To Mike Tate, Peter Barca and Chris Larson! Please Do The Right Thing!

By Jeff Simpson

After a recent election drubbing, its time to lick the wounds and move on.   It is also time to move on with new leadership all across the board! 

That starts especially in the State Assembly where Peter Barca has overseen a complete transformation from being the majority party to being a party that hold the same amount of power as the office cactus(water rarely but usually pretend its not there).    Barca, overseeing the Assembly races, let 26 of the seats go unchallenged.   Does he even try anymore?  

Why in the world with that record he would want to continue on is beyond me.  Unfortunately for the left side of WI he does.   Fortunately though Evan Goyke is stepping up to challenge him!  if you are lucky enough to live in one of the few districts represented by a Democrat that is left, call your rep and say  - "Please for all that is Holy do NOT vote for Peter Barca to be Minority Leader.  Fine Assemblyman, horrendous Minority leader." (or something to that extent). 

Chris Larson, fresh off the Pat Bohmack debacle, is running again.  While Mr. Larson blatantly mishandled this Senate race and cost the dems a seat, he has only done it one term.   I would not be opposed to giving him another chance, BUT Jennifer Schilling is challenging him(sad Kathleen Vinehout isn't).  I highly recommend voting Schilling!  

Which bring us to Mike Tate.    Mike Tate has a long record of massive failure and this years election was no exception.  As Callen Harty pointed out, his record is not pretty!

Below are some of the highlights of Tate’s career.
He was the State Field Director for Kathleen Falk’s losing bid for the governorship in 2002. In 2004, a year before he graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a bachelor’s degree in political science, he was named the Deputy State Director of America Coming Together (ACT). The national organization disbanded in 2005.
Also in 2004 he served as the State Director of Dean for America. Howard Dean had lost several primaries by the time Wisconsin’s came up. Dean had pretty much listed Wisconsin as a must win and indicated he believed that a win in Wisconsin could turn his entire campaign around and lead him to the Presidency. Under Mike Tate’s leadership of the state campaign Dean finished third here with only 18% of the vote. It pretty much ended his campaign and any chance of becoming President.
Fair Wisconsin in its desperate bid to defeat the 2006 Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the state of Wisconsin hired Mike Tate to lead the campaign against it. The citizens of the state voted for the amendment with just under 60% of the voters supporting discrimination against their fellow citizens.
In 2008 he was the Executive Director of Advancing Wisconsin, a group that funneled money into the 2008 campaign to elect Barack Obama. Obama did win Wisconsin that year, one of the few things Tate has been associated with where his candidate or position fared well. According to an NPR special series called “secret money project” by Will Evans (11/3/08) Tate was quoted as saying that instead of the group fading away after the election he wanted to create “a permanent grassroots field-organizing infrastructure in Wisconsin.” Great idea if it were true. The organization’s website is no longer active and they are no longer registered with the Internal Revenue Service.
After his service with Advancing Wisconsin Tate became the chairman of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party. There has not been much to cheer about during his tenure. Wisconsin lost one of its most popular Senators when Russ Feingold fell to Ron Johnson. Also in that time Scott Walker won the governorship in 2010, became the first governor in U. S. history to survive a recall election, and proceeded to win re-election in 2014. The Democrats put forth Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett against Walker in 2010 and tried him again in the recall. This year the party, under Tate’s leadership, got behind the virtually unknown businesswoman Mary Burke almost as soon as she announced her candidacy. It was clear they had handpicked her and while Tate denied the party was endorsing her they did everything but come out and say it. Party regulars were denied a meaningful primary and never got fired up for her candidacy. She lost by 5%. Madison and Milwaukee voters did not turn out for her.

The amount of pain his incompetence has cost this state is almost unimaginable.   One good thing to come out of this though, is we finally found a way to bring the state together.  Start a petition to get Mike Tate to resign and people from all over the state will gladly sign it! 

I Signed and I recommend you do too!

It is time that Mr. Tate, Mr Barca and Mr. Larson  do the right thing. Step aside and clear the way for new leadership in our rudderless state.   Continue serving your constituents as well as you have been, work with the new leaders to advance our party, but please do not get in the way of needed and necessary change!

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!  

Ernie Wittwer for State Senate District 17

 

By Jeff Simpson


With the unfortunate retirement of the Dale Schultz,  that left a wide open seat in the 17th Senate District.   On the republican side, far right extremist (he who voted on the side of cancer and against cancer victims) Howard Marklein declared the first time Senator schultz showed any independence.  Immediately the far right donors started throwing money at him.

Then local resident and farmer and retired Department of Transportation administrator Ernie Wittwer decided to throw his hat into the ring on the Democratic side.  Ernie has a strong grassroots following and an excellent resume.  

However, as we have pointed out on this blog on numerous occasions, if you are not inside you are outside and there is no room in Madison for outsiders.  Once again, the elected democrats circled their wagons and attacked.   Two time loser and former Jim Doyle aide, Pat Bomhack. took time off to go to college and now desperately wants back in!

Bomhack wants back in so badly, that he and the fellow members of the old boys club are more than willing to lose control of the Senate to make it happen.   Bomhack was running against Dick Cates in the primary for the Assembly seat, but was doing poorly and thought he would have a better chance of beating Ernie Wittwer.

Of course after saying he wouldn't.

 “A lot of local people have been encouraging me to go for the Senate but I’m totally focused on my Assembly race right now,” he said.

 Typical of people who chose politics as a career, he was not that focused because shortly thereafter, he switched to running for Senate.

The party leaders in Madison talked him into switching, then endorsed him.


Although Ernie Wittwer, a retired Department of Transportation administrator, declared his candidacy for the seat last year, his bid was evidently not taken seriously by party leaders in Madison. They began urging Pat Bomhack, a recent UW Law School grad and aide to former Gov. Jim Doyle, to drop his bid for the 51st Assembly District, in which he was considered an underdog, and run against Wittwer for Senate. Bomhack had run for the same Assembly seat in 2012, losing in a primary.
In April, Bomhack announced he was making the switch, and a week later Larson announced his support for the young candidate. Soon afterwards, Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona and a former minority leader, also endorsed Bomhack.

  The local party leaders and grassroots support were none too happy.

Maureen Grimm, a school board member in Mineral Point who beat Bomhack in the Assembly primary in 2012, said she is puzzled by the support Capitol leaders are extending to Bomhack, who only moved to the area three years ago.
“The vast majority of involved Democrats in the 17th favor Ernie,” she said. “Perhaps there’s a little bit of a disconnect on what this district values. A difference between urban and rural.”
In what some local activists saw as a direct snub, Larson, delivering a speech about Senate races at the state Democratic convention last month, highlighted Bomhack’s candidacy and didn’t even mention Wittwer.
“I was disappointed at the convention that Chris said that,” said Phil Fransen, chair of the Green County Democratic Party, who said he is “leaning towards” supporting Wittwer but believes he should remain neutral in his capacity as a party official.
Mike Gallagher, chair of the Democratic Party of Lafayette Party, is actively supporting Wittwer and he said he gave Larson a piece of his mind after hearing the speech.
“I told him that that was very wrong,” he recalled saying. “You can support who you want but you don’t ignore that there’s a primary in the 17th Senate District.”

 Local grassroots overwhelmingly support Mr. Wittwer, but because the DPW does not think he will tow the line 100% they would rather lose the seat, than let the local people decide by pushing a cookie cutter carpet bagging insider.  

Do you really have to ask why the dems have had such a hard time finding candidates to run for office?  

For the sake of Wisconsin, our public schools, jobs and all
 other issues, it is imperative that we send a message to the right and the left and elect Ernie Wittwer!    

I fully endorse Ernie Wittwer in the 17th Senate district of Wisconsin this morning! 

Help Ernie Win!!!!

Ernie Wittwer's website is here!

Ernie Wittwer's facebook page is here!

Ernie Wittwer's twitter account is@wittwer4senate

Ernie Wittwer's email is here!

 DONATE to Ernie Wittwer here!