(on the taxpayer dime) and easiest Governor to buy!  Unfortunately for the citizens of Wisconsin, while he pads his right wing resume, the people suffer. 

As Paul Fanlund recently pointed out, the high road is WIDE open in 2014.  However, I would also point out so is the ethical road, the competent road, the education road, the honest road, the jobs road, the business road, the lets treat women like equals road, the lets give the LGBT community equal rights road, the environmental road, the moderate road, the small government road, the progressive road, the bipartisan road, the 21st century technology road, I do not let out of state billionaires dictate my policy road,  the worker's rights road, the follow Jesus's Teachings road, the economic development road, ...you get the drift.  All of these are paths to success, just waiting for someone to take them!

Scott Walker is immeasurably well funded and immensely beatable.  

So where do we go from here?

We need a few different candidates to start throwing their hats in the ring(and Mary Burke is more than welcome).  We also need the party to stay away!  (By "party" I refer to not only the state Democratic party but also party leadership (Barca/Larson and all of their lieutenants)).  The republican party tells their people who the candidates are (see Westlake, Dave) not the Dem party.  We win when we are different from them, not when we are like them.

For instance, how many party insiders would be scared to run Chris Taylor because she used to work for Planned Parenthood?  and how silly would that be?  

Let's let a few different candidates run and let the people decide.  There is plenty of time that if a few people jumped in now things would sort themselves out in due time.   Let the candidates get out and meet the people and take their message all over the state(see Baldwin, Tammy).  As John Nichols points out, SOMEONE needs to get out there and start meeting voters! 

So where do we go from here?

1.  Talk to your favorite candidate via email and/ or phone call and tell them to RUN for Governor.


2.  To help save the Democrats money, let's give the party our own poll for free - Contact Mike Tate (its not hard to find his email) at  - 

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin · MikeT@wisdems.org

110 King Street, Suite 203 · Madison, WI 53703

(608) 255-5172 (voice) • (608) 255-8919 (fax)

tell him A.  How you feel about Mary Burke running (yes, no or who?) and secondly leave the name of your preferred candidate!

3.  Leave a comment here on the same.

2014 is coming and we need to be prepared!



  

Wiggy Needs an Editor!

We all know that the blog Wigderson's Pub is written with no regards for the facts and is appropriately named because it is written with the same fantasy aspects as a drunk in the bar telling a story.   One piece was particularly laughable, his "interview" with Eric Hovde.   It appears with the glowing recommendation and lack of reality that Wiggy is applying for a job with Eric Hovde, instead of reporting reality.  

Let's take look at a few highlights:

Hovde is running for the Republican nomination to replace retiring Sen. Herb Kohl. There are three other strong candidates in the race: former Gov. Tommy Thompson, Speaker of the Assembly Jeff Fitzgerald, and former congressman Mark Neumann.

 Let's see we have ancient Tommy Thompson, who can not even remember the date of 9/11,  homophobe, bigot professional jobber Mark Neumann, and former assemblyman Jeff Fitzgerald, of the suck off the taxpayer teat Fitzgerald Family, who has also raised a total of .36 cents for his campaign.  If this is a strong field, I would be interested to see what a weak field looks like. Wait I found a perfect example! 

 Thompson is the favorite in the race

Tommy G Thompson finished a very distant fourth in the endorsement vote at the Wisconsin state republican convention.    This beats last year's when he was not allowed to attend.  

 Hovde says that what separates him out from the other candidates is his private-sector background. Unlike the other candidates, Hovde says, he is not a career politician.

Unlike the other candidates, Hovde does not live in Wisconsin.  

 “We’re dealing with an economic crisis. As I say to people, when you get a brain tumor you’re going to want the best brain surgeon you can find. If you’ve got a heart ailment, you’re going to want the best heart doctor you can find.

 So Hovde Supports Obamacare!!!!! 

 “If you’re having an economic crisis, you’re going to want (someone) that can understand the economy inside and out, and how to deal with these issues.”

 Oops, Hovde just pointed out why he is immensely unqualifed to be the next WI senator.

Lack of ethics. Lack of morals. The culture turns bad.

 Interesting Hovde, can't stand Robin Vos either.  

A lot of Republican establishment guys complain about the tea party movement,” he said. “It saved the Republican Party, because it pulled (the party) back to what it’s supposed to be about.”

Now it is just getting weird, according to Hovde, if the "tea party" is what the republican party is supposed to be about, then that means the republican party stands for HATE, badly misspelled signs and really ugly American flag shirts!

This is not a replay of 2010, when businessman Ron Johnson filled a vacuum. This time around, Republicans have a choice between some very substantial candidates.

Umm Ron Johnson is as smart as a vacuum and Wiggy just spit on the memory and hard work of Dave Westlake!   









 

Malfeasance in Interviews

Tom Barrett scored many points in his debate drubbing of Scott Walker on Friday night.   One of the best was when Soon to be Governor Barrett called out Scott Walker on signing recall petitions for Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl.  Scott Walker ignored the fact that he has spent his whole political career knee deep in recalls of democrats and now thinks we need to reform our recall rules.

When finally asked, soon to be ex Governor Walker has "no memory" of signing previous recall petitions.    As our friend Jud points out, Scott Walker is lying(again). 

And, because Walker was at these events with Neumann, the issue of partial birth abortion and Feingold's alleged support of it was the focus of Walker's speeches.  My specific recollection is that Walker said, on multiple occasions, something in the vein of: We came up a little short with the recall effort, but that effort was not a wasted effort. History will remember it as the first step in Feingold's 1998 defeat.

The reason I remember that particular line is that we were trying to make the case that the 1997 recall campaign was not a grassroots movement, but a GOP-backed effort that at best would trigger a recall election over an issue that was deeply unpopular with the public and at worst would weaken the populist image of Feingold as he prepared for his 1998 reelection. We were specifically concerned that Neumann and the GOP was using the hundreds of thousands that signed the recall as fundraising and organizing tools to defeat Feingold.

However, now Walker is making the absurd claim that he was not only not a leader of the recall Feingold / Kohl movement, but told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that didn't even sign the petition, claiming that he has "no memory" of signing the recall petitions against Kohl and Feingold and that "I don't believe that I did."

So we see that he is perfectly willing to throw his friends under the bus to advance his political career.  What do you think he will do to us when he gets a chance?   We already know the answer to that question!  

Kohl Is In It To Win It

Contrary to the wishful thinking, if you can call it thinking, of some people, I have it on good authority that Senator Herb Kohl will be running for re-election in 2012.

Now let's stop with the silliness, shall we?