My Election Thoughts

By Jeff Simpson

Election results here!

1.  Brett Hulsey had a solid showing receiving almost 52000 votes.  Brett Hulsey did not deserve to win, ran a solid campaign, brought up issues that needed to be brought up and did not deserve to be treated as poorly by the party as he was.  

Brett Hulsey9 hours ago

If Mary Burke wins tonight, I support her to beat Scott Walker in November.

2.  Mary Jo Walters was the story of the night.   116,006 votes as a relative unknown, who was completely shunned by the party she tried to represent, with no money against the political insider, long time WI Senator who refused to acknowledge her existence.   Congrats Mary Jo and thank you for what you have done.  

3.  I have not decided if the 116,006 people who voted for her were saying F U to the Democratic executive committee that endorsed her opponent and shunned her or the Democratic Executive committee and Chairman Tate who treated her like a second class citizen and shut her out of the Democratic convention were saying FU to the 116,006 Wisconsin voters who supported Mary Jo Walters.  Either way it is up to them to heal and bridge the divide NOT the other way around.

4.  When the race is so close, maybe the people did deserve a debate.

5  This cracked me up.   Apparently he forgot to put in the asterisk.  * Only applies to people I approve of running.  

   

6.  The overwhelming win by Rob Zerban surprised me, the overwhelming win by Paul Ryan did not.   I always thought Jeremy Ryan's best chance to win would be to get on the ballot then disappear.  Not a second of campaigning and hope people checked the wrong box.  

7.  Every vote matters, ask Janis Ringhand and Ernie Wittwer.

8.  The Democratic establishment lost, ask Pat Bohmack, Jon Richards and Tom Rayome.  

9.  Mike Sheridan's political career is over while Robin Vos was given a promotion and I can not figure out the difference between the two.  

10.   The extreme's on the R side of the 6th Congressional district were not distinguishable.  

11.  Triple dipping Van Wanggaard won, despite the fact he advertised that he had the old Knotsies as supporters.   I would hope that the fact that he is running on a I got mine and now want to pull the ladder up" campaign will be noticeable to the voters in his district!  

12.  How in the world can Sheriff Clarke win?  Seriously?   If it was all cross over votes and you did not see that coming, whose fault is that?

13.  Susan Happ will make a great Attorney General.  

14.  The low turnout still fails to amaze me and the fact that it is not addressed by the Democratic party also amazes me.  Why go after the imaginary Walker/Obama voters and not after the 80% of the people who did not choose to vote in the primary?   Give people a reason to vote and they will!    

15.  Congrats to Dana Duncan, no support from the Dem party, shunned by Wisconsin Progress and won handily.  Now its time to retire Scott Krug.

16.  Scott Walker is beatable, no excuses from the team trying to do so allowed!  

John Lehman Runs

By Jeff Simpson

John Lehman runs from a fight in his current seat because the republicans made it harder for a Democrat to win the seat.  Thank God Randy Bryce stepped up to represent the 21st Senate district because the two people running in the republican primary have been nothing short of a clown car(much more about these two on these pages in the near future).

John Lehman runs from doing the hard work.   Google him and see what he has been up to.   The silence is deafening.   Being handed the nomination by the insiders in the party, against party by-laws,  is not an impressive achievement.  

Now John Lehman runs from a debate.

 Mary Jo Walters, who is also running as a Democrat in the Lieutenant Governor Democratic primary, has asked for a debate.  John Lehman has no interest.  

Apparently John Lehman thinks so little of the Democratic process, and the Democratic voters that he has no interest in attempting to win the seat.  It was given to him by a select group of loyalists and it now belongs to him.  No questions asked.

The thing is we know that Scott Walker will not allow Rebecca Kleefisch to debate whoever wins the primary because he does not have any respect for her or her abilities to speak unscripted. 

How can we ask or expect her to debate when the person who has the track to be on the ballot refuses to do so?   Why is Lehman scared of debating Walters?  Is it just laziness?  

This is a state taken over by far right extremists and we need people who are willing to stand up for the rights of Wisconsinites who do not have a voice or any hope right now.

Mr. Lehman, by ducking debate, your actions show that you are absolutely NOT the person to work and fight for us.  

Mr. Lehman, thank you for your service in the past but if you do not respect the voters and the Democratic party of Wisconsin enough to schedule a debate(just one would be fine) with Ms. Walters, I promise to never ever vote for you.

Please do the right thing and agree to a debate.

Contact Mr. Lehman and tell him to agree to a debate!

(262) 632-3330

PS:  you can not tweet him as he has not even taken the time to set up a twitter account.   

#(some)WomenrunWI

By Jeff Simpson


During the Democratic Convention in the Wisconsin Dells this weekend, one of the themes was #WomenrunWI:

The problem with this Democratic Convention was there were exclusions to all their talking points and the by laws are no longer even By suggestions. 

Mary Walters(who for those wondering is a WI woman), was frozen out of the speaking portion of the convention, despite the fact that she has worked tirelessly to get her name on the ballot (it is) and will be running on the Democratic primary ballot for Lieutenant Governor.     

Another Democratic candidate, activist Mary Jo Walters of Madison, also has registered a campaign for lieutenant governor. Two or more candidates collecting the necessary 2,000 to 4,000 signatures between April 15 and June 2 would force a primary on Aug. 12.

The party of course endorsed John Lehmann for Lieutenant Governor.

Members of the Administrative Committee also voted to endorse state Sen. John Lehman, a Racine Democrat, for lieutenant governor. Madison activist Mary Jo Walters has also registered to run for the state's No. 2 post.
No endorsement was made in the three-way Democratic contest for attorney general.

By Laws be dammed:

 According to the Dem. Party’s own bylaws. the party can not endorse candidates unless there are “unusual circumstances”. In that case the circumstances can be submitted to the party’s Administrative Committee and then a specific candidate can be chosen for a “specific reason” with a 2/3 majority.

Image capture of relevant bylaw text from Constitution of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin:

Is the Reince Priebus leadership model really that appealing?

The People Have Spoken

Time to move on and accept the election results and if you do not like them wait until the next election! **

**  Does not apply when Democrats win, or if Democrats enact legislation, after being democratically elected.   

I think maybe instead of protesting and recalling the republicans we should have just said we have no interest in following anything the republicans enacted until the next election.  O wait, Justice Bradley tried to delay a Walker policy by a few days to make sure she got her decision right and Justice David Prosser tried to choke her into submission.  

Also in Racine, it appears that there is a true republican thug Lou D'Abbraccio who is a bully who likes to try and stomp his feet, mess with elections and bully people into submission.  To the republicans of Racine, nice way to represent your party!  For anyone interested in learning more about this republican lunatic check here and here! 

Voter Fraud And Voter Fraud Fraud

There's desperation and then there's frantic flailing.

What we are seeing from the right wing falls more into the latter category, most notably fixated on the race in Racine in which former Senator Von "Double Dipper Donut Boy" Wanggaard lost to Senator-elect John Lehman.

The latest thing is a MacIver "news report" which says an unnamed conservative "just happened" to find a bag full of blank, but pre-certified registration forms.  Yet when Channel 6 News looked into the story, they found that no complaint had been made to the election commission, but someone had gone to the DA's Office, but even then, didn't make any allegations regarding the mysterious find.

This reminds me of two things.

One is when the misnamed, teacher-hating Citizens for Responsible Government filed their false criminal complaint against me in retaliation for Walker's staff getting busted and kicking off Walkergate.  After the initial hullabaloo, it was pretty obvious that there was nothing there and that CRG's antics were just a distraction from the real story.

The other is also Walkergate related, wondering if they found Scott Walker's missing files in that dumpster too.

(Sorry, RWNJs, but there is only one Mystery Dumpster'O'Fun.)

In other words, this looks like some concocted stunt to delay Lehman's swearing in and try to get a do over in that election.  And here we thought they were against that sort of thing...

It's not surprising that the Republicans and their supporters/apologists would want to prevent, or at least delay, a Democratic majority in the Senate.  They recognize the fact that Walker has, at best, two or three months before he does the perp walk into a federal court near you, and they still have things like the mining bill and right-to-work-for-less to ram through while they still have their puppet.  And to do that, they would need to call a special session, but they also need a majority in both houses of the legislature.

But what I find to be really interesting is that the right wing "news services" did, at one point, report on a more likely source of voter irregularities and fraud.

Wisconsin Reporter wrote an extensive article about the electronic voting machines that were quietly brought in to the northern counties of the state.  Koch employee Kevin Binversie cited that article and again brought up the specter of voter fraud and the possibility of a recount.

But their focus was on the gubernatorial race and their concern that it might actually have not been bought for Scott Walker.

As it turns out, these propagandists were right for once.  There is some peculiar things that happened where these machines were introduced.

After the recall election, it shows that many northern counties, where they've been decimated by job losses directly due to Walker's budget and policies, suddenly turned from blue to red.  Other reports indicate that the electronic voting machines did not pass muster when the verification process was completed.

Another peculiarity is that 5,000 registered voters in Wausau disappeared in one month's time.

So now the question becomes is the right's questionable stunts in Racine an efforts to try to prevent the Democrats to get a majority in the state senate or a stunt to take everyone's attention off of the northern counties and their irregularities?  Or even both?

Vote Today Or Else!!!

This is the future of our state:

Van Wanggaard likes donuts, collecting his pensionS and working to make sure you can not collect yours!  

Let's move this state Forward and make sure that the Republicans know that what they have done to our state is not ok.   Also remember those in the four recall senate districts you are there because of republican dirty tricks, lack of ethics, and complete disrespect for the taxpayers and voters of Wisconsin.  They ran FRAUD democrats in every race.

The respectable thing to do would have been to run a placeholder candidate in the republican race, thus forcing a primary and giving the republicans another month to run around the country raising money.   The problem with that though, is that would have been too confusing for the groupthink of the right to try and figure out who to vote for.   So knowing that running on the issues is a losing proposition for the Wisconsin republican party, they are trying every trick they can think of to not have to campaign on those very same issues.

Here is a list of the candidates you will see on the ballot today, please vote for the real candidates and if you see any of the fraud candidates around town, let them know they have shamed our state!   Also keep Van away from the donuts!!

May 8th, 2012 Recall Primary Election – Democratic Candidates

Governor:

Tom Barrett

Kathleen Falk

Doug La Follette

Kathleen Vinehout

FAKE Democrat:

Gladys Huber

Lt. Governor:

Mahlon Mitchell (Endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin)

Ira Robins

FAKE Democrat:

Isaac Weix

State Senate District 13:

Lori Compas (Endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin)

FAKE Democrat:

Gary Ellerman

State Senate District 21:

John Lehman (Endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin)

FAKE Democrat:

Tamra Varebrook

State Senate District 23:

Kristen Dexter (Endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin

FAKE Democrat:

James Engel

State Senate District 29:

Donna Seidel (Endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin)

FAKE Democrat:

Jim Buckley

Capper's Picks For THE Primary

Unless you live under a rock in a cave in the middle of nowhere, you already know that tomorrow is the mother of all primaries, where Wisconsinites across the state will pick their champions in an all out effort to claim our state back for the people and away from the insatiable corporate interests whose only interest is sucking our land and our lives dry for no other reason than to increase their own hoards of wealth.

As you already know, I'm in full support of Kathleen Falk to be our next governor.  She has the experience and the skill to restore the things that were taken from us and to make the state whole again.  This is why Falk is the only candidate to have the backing of a wide array of people, from environmentalists to women's advocacy groups as well as ethnic advocacy groups  and, yes, the unions.  Furthermore, she doesn't have all the vulnerabilities that Barrett has, which eliminates most of Walker's campaign strategy and forces him to have to run on his record, which we all know sucks sewage water.

For Lt. Governor, the only choice is Mahlon Mitchell.  He is a passionate man, a vibrant speaker and an intelligent leader.  He would be able to help lead  the state back on to the path of recovery and prosperity.

For Senate District 13, Lori Compas is who you want.  If there ever was a folk hero that came out of Fitzwalkerstan, it's Compas.  Without the support of the Democrats, she did what they said couldn't be done and put Scott Fitzgerald on notice by successfully recalling him.  She is running not because she wanted to, but because the people demand it.  It will be nice to have an honest voice in that seat instead of the corrupt, double-dipping Fitzgerald.

For Senate District 21, John Lehman is your man.

Way over in District 23, Kristen Dexter is the woman to back.

And up there in District 29, the smart voter will go with Donna Seidel.