Cognitive Dissonance Comes To Fitzwalkerstan

Oh, this could get interesting:

Tim Sullivan acknowledges that at least one of his recommendations to Gov. Scott Walker, who appointed Sullivan as an unpaid consultant on work force development in Wisconsin, will be “a big juicy one.”

Make that a big, potentially controversial one.

Sullivan has determined that one of several strategies the state needs to launch involves attracting more immigrants to fill job openings. He told The Business Journal’s Jobs Forum discussion last week at The Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee that he will include his views on making Wisconsin more immigrant-friendly in his recommendations to Walker next month.

Sullivan was not ready to give specifics of ways he believes Wisconsin can boost immigration. However, he pointed to the examples of Canada and Australia as successes in recruiting immigrants to help those countries’ economies grow.

This is setting the stage for some major cognitive dissonance for the right wing.

On one hand, they have to strongly believe that Scott Walker, and by extension, his administration, can do no wrong. Even if it's a person like Sullivan, who has been rather inconsistent in his views and can't make up his mind whether he's conservative or liberal. Despite this, he's Walker's guy, so that automatically makes him a demigod to the right.

On the other hand, his recommendation of increasing immigration smacks them in the face of their xenophobia.

It will be fun to watch how they try to get their hero-worship of all things Walker to jive with their inherent bigotry. I can just picture the beads of sweat forming on their brows as their minds try to cope with these conflicting mindsets.

It kind of makes me want to get an extra supply of popcorn to watch them try to cope with this.

Will There Be A Fake Republican Candidate After All?

The talk of the state for the last several days is how the Republicans, in an act of final desperation, have decided to put in fake Democratic candidates in the recall elections.  The powers of WISGOP obviously have no confidence in their own current seat holders' ability to retain those seats and now are doing anything, no matter how unethical or unpopular, they can think of to delay and possibly defer the inevitable.

The group We Are Wisconsin made some sort of, well, frankly, idiotic statement saying that the Democratic Party should follow suit and do the same sort of unethical behavior. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the Democrats have stated that they will not be stooping to the level of the Republicans.

However, from what I have learned in the past few days, it appears that there might be a fake Republican candidate after all.  The truly ironic part of this is that it appears the Republicans themselves are going to be the ones putting up this sham Republican.

It's no secret that Tim Sullivan, CEO of Bucyrus International, has been floating the idea of running for a political office. The one most often associated with his name is to fill US Senator Herb Kohl's seat after he retires.  However, Sullivan has been very coy about whether he would run as a Democrat or as a Republican.

I have heard that Sullivan is being shopped around with the Republicans in an effort to shore up support for his proposed run for office.  Likewise, I have heard that in an effort to give him Republican cred, Sullivan has been pushing for the mining bill that WMC wants, even though the bill doesn't exist yet.

In support of this information, Scott Walker recently has been tweeting up his praises and the "super job" Sullivan has done with Bucyrus:

To further add to this is the fact that Walker has named Sullivan to be the Council Chair to his Wisconsin Council on Workforce Investment.  Sullivan's grand idea so far for this council is to have job training funds be tied into having the companies force local communities to adhere to their idea of education curricula, so that it is better suited to the businesses' needs.

All of this makes Sullivan sound like a Republican's Republican, doesn't it?

But not so fast there, kids.

It appears that Walker is trying to hustle the members of his own party as he tries to push Sullivan on them.

After all, it was Sullivan who sang the praises of former US Senator Russ Feingold for his help in clearing the red tape obstacles for Bucyrus to get a huge contract settled, in defiance to Reince Priebus.

It was also Sullivan who advocated for the much maligned KRM plan as well as the transit authority for Southeastern Wisconsin, both of which have proven to be anathema to Republicans.

And it was Sullivan that not only pushed for an increase in the sales tax for the transit system, but even hosted a press conference, which included then Governor Jim Doyle, to push for the higher taxes.

It, of course, has yet to be seen if the Republicans will accept Sullivan the business magnate, member of the MMAC and shill for WMC or if they will shy away from Sullivan the pro-rail, pro-mass transit, and tax hike advocate.

Whether they warm up to Sullivan or not will be interesting to watch to say the least.  But even more intriguing will be to see how the Republicans react to Walker when and if they figure out that he pulled the fake Republican candidate stunt on them.