Archive for the ‘Special Elections’ Category
The sun rising in the east. Bill Gates making money. The government collecting taxes. These are among the most predictable things in the news. It’s time to add another thing to that list: the DFL sending out a misleading mailer the last Friday before an election.
This time, DFL candidate Joanne Dorsher is featured on mailer with a firefighter. The implication is that she’s been endorsed by the firefighters’ union. According to a firefighter to received the mailer, they haven’t endorsed anyone in the special election for HD-14A to replace Steve Gottwalt in the state legislature.
A quick review of history shows that the DFL is famous for these types of last-minute stunts. I wrote about their dirty tricks in this post. In 2010, the DFL sent out a mailer with a picture of King Banaian with a picture of him that made him look like a Middle East terrorist. The front of the mailer said “King Banaian: More Interested in Egypt and Macedonia than St. Cloud”; the back of the mailer said “St. Cloud needs a leader, not a King. King Banaian certainly has a resume- jetting across the globe to consult the governments of Egypt, Macedonia, Armenia, Ukraine and Indonesia.” In another mailer that the DFL sent out, it said that pro-choice DFL candidate Carol Lewis was the “true pro-life candidate” in the race.
It’s up to the citizens of HD-14A to punish Joanne Dorsher and the DFL for their last minute dirty tricks. The only way to do that is by voting for Tama Theis this Tuesday. If they don’t do that, the DFL and Dorsher will be rewarded for their dirty tricks.
Though the DFL endorsing convention for the special election caused by Rep. Steve Gottwalt’s resignation isn’t until Jan. 26, the matchup is essentially set. That’s because Joanne Dorsher is the DFL’s only declared candidate for the Gottwalt special election.
After winning Saturday’s GOP endorsing convention, St. Cloud businesswoman Tama Theis will meet Ms. Dorsher in the Feb. 12 special election to represent HD-14A.
After a drama-filled convention, the GOP can now get into the serious business of getting Theis’s message out, then getting their voters out.
This was a drama-filled convention for several reason. First, Saturday’s GOP endorsing convention wasn’t settled until the seventh ballot. Second, this was a hotly contested endorsement, with Theis, former St. Cloud city councilman John Severson and Iraq War veteran Scott MacHardy each acquitting themselves well.
John Severson led the first and second ballots with 13 votes each time, with MacHardy getting 12 votes and Theis getting 11 votes the first ballot. On the second ballot, Theis got 12 votes and MacHardy 11.
Theis got the most votes on the third ballot with 14, followed by 12 votes each for Severson and MacHardy. Theis got the most votes in each of the following ballots until she won on the seventh ballot.
Ms. Theis will need to hit the ground runnning, starting Monday, because the DFL would love to steal this special election. They know that anything can happen in a special election.
Ms. Dorsher is a known commodity in St. Cloud, having been a member of the St. Cloud School Board and after runnning against Rep. Gottwalt in 2008. One that’s certain is that EdMinn’s foot soldiers will be out in force for Ms. Dorsher.
The biggest question is whether the business community does a better job of getting out their vote than EdMinn does in getting out the pro-government voters.
Earlier today, a Democratic strategist jumped the shark with this statement:
Sachin Chheda, a Democratic strategist who hasn’t endorsed any candidate, said Democrats are not worried about matching Walker’s spending. “The question is not whether they have as much as Walker. It’s do they have enough to get their message out,” Chheda said. “I think they do.”
The question isn’t whether they’ve got the money to get their message out. Big Labor just dumped $7,000,000 into the race:
Just released campaign finance documents show Big Labor both inside and outside of Wisconsin pouring just over $7 million into the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker and four GOP state senators. In the 2011 recall campaign combined total spending by unions and progressive groups reached $14.7 million, or just over twice what labor unions alone have managed to raise or spend in what is the opening round of the effort to knock out Governor Walker less than two years into his term.
The question that’s most important is whether people will agree with Gov. Walker’s message of lower property taxes and getting spending under control. It isn’t likely that the unions’ message of union rights will appeal to voters.
Supposedly, that’s why the unions are switching to jobs as a topic. It isn’t likely that they’ll gain traction with that message because cutting, then stabilizing, property taxes is an appealing message.
That’s a message that Gov. Walker positively owns. It’s also a message that’s apparently already sunk in with Wisconsin voters.
There’s no question that the enthusiasm gap has diminished. There’s no question, too, that the Democrats’ messaging and behavior haven’t appealed to people beyond their base.
After this is over, Wisconsin needs to change the recall elections laws. It’s highly destabilizing for there to be recall elections based solely on political differences of opinion. Recalls shouldn’t happen without the legislature or the governor causing a crisis for the citizens of Wisconsin.
Causing political problems for special interest organizations shouldn’t qualify as a legitimate crisis triggering a recall.
What Wisconites have to determine is whether the PEUs’ tactics are dirty and whether the PEUs care about Wisconsinites more than they care about their own special interests. I’d argue the PEUs don’t care about anything except their own special interests.
In the end, that’s why Gov. Walker will win his recall election.
Tags: Taxes, Property Tax, Tax Cuts, Scott Walker, Reforms, Recall Election, GOP, Unions, Corruption
In many ways, Chris Christie and Scott Walker are cut from the same cloth. They’re both outspoken. They’re both willing to take on powerful public employee unions to save their states. They’re both willing to push back when those unions employ their predictable intimidating tactics.
Based on this article, it’s possible they have other things in common, too:
“You see what I’ve been able to do is give Scott and the people of Wisconsin a little preview of what good conservative governance can do for states,” Christie told several hundred people who packed a landscaping equipment maintenance shop near Milwaukee. “New Jersey is giving a preview for Wisconsin as to good things than can happen when you stand up for the people of your state and stand against the special interests who have owned these state capitals for much too long.”
The rally came in the middle of Christie’s day-long swing through the Badger State to whip up support for Walker. He also spoke at a fundraiser luncheon in Green Bay and another in the Milwaukee area before heading home. The bank of cameras trained on the Republican governors was not just because of Walker’s fight.
Gov. Walker and Gov. Christie haven’t gotten intimidated by the PEU’s bullying tactics. The opposite is actually true. They’ve stuck to their campaign promises, much to the satisfaction of their supporters.
As a result of their steadfast resoluteness, they’re becoming inspirational figures in their own right. Each are mentioned as potential presidential candidates in the not-so-distant future. Thanks to their charisma, they’re attracting loyal foot soldiers to their GOTV operations.
That, in my estimation, will put Gov. Walker over the top in this recall election. The $13,000,000 he’s raised thus far won’t hurt either.
This race is anything but over. Still, Gov. Walker’s advantages keep piling up. At some point in the not-so-distant future, those advantages will help this race reach a tipping point.
Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk and the PEUs better hope that tipping point isn’t reached before the Democratic primary.
Tags: Recall Election, PEUs, Primary, Kathleen Falk, Tom Barrett, Democrats, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Fundraiser, Green Bay, GOTV, GOP
The polling commissioned by the Daily Kos isn’t good news for the Democrats hoping to unseat Gov. Walker:
Tom Barrett (D): 45 (49)
Scott Walker (R-inc): 50 (46)
Hari Trivedi (I): 2
Undecided: 3 (3)Kathleen Falk (D): 43 (48)
Scott Walker (R-inc): 50 (47)
Hari Trivedi (I): 3
Undecided: 3 (5)Doug La Follette (D): 40 (45)
Scott Walker (R-inc): 51 (46)
Hari Trivedi (I): 3
Undecided: 6 (9)Kathleen Vinehout (D): 38 (44)
Scott Walker (R-inc): 50 (46)
Hari Trivedi (I): 5
Undecided: 7 (10)
While the polling doesn’t suggest a blowout by any stretch of the imagination, each potential matchup signals steadfast, unwavering support for Gov. Walker.
Democrats are in a difficult position on this. Gov. Walker’s reforms pose an existential threat to the PEUs so the fight isn’t optional. It’s an imperative. That said, it’s a losing fight that the unions can’t afford to spend too much money on it. Spending fists full of money on a losing fight is tactically foolish.
Another reason why Democrats have to fight this fight is because losing puts President Obama in a difficult position to win the general election this November. If the unions can’t push President Obama across the finish line in Wisconsin, he’s history.
That fight is still to be fought but it’s certainly something Mssrs. Plouffe and Axelrod must worry about.
On a separate note, I thought this information was interesting:
Finally, we included a test of the general election ballot in the lieutenant governor’s race, where Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is likely to face Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin:
Mahlon Mitchell (D): 40
Rebecca Kleefisch (R): 46
Undecided: 14In Wisconsin, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected on the same ticket, but election officials ruled they had to be recalled separately. Mitchell is very much unknown, with favors of 12-25, while Kleefisch stands at a 41-40 in terms of job approvals.
If it’s true that Mitchell is an unknown, then his negative rating is a sign of how unpopular the unions are with Wisconsin voters.
The same GOTV operation that makes Gov. Walker a mighty force to be reckoned with will help push Lt. Gov. Kleefisch and the GOP senators to victory, too.
Tags: Kathleen Falk, Tom Barrett, Recall Elections, President Obama, Unions, Democrats, Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch, GOTV, GOP, Election 2012
It’s always been understood that defeating Scott Walker would be an uphill fight. That understanding appears to be reality based on fundraising totals that were just announced:
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s fan list reads like a who’s who of some of the richest people in America — financial gurus, a Las Vegas casino president, even an NBA team owner.
And they came up big for the embattled governor, taking advantage of a quirk in state law to help Walker shatter Wisconsin political fundraising records as he faces a pair of recall elections this spring.
Walker set the record for a state office with $12.1 million raised last year. Campaign finance records filed Monday show he has already easily surpassed that this year, raising $13.1 million between Jan. 18 and last week. He spent nearly $11 million and had almost $4.9 million in the bank.
His biggest donor was Diane M. Hendricks, founder of Beloit-based American Builders and Contractors Supply Co. Inc. Forbes estimates she’s worth $2.8 billion. She gave the governor $500,000. She did not immediately return messages left through her company spokeswoman.
Democrats will certainly note that alot of this support isn’t originating from within Wisconsin. Whatever. The reality is that Gov. Walker has an impressive GOTV operation:
GREEN BAY, WI – The Republican Party of Wisconsin is drumming up support for Gov. Scott Walker with “Super Saturday.” Volunteers are making phone calls from offices across the state, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
They’re even having a competition between cities, to see who can rally the most support ahead of the recall election that’s scheduled for June 5, just 45 days away. The Green Bay Victory Center has a goal of making 7,000 phone calls to voters in just 12 hours.
The Victory Center in Green Bay made nearly 2,000 calls in their first two hours Saturday. Most volunteers work in three hour shifts.
I hope the unions continue to pour money into Wisconsin on elections they can’t win. That depletes their supply of cash to actually influence races that aren’t hopeless. And the Walker/GOP senators recalls are hopeless.
I’d expect more of this spin over the next 6 weeks:
Falk and Barrett’s campaigns both issued similar statements blasting Walker for traveling around the country rather than focusing on job creation in Wisconsin. State Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski issued a statement calling Walker’s totals “breathtaking.”
“It is true we will be badly outspent. It is also true that, at the end of the day, and until Walker makes it otherwise, money does not vote,” Zielinski said. “The people vote. And it is the people of Wisconsin who will win victory over Scott Walker on June 5th.”
If people were that excited to rid Wisconsin of the plague of Walker, his Democratic opponents would’ve raised more than $1,800,000. Democrats can’t publicly admit what they privately know. They can’t admit that people like Gov. Walker’s reforms.
I spoke yesterday with a friend living in Wisconsin. My friend said that people appreciate the fact that property taxes haven’t shot up this year. They especially appreciate the fact that property taxes won’t be going up next year.
When word gets out that Wisconsin’s property taxes have either stabilized or dropped, Wisconsin will get the reputation of being open to businesses. Once that happens, jobs creation will increase significantly. It’s the Democrats’ worst nightmare.
When told of Gov. Walker’s impressive fundraising total, the Barrett campaign spokester whined:
His opponents said he was trying to buy the election.
“Instead of spending his energy and attention raising money at $250,000 per check from out-of-state, right-wing ideologues, Scott Walker should have paid more attention to his failed promise to create 250,000 jobs here in Wisconsin,” Barrett spokesperson Phillip Walzak said.
After his reforms have taken effect, the jobs will come. First, Gov. Walker had to dismantle the system of cronyism infecting state and local government. Now that his reforms are in place and working, the job creation will come.
No longer will the teachers unions terrorize local budgets by insisting that their health insurance product be the primary health insurance company of state government:
Bernie Nikolay should be happy. His school district; he’s the superintendent in Milton, had a good November.
The girls swim team won the state title, a first for Milton girls athletics. And an arbitrator said the district could switch health coverage away from the insurer owned by the teachers union. That’ll save the district as much as a million bucks a year.
For a district with a $33 million budget, that’s cheery. For the rest of the state, it means a tide may have turned.
I can’t repeat this often enough. Property taxes are dropping as a direct result of Gov. Walker’s reforms. Prior to Gov. Walker’s reforms, the unions could demand that WEA Trust be the health insurance provider through negotiations. That’s history now and the people love it.
In the end, people appreciating their new reality will defeat the Democratic candidate, whoever that unfortunate soul is.
Tags: Recall Election, GOTV, Fundraising, Scott Walker, Property Tax Cuts, Reforms, GOP, Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, Unions, WEA Trust, Monopoly
It didn’t take long for the long knives to come out after “Kristi” started running a pro-Scott Walker ad in Wisconsin. Here’s what happened:
“Kristi” is profiled as a mother and high school teacher, and in the ad she says, “I mean, Scott Walker said from the beginning, I’m going to do what’s right for Wisconsin, and he did, he did.” “Kristi” then said, “I’m not big on recalls and I think at this point, in my opinion, and I’m only speaking from the “I”, it feels a little like sour grapes.”
“Kristi” herself sure isn’t popular with the people posting on the Facebook page, “The Heroic Wisconsin 14,” as more than a hundred comments in just the few hours after the ad hit the page.
“Sally” writes, “No kidding, I am not a violent person, but I want to punch her in the head every time this ad is played!”
Positive comments are few and far between, but from “Christine”, “Thanks ‘Kristi’ for rom “Christine”, “Thanks ‘Kristi’ for standing up for your rights as a tax payer. Don’t let the bullies of the unions bother you.”
I decided to visit “The Heroic Wisconsin 14‘s Facebook page wall.” What I found isn’t surprising:
Any more trolls visiting this page better think twice before commenting here…..you WILL be banned
The forces of tolerance and enlightenment are utilizing the principles of censorship against those they disagree with. That’s such a fascist attitude. And yes, fascist fits. Here’s the definition of fascism:
a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism
That definition fits these unionistas to a T. It isn’t a stretch to think that these statements fit these unionista’s attitude:
Demolish those you disagree with. Don’t keep an open mind. Don’t debate. Most importantly, don’t consider the merits of the arguments.
These progressive fascists are hardline haters. They aren’t interested in other people’s opinions, especially opinions that don’t fit with their fascist ideology.
The unions shouldn’t be criticized because unionistas are such great thinkers. Check out this unionista’s comment:
smayer3870
Of course the majority of union teachers and workers deploy her.Because she’s her own thinker,as a former union worker of 20 years I feel I know how most union members think they want to be taken care of by there union,it’s not about doing the job.
Obviously, this unionista attended a government school. Unionistas wouldn’t have graduated from a private school with such shoddy grammar. Let’s dissect the statement while adding corrections:
Of course, the majority of union teachers and workers deplore her because she’s her own thinker. As a former union worker of 20 years, I feel I know how most union members think. They want to be taken care of by their union. It’s not about doing the job.
Apparently, this unionista is as enlightened as the fascists running the Facebook page. Here’s a couple of the most ‘enlightened’ statements on the Heroes Facebook page:
Frank J. Thomeczek The GOP just doesn’t seem to miss a chance to subvert democracy. Some of what is going on is a bit frightening.
Ed Proctor Get a life Republicans! What’s worse, asking people to sign a petition or creating false candidates for an election, or passing legislation using illegal moves, or stripping funds from education or reducing our public workers by removing their ability to jointly belong to a Union. You tell me!
First, “Frank” doesn’t appear able to explain what Republicans are doing “to subvert democracy.” That isn’t surprising. Second, “Ed” thinks that the opposition party isn’t entitled to running candidates against Democrats in recall elections. Isn’t it the Republicans’ right in a democracy to run candidates in a recall election against a Democrat? Third, Gov. Walker’s bill didn’t prevent public workers from “jointly belong[ing]to a union.” It took away their ability to steal money from taxpayers through WEA Trust’s health insurance policies:
Bernie Nikolay should be happy. His school district; he’s the superintendent in Milton, had a good November.
The girls swim team won the state title, a first for Milton girls athletics. And an arbitrator said the district could switch health coverage away from the insurer owned by the teachers union. That’ll save the district as much as a million bucks a year.
It could mean the end to the costly market dominance of WEA Trust, the health insurer owned by the Wisconsin Education Association Council. Just under two-thirds of Wisconsin districts use WEA Trust, a puzzling preference since its coverage is so costly.
Districts that buy WEA Trust plans average $1,665 a month for family premiums, according to their state association, while those choosing other carriers average $1,466. The difference is greatest where taxpayers cover the whole premium.
Saving $1,000,000 a year is a big deal for a little town of 5,600 people. In fact, it’s outrageous that WEA Trust would overcharge by that much money.
Think of what will happen when the ads from Gov. Walker start showing up telling Wisconsin taxpayers that his budget rescue bill is saving small towns $1,000,000 a year. Any bets that taxpayers will think that they’ll save tons of money on their property taxes as a direct result of Gov. Walker’s bill?
When the results of Gov. Walker’s bill get publicized, I’m betting that people that don’t belong to public employee unions will vote for Gov. Walker.
Technorati: Thugs, Unions, Fascists, Censorship, Cowardice, Heroic Wisconsin 14, Fleebaggers, Wisconsin Education Association, WEA Trust, Monopoly, Democrats, Scott Walker, Property Taxes, GOP, Recall Election
A major contributor to Republican campaigns in Ohio has called for Kevin DeWine’s resignation. DeWine is the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A generous Republican donor from Northeast Ohio has called for Ohio GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine’s resignation, stoking speculation of a rift between the party’s leadership and Republican Gov. John Kasich’s administration.
Jon Lindseth, a businessman from Hunting Valley who has contributed about $200,000 to Republican candidates since 2001, sent DeWine a brief e-mail on Thursday expressing his displeasure.
“Enough is enough,” said the e-mail, obtained by The Plain Dealer. “You crossed the line. Time for you to resign.”
The root of the problem appears to stem from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s now-infamous stop in the Cincinnati area this week.
Kevin DeWine’s stunt backfired on both DeWine and Gov. Romney. Ohio Republican insiders say that DeWine’s biggest problem is that he’s listening to Brett Buerck too much. Buerck is one of the Republicans that helped Ohio Republicans earn the reputation of being corrupt. This article explains how corrupt Buerck is:
Brett Buerck, Householder’s former chief of staff, closed his lucrative political consulting firm, First Tuesday, and is now a first-year law student at Ohio State University.
His sidekick, fund-raiser Kyle Sisk, lost his major Republican accounts, sold his home after claiming that records subpoenaed by a grand jury had been stolen from his billiards table and is involved in an undisclosed business venture.
Both declined to discuss the investigation.
At the Statehouse, Householder’s hand-picked successor, Jon Husted, has earned plaudits for a more inclusive and collegial leadership style as he works to shed the nickname “Little Larry.”
Husted, a Dayton-area Republican, fired Buerck and Sisk as consultants to the House GOP in 2004. Since then, he has publicly distanced himself from the pair while quietly helping behind the scenes. He wrote Buerck a letter of recommendation for law school, and his wife, Realtor Tina Husted, was the listing agent for the sale of Sisk’s $300,000 home.
‘The best and worst of everything’
Householder’s meteoric rise from insurance agent in hardscrabble New Lexington to House speaker is due in large part to the political prowess of Buerck, his brilliant, ruthless and hyper-vigilant top aide.
But it was Buerck who ultimately also brought Householder down by alienating colleagues who turned to law enforcement authorities and the news media.
Just 30 years old when he resigned from the House in August 2003, Buerck launched First Tuesday and within two months was pulling in more than $80,000 a month. His clients included two obscure Dayton firms whose goal was Householder’s goal, to install Husted as House speaker and Sen. Jeff Jacobson as Senate president.
Their plan nearly worked, but it collapsed the following summer after Husted and Jacobson, a suburban Dayton Republican, admitted they had routed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Buerck and Sisk through a tiny nonprofit called Citizens for Conservative Values and JSN Associates, a consulting firm run by James Nathanson, one of Jacobson’s closest friends.
In the following months, Buerck lost most of his consulting clients as friends and colleagues deserted him.
My Ohio contact said that there wasn’t a line Buerck wouldn’t cross. Based on this article, that’s pretty believable.
In 2006, alot of Republicans lost their House seats thanks to the plethora of GOP scandals that year. There was the Bob Ney-Jack Abramoff scandal, the Taft scandal and, apparently, the Buerck ripoff.
This is the picture of the ‘guy behind the guy’:
Buerck and Sisk raised millions of dollars for Householder and House Republicans by threatening to withhold financial support from wayward members who didn’t vote in lockstep with Householder on key pieces of legislation.
They also strong-armed members to embrace no-new-taxes pledges, using political nonprofits such as the Ohio Taxpayers Association to wage scorched-earth campaigns against Democrats and uncooperative Republican primary opponents.
“When I was trying to put together my first campaign brochure, they kept giving me paragraphs and I kept sending them back and saying, ‘I do my own writing,’ ” said Rep. Jim McGregor, a suburban Columbus Republican. “It’s the coin of the realm, it’s the only thing I have to give my voters, so I told them, ‘I can’t have you writing my words.’ “It was pretty confrontational.”
It’s painfully obvious that Mssrs. Buerck and Sisk are total control freaks. People with that type of personality frequently believe tha the ends justifies the means.
I don’t have proof but it wouldn’t be difficult for me to think that Mr. Buerck talked DeWine into embarrassing Gov. Kasich. Gov. Kasich has a lengthy history of being a man of integrity. He’s consistent to a fault. He started submitting balanced budget blueprints in 1989. He didn’t stop submitting balanced budget blueprints until he retired from Congress in 2001.
With Gov. Kasich, what you see is what you get. It’s really that simple.
Technorati: Kevin DeWine, Brett Buerck, Scandal, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, Bob Taft, Corruption, John Kasich, Reforms, SB5, Special Election, GOP
Following last night’s recall elections in Wisconsin, both parties started the spin cycle, explaining why their party won:
Republicans may be able to gain back some of the losses next week, when two Democrats face recall elections.Democrats had hoped to block the Republican agenda by taking control of the Senate in the recall elections, but the GOP should be able to continue to advance its agenda.
“I think it’s a huge victory for us,” said John Hogan, director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate. “Voters gave us a mandate last fall…They backed us up again (Tuesday). Voters told us loud and clear, ‘Stay the course. Things are working.’”
But Democrats claimed victory for the two seats they captured from Republicans.
“We went on their turf and we won on Republican turf,” said Mike Tate, chairman of the state Democratic Party. “We will not stop, we will not rest…until we recall (Gov.) Scott Walker.”
Both parties have a point but it’s essentially irrelevant. Facts are overtaking spin, especially the Democrats’ spin.
The facts that’ll change the debate going forward is the fact that Gov. Walker’s reforms are working, saving millions of dollars for cities and school districts:
So it turns out that the sky isn’t going to fall on all local governments in Wisconsin. The numbers now starting to come in show that Gov. Scott Walker’s “tools” for local governments apparently will help at least some of them deal with cuts in state aid imposed by the state budget.
That’s contrary to the expectation and the rhetoric of critics in the spring, and it’s to Walker’s credit. It bears out the governor’s assessment of his budget-repair bill, although we still maintain he could have reached his goals without dealing a body blow to public employee unions…
But the news is good for many. The latest example is Milwaukee, where the most recent estimates show the city with a net gain of at least $11 million for its 2012 budget. That will take a slice out of the city’s structural deficit, which is created by costs rising faster than revenue, and will reduce cuts that Mayor Tom Barrett and the Common Council must impose.
When people see their property taxes stabilize and their school district’s or city’s budgets experience savings, they’ll love it. The unions and other liberal special interest allies will hate it but they certainly aren’t the majority.
I suspect that rank-and-file teachers won’t hate this either. After all, lots of teachers got notices that they’d be terminated at year’s end. Thanks to the money saved as a direct result of Gov. Walker’s budget fix, many of their jobs have been saved.
This editorial in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel trumpets the fact that “the sky isn’t falling”:
So it turns out that the sky isn’t going to fall on all local governments in Wisconsin. The numbers now starting to come in show that Gov. Scott Walker’s “tools” for local governments apparently will help at least some of them deal with cuts in state aid imposed by the state budget.
That’s contrary to the expectation and the rhetoric of critics in the spring, and it’s to Walker’s credit. It bears out the governor’s assessment of his budget-repair bill, although we still maintain he could have reached his goals without dealing a body blow to public employee unions.
The Republicans swept Democrats from office in the 2010 midterms in Wisconsin. Scott Walker replaced Jim Doyle. They also control the House and Senate. Most importantly, Gov. Walker and the GOP legislature hit the ground running, implementing the budget fix. They had a plan and the determination to implement it.
The Democrats, aka the slaves to the public employee unions, fled to Illinois rather than fight for their position. Frankly, those senators should’ve been drummed out of the Senate for neglecting their duties. It’s simply inexcusable for legislators to refuse to vote. That’s gutless. It’s why Democrats should get swept out of office next week and in 2012.
Wisconsin doesn’t need gutless wonders who are beholden to a group of thugs. They need public servants who’ve implemented a plan that’s helping many cities and school districts across the state.
The bottom line is this: Republicans have a plan that’s working. The Democrats’ union thugs bosses demand that they fight hard for the failed status quo.
That’s a pretty clear choice.
Technorati: Special Elections, Wisconsin, Scott Walker, Budget Fix, Leadership, Republicans, Mike Tate, Spin, Unions, Corruption, Status Quo, Democrats
If there’s anything more repulsive than union thugs plying their trade, I haven’t found it. This article highlights what union thug tactics looks like:
Graeme Zielinski, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, was blunt, countering that the Walker administration’s proclamation of economic victory is a “right-wing fantasy, a total lie.”“This economic success is predicated on low wages, low benefits and a workforce that’s going to have to slither on its belly, thanks to Scott Walker,” Zielinski said.
He pointed to nearby Illinois as outpacing Wisconsin’s economy, but the Land of Lincoln added 18,900 to its unemployed rolls in June, pushing the state’s total jobless to 603,700 people.
As repulsive as that is, the union thugs’ tactics get far worse:
What happens next is that I contact the publishers and editors of the papers that publish you as “unbiased,” and let them know our deep concern about the obvious bias that permeates your entire operation. Then, we let our activists know which papers publish you, and they will write the publisher and the editor. Then, we contact the Capitol press pool and let them know about our deep concerns about your credentialing. And we continue on until you actually admit the truth of your operation.
Union thugs won’t hesitate in censoring voices that they disagree with. Let’s put things in the simplest terms possible: Union thugs are about destroying anything they disagree with. No hesitation, no guilt.
If they need to trample the First Amendment, it’s done without hesitation. If it means threatening businesses into supporting their thug tactics, it’s done without hesitation. It if means threatening an entire state, it’s done without hesitation:
If necessary, we will use the valuable public service jobs that we perform as a weapon and shut this state down.
That’s what Herb Sanders, the president of AFSCME Michigan, said at a rally this spring. This doesn’t sound like something that sane people would say or do. The union thugs’ threats aren’t the type of things that thoughtful people agree with.
It’s stunning that the Democratic Party and their union thug allies don’t hesitate in issuing all manner of threats. It’s stunning that they apparently don’t have any respect for the First Amendment. Their tactics are totally ruthless. This is who the Democratic Party and their union thug allies are.
Their hatred is surpassed only by their evil.
If you want to know what today’s recall elections in Wisconsin are about, it’s a choice between union thugs running state government or having Republicans restoring the state to its prosperous past under Tommy Thompson.
If you want union thugs threatening their political opponents and controlling the legislative agenda, vote for the people that “BLEED UNION”. If you want people who will cut property taxes and give local units of government budget relief, then it’s imperative you get out and vote for Sheila Harsdorf.
Think of a vote for Sheila Harsdorf as a vote against union thug tactics and higher taxes.
Technorati: Thugs, Unions, Threats, First Amendment, Censorship, Intimidation, Herb Sanders, AFSCME, Boycotts, Shelley Moore, Democrats, Sheila Harsdorf, Recall Elections, Scott Walker, Republicans