I don’t really know what to say about the Wisconsin thing except it seems to originate with this piece by Greg Sargent. I’ll just give you what I’ve read and then my opinion:
Top Wisconsin Democrats are furious with the national party — and the Democratic National Committee in particular — for refusing their request for a major investment in the battle to recall Scott Walker, I’m told. The failure to put up the money Wisconsin Dems need to execute their recall plan comes at a time when the national Republican Party is sinking big money into defending Walker, raising fears that the DNC’s reluctance could help tip the race his way. “We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association,” a top Wisconsin Democratic Party official tells me. “Scott Walker has the full support and backing of the Republican Party and all its tentacles. We are not getting similar support.”
According to the Wisconsin Dem, the party has asked the DNC for $500,000 to help with its massive field operation. While the DNC has made generally supportive noises, the money has not been forthcoming, the official says — with less than a month until the June 5th recall election. The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This idea that labor has unlimited resources is a fantasy,” the Wisconsin Dem says. “Our needs go well beyond that.”
UPDATE: Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Mike Tate goes on record about the dispute in a statement:
“Having received absolute support from the Democratic Governors Association, we also are in conversation with the Democratic National Committee to help in this battle against Scott Walker, a right-wing diva who has the full backing of the national corporate Tea Party movement.”
UPDATE II: Wisconsin Dems say the problem isn’t with the Democratic Governors Association, which has already committed more to the recall fight than they’ve ever committed to a Wisconsin gubernatorial election in recent history. Still no comment from the DNC.
A lot of “top Wisconsin Democrats” but no names.
The DGA says that the new expenditure brings to over $3 million the amount the organization has spent in Wisconsin, which they say is more than what they spent in the state in both the 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial contests, and “underscores our commitment to highlighting Scott Walker’s worst-in-the-nation record on job creation.”
The DNC has directed $1.4 million to Wisconsin so far in the 2012 cycle with $800,000 of that coming since November, according to figures provided to the Fix. Nearly a quarter million of those dollars have been directed to the state party.
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is headed to the state to raise money for Barrett later this month. And, Obama for America state director Tripp Wellde is also working on the recall effort.
“We are completely committed to electing Tom Barrett,” said DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse. “Any suggestion of a lack of commitment or engagement on the part of the DNC/OFA is off the mark and does nothing more than play into the hands of Scott Walker and his billionaire buddies who launched their frontal assault on working families in Wisconsin.”
Added Wisconsin Democratic state party executive director Maggie Brickerman: “The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has always had and will continue to have a strong relationship with the DNC and OFA.”
This is also from the Washington Post, and it’s closer to my take on this than John’s take:
So, what’s the truth amid all of this spin? That depends on where you stand.
From the DNC perspective, they have made investments well in excess of the $500,000 that was requested and have made other contributions — man hours and the use of various Obama for America voters lists — that make clear how big a priority recalling Walker is for them.
DNC allies note that with such a tiny portion of the electorate genuinely undecided, the work they are doing to identify and turnout pro-Barrett (or anti-Walker) votes is invaluable to increasing the party’s chances of winning on June 5.
As always in major spin wars like this one, there is also some level of butt-covering at work. If Walker does wind up winning, it will be a major blow to organized labor nationally and will be cast as a sign that the President is vulnerable in the state. With stakes that high, everyone within the Democratic party is making sure they have plausible deniability about whose feet a loss should/would/could be laid.
If they win, Walker will be only the third governor in US history to be recalled. This really is unusual, and no one really knows the effect of all that Citizens money, and we probably shouldn’t look at it as an ordinary race. Anyway, I am pulling for them.
Alison
I’ve seen this mentioned a handful of times in regard to the Walker recall, and every time I read it, as a Californian, I weep a little inside. While I fully support getting Walker the eff out of there, our recall was…so so dumb. Davis wasn’t great but he didn’t deserve to be removed, IMO. Fucking Issa, that tool.
And then my illustrious fellow Golden Staters gave us the damn Terminator. AND LOOK HOW GREAT THAT TURNED OUT.
Sigh.
Sorry, this is totally not related to the post, but I couldn’t help it.
Schlemizel
so I have dropped all that I can afford to at the moment & things are going to be tight. I am going to check to see if I can do some calling or something despite not being in Wisc.
But nothing I do will come close to countering the power of the Koch suckers & their media whores. SIGH
Its so damn comforting to know the national party is willing to step up & do their part. I have told my kids to get the fuck out of this country (I’m too old at the moment) Only one of the has taken me seriously.
Baud
Thanks, Kay. I would like to be convinced by your post, but you weren’t outraged enough.
I hope Walker loses so the argument can turn from “who’s to blame for the loss” to “we did this without anyone else’s help.”
lamh35
thank u kay for all the context. I’ve read most of what you posted already, and it why I’ve been scratching my head over the outrage from so much non-sourced information
Kay
@Alison:
No, it’s fine. Did you know there is now a whole election law blog dedicated to recalls? There is. It was inspired by your situation. So, it’s like your contribution to “political science”.
pat
Well, I for one plan to spend a lot of time in the local office next week, calling folks to remind them to vote for Tom Barrett. I got such a call myself on Saturday (all the way from Madison, according to the caller id), and assured her that I had already voted and would be doing the calling myself next week.
What more can we do? I’ve sent money…. I also gave money to the DGA, and I’m glad to see they are in this fight.
Kay
@Baud:
I just hope he loses. It’s bad for labor if he wins. I would like to say this, though. There has been a huge fight over RTW going on under the radar this whole time, and although they lost in Indiana, they won in Minnesota and New Hampshire.
So two out of three, exclusive of Wisconsin. Three out of four if you count Ohio, and I do.
Linnaeus
I’ve donated a little, but I can donate some more. Would that even help?
Linnaeus
@Kay:
True, a Walker win is not good for labor. I won’t deny that. But I’m hoping that in the event that happens (and Barrett just might pull it off), there’ll be some pushback against throwing dirt on labor’s grave.
David Koch
Vote Green!
ruemara
Not enough anonymous sources, anti-DWS, calls for the return of Howard Dean and curses upon Barack Obama’s head for not personally guaranteeing he would show up to campaign for Barrett. I give this blog post an “I” for incomplete repetition of common wisdom.
snark aside, I truly appreciate the work you do on informing us on these rust belt races, the voting issues and the money issues. It’s amazing and since I will be manning our local Democratic Party booth this upcoming Saturday, I’ll be sure use this info to encourage people to phone bank for WI.
Kay
@Schlemizel:
I know I often come off as a pollyana, but I have to say, we don’t know this yet.
They have spent 5 million dollars attacking Sherrod Brown, shady Citizens entities, and his last poll he was over 50%, which is better than he’s done in months. It’s not working on that candidate in that race.
I think part of the evil that is Citizens is that it’s a threat. When Karl Rove comes out (like he does every fucking week) and announces another 25 million dollar buy, we’re supposed to cower. That bothers me. It’s like they don’t even have to run the ads. The threat itself is demoralizing.
Mike
The national Dems advised against the recall and so did the unions, but people on the ground did it, one million signatures collected of 540K needed. The unions have been organisationally obtuse, putting $5 million into Kathy Falk’s primary campaign, someone who would never win a general election in this state and who got 24% less than Tom Barret in the primary. That was a little over two weeks ago and everyone is scrambling with the general upon us in ten days. It’s all but impossible to find a Barret yard sign – our rank-and-file action groups are doing them and they’re flying off the back of the truck.
David Koch
Stand on principle and vote for a 3rd party!
4tehlulz
Oh, the Washington Post.
Why the fuck does anyone believe anything the Post says about Democrats?
amk
Thanks Kay for a reasoned post. cole’s emoprog pos was just that.
Baud
@Kay:
There are a lot of things I like about liberal Dems, but one thing I don’t is that everything demoralizes us. And when there is nothing to demoralize us, we demoralize ourselves.
I find that much more frustrating than anything else.
rikyrah
if the people of Wisconsin haven’t seen what Walker is all about BY NOW and don’t vote him out…
fuck ’em.
magurakurin
@Schlemizel:
And there is even less that you can do about this
I’m thinking that WI has a pretty serious problem that no one seems to be talking about…and it isn’t weak support from national Dems. The wingnut must be very strong in this one.
Alison
@Kay: I wish I could say I’m happy we could be of service :P
Mnemosyne
Thanks, kay. It’s always nice to have some reason in the conversation. :-)
West of the Cascades
I think the Post is partially right that DWS’s statement is mostly for plausible deniability, but not to place “blame” for a loss … rather to make sure that if Walker wins, that “win” is as much as possible interpreted to be narrowly based on the unique facts in Wisconsin (“same candidate he beat last election,” “inundated with Koch money,” “a quirk of that state’s political circumstances”), so that it doesn’t have repercussions in re-energizing the right in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania over the next six months. If the reports are correct that despite what DWS said, the DNC actually is committing money and support for the ground game, then the DNC is doing the right thing. Look at the actions, not the words.
It would suck if Walker is re-elected. It would suck much much more if the national Democratic Party were on record that its first priority this year is to defeat Walker and then Walker were re-elected. That’s where the Post is wrong, and DWS may be being smart: if the Democratic Party and organized labor nationally are pretending and saying that they are not considering the Walker referendum a “national” issue, then they can plausibly say afterwards that a Walker re-election doesn’t have national implications. It’s not about butt-covering, it’s about limiting the relevance of the result if the Democratic Party doesn’t win in Wisconsin.
Smiling Mortician
@magurakurin:
And in 2004, Bush lost Wisconsin. Just sayin’.
clayton
@amk: dittos
Davis X. Machina
About the number I’d expect to see.
Tribalism isn’t as simple as all that. People belong to a number of tribes simultaneously, and economic self-interest isn’t the only kind of self-interest.
eemom
Not surprising that yours would be different, considering that your “takes” are always the product of research, reason, and independent thought, whereas Cole’s are generally determined by whatever is trending on the twittersphere at the moment he decides to pull something out of his ass.
Mike
@Davis X. Machina: No fucking way is Walker at 39% among union households in this state.
Polish the Guillotines
@Alison:
This can’t be stated often enough.
rikyrah
@magurakurin:
W-T-F are 39% of union households doing approving of Walker?
talk about voting against your own self-interest
grandpa john
There is a faint hope that someday the unintellectual masses will finally wake from their great slumber to realize a basic fact of life, that actions taken or not taken will have effect on future events
The stolen election of 2000 in this case is the event driving what we see happening now. The so called supreme court sanctioning the selling of our government to the highest bidder.
For all those Naderites and others who said there was not a dimes worth of difference where are you now.
With a president Gore ,there would most probably not been a 9/11. There would have been no tax cuts for the rich that along with fighting 2 wars off budget that produced massive deficits, wars that a president Gore would not have fought or would not have been needed if there was no 9/11
2 extreme conservative supreme court justices would not have been appointed, justices that lied to get approval and who have ignored the actions of earlier courts in pushing through the conservative agenda.
Yes actions have consequences and in presidential elections
between Democrats and Republicans there will always be more than a dimes worth of difference in the 2 candidate as verified by the candidates in this election.
David Koch
Teach DWS a lesson – stay home and boycott the recall.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and, as near as I can tell, in the middle of all this, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz snuck in to Cole’s house and took a nasty shit under his duvet.
@magurakurin: Those numbers make me wonder what the percentage of police and fire union members, the ones Walker exempted, are in that 39%; also too, guns god and gays. The NRA spent big and lied hard.
amk
@grandpa john: +1.
Ruckus
@West of the Cascades:
Has butt covering like this ever helped?
Seems to me that dems try to be conciliatory while rethugs always manage to be overwhelmingly combative. One seems to be working and one doesn’t. Do I want to use their tactics, win at any cost? No, but wouldn’t it be nice to not feel like that’s the only way to go?
On another note, why is this not a national issue? We don’t have unions to break up any where else? Are the rethugs going to stop if walker wins? Hell no, that will strengthen their resolve to break up and own the entire country.
David Koch
@grandpa john:
Al Gore is a conservadem, neoliberal, Blue-Dog, corporatist, bankster, wall streeter and Bush’s 3rd term. Gore is also worst than Hitler, Pol Pot, and Adam Sandler, combined.
vote Green!
amk
@Ruckus: Let the unions in WI set right their own houses in order in first. 39% support this koch sucker even after what he has done to them last year ? The finger pointers should remember that three of the fingers are pointing at themselves.
pkdz
I’m discouraged because we are being outspent and because there are endless ads alleging that Walker saved our economy and Barrett’s Milwaukee Police under counted acts of violent crimes, etc. But I’m encouraged because Barrett did a great job in the debate and the base is motivated.
David Koch
Tom Barrett has sold you out! Barrett is worse than Bush!
Spaghetti Lee
@Kay:
Well sure. It’s the same principle as Vericato’s unlimited corporate cash! Scare us into giving up before the election even happens. And maybe it works. I don’t know why, but it seems like Walker threads are always full of fatalism and doomsaying.
West of the Cascades
@Ruckus: Yeah, of course it has. Look at how hard the Democratic Party tried to make the 2009 special election in upstate NY where Bill Owens was elected into a major national referendum on the tea party, and Republicans successfully downplayed its importance even before the vote was taken (see also the Nov. 2010 election results). So if Walker wins, national Democrats have some plausible things to point to to say “this wasn’t that big a deal, we’re focused on the Presidential election and taking back Congress.”
I agree with you, though, that the Wisconsin recall election IS a national issue — but Barrett isn’t a great candidate and Walker might win. So if I see the DNC committing money and human resources on the ground (which that Post article makes it sound like actually is happening), I really don’t care that much what DWS says. Anyway, if she pulled out all verbal stops and went all-in rhetorically on behalf of the DNC, wouldn’t that be “just words!”?
Ruckus
@amk:
That’s all well and good but long term this does affect all of us.
I’m convinced that better than 20% of the rethugs would vote to have themselves castrated if it meant that a liberal would lose an election. As mentioned above, CA throwing out Davis for arnold worked out so well. Arnold didn’t even seem like a complete douche(although he was a terrible gov), which one can not say about walker.
kay
@Mike:
Thanks. I appreciate hearing what’s going on there.
The police were huge for us in Ohio, because Kasich went after them, too.
It was a huge advantage. Walker was smarter than Kasich, exempting them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wheteupon Cole had the dry heaves, took a shower, and threw DWS into the basement.
Ruckus
@West of the Cascades:
And words do have consequences otherwise why would DWS be trying to play cya?
My understanding of messaging is to always stay on it. In my last job that was a main point, something I had to do every day, on the phone, in public, and in interviews, no matter my personal views. If the clash between my views and that of the company was too great to swallow, I was free to leave. And I did, but not for that reason. Words do matter, otherwise none of us would care what’s posted here.
Cacti
@magurakurin:
39% approval from Union households.
Talk about volunteering to slit your own throat.
Firebert
@David Koch: Teach me how to be as pure as a fresh-cut daisy just like you.
Linnaeus
@Firebert:
I suspect good Mr. Koch is being sarcastic.
Burnspbesq
@Ruckus:
Given that the alternative leads to, among other things, Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, I’d say the only rational answer is “fuck yeah.”
Firebert
@Linnaeus: So was I.
amk
@Firebert: snarkmeter broken alert.
Linnaeus
@Firebert:
Ah. Sometimes my sarcasm meter works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ll have to take it in for repairs.
Roy G.
@rikyrah: Sad but true. I have always hoped for moments where the mask slips and the public is repulsed by the true face of power-licking. Unfortunately, the folks of Wisconsin have seen Walker unmasked twice. What’s that Shrub Jr. said: Fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice… won’t get fooled again?
kideni
I’ve been out of the country for most of the month, so I was fortunate to miss a lot of the agita that has followed the primary. I just can’t dwell on it if I’m going to keep positive and try to help get out the vote.
The polling is ever suspect, particularly since the Marquette poll keeps talking to ever more conservative voters than are represented in the general population. Of course, the poll numbers are what gets reported, and most people don’t look that far into the data. I don’t get the impression that pollsters have talked much to people in the northern and western parts of the state, where there are fewer large population centers, granted, but where the populace has been pretty anti-Walker (an attempt this spring to recall a Democratic state senator up north failed to get anywhere near the number of signatures needed — so much for recalls being too easy, and so much for recalls being all about Democrats abusing the system).
In regard to signs, it sounds like that’s all about money. Walker gives signs away. They go around neighborhoods and offer people signs, and will even install them in the most visible manner possible. Barrett’s campaign can’t afford to do that, so people have to buy signs and set them up themselves; if they’re in a mixed neighborhood, their sign will probably be vandalized. One local Madison blogger raised funds to buy a bunch of signs to take to rural areas to try to add some more Barrett signs to the landscape.
As with everything else, people are trying to be creative. You see a lot of homemade signs, and on one highway in the western part of the state, a group of people have been installing signs with short slogans about issues (lost jobs, John Doe, education slashed, etc.) — kind of a Burma shave thing for the recall. At least three Overpass Light Brigade groups have set up shop around the state — they stand on highway overpasses with lighted letters to spell out slogans against Walker, for Barrett, reminding people to vote, etc. There are a lot of things like this happening around the state.
Don’t forget there are also four state senate recalls going on as well, and the Dems have a real shot at a few of them. If we take just one, we have the senate and can stop anything Walker wants to do, at least for a few months (the legislature won’t be in regular session until early next year, and who knows what the fall election will bring, but at least Walker wouldn’t be able to push through any sort of special session).
ETA: I can fully understand people getting frustrated with Wisconsin, especially if we don’t manage to recall Walker, and especially if he does so with significant union support. You do have to wonder what it would take to get through to some people. For dog’s sake, he’s going after public deer hunting!
Ruckus
@Burnspbesq:
That was/is my conclusion as well. Doesn’t matter about long term goals if you can’t do anything about them.
sharl
@kideni: I was kinda wondering where you were; I look for your nym whenever WI politics is the topic here.
Thanks for the encouraging bits of evidence; it’s important (though difficult) to get that sort of messaging out.
Firebert
@Linnaeus: I troll trolls. I’m pretentiously meta that way.
kay
@kideni:
I don’t think you should dwell on it. The Sargent piece and the other WaPo piece are exactly the same information, except the Sargent piece is much more breathless and credulous of unnamed Wisconsin Democrats who are spinning like tops.
In any event. Regardless. Just try to win :)
TenguPhule
Still not too late for the CIA to bump Walker off?
Hello, domestic enemy? Fix it?
eemom
This may have been covered already, but where is the best place to send $$ to help the effort?
Linnaeus
@eemom:
I donated though ActBlue.
hitchhiker
Oh, jeez I want Walker to get the boot.
That’s really all — he’s the definition of creeper and he needs to get out of government.
That said, how is anybody surprised that the national Ds (including Obama) have not showed up with either full-throated support or dollars? The national Ds (including Obama) have let the people of WI fight their fight all on their own since the beginning.
The people of WI are going to pull this off, and it’s not going to be because the party got behind them. It’s going to be because they wouldn’t give up.
gbear
@eemom:
I donated $30 to We Are Wisconsin this evening.
I don’t know if it’s the best place, but it looks like a good place and it’s local.
Mnemosyne
@hitchhiker:
Dude. Seriously. Kay put the information right in her post, and yet you skimmed past it in your eagerness to keep spreading the zombie lie about the DNC not spending money in Wisconsin.
It’s a lie. Jesus fuck, if even the facts won’t convince you people that it’s a lie, then we really are screwed in November.
eemom
@Linnaeus:
@gbear:
Thanks, will follow.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Hey, anyone else pissed off because the democrats are being typical democrats and not giving any money to the recall and not using the 50 state strategy and not supporting the public option and not using the bully pulpit and not twisting arms like LBJ and not running grassroots candidates like Darcy Burner and continually hiring Donnie McClurkin to sing at their events and Rahm Emanuel?
I totally read it, like, everywhere.
Joseph Nobles
Jesus, to be mostly OT, but that final quoted sentence from the last article in the original post. “…deniability about AT whose feet” is what it should say, or to avoid the whole mess, “deniability if it comes to assigning blame.” SMH
Triassic Sands
My sister lives in Wisconsin and we talk regularly. She is not at all confident about the recall and is fuming at the DNC for their unwillingness to help out. This kind of behavior is one of the reasons why Democrats have lost ground nationally over the past several decades.
I’ll contribute to and work for individual candidates, but I won’t give a dime to the DNC.
xian
@Alison: it worked out great for Enron (and for Ken Lay, who — having found a hobo of roughly the same size and shape, lives now somewhere on a private island).
xian
@Triassic Sands: what unwillingness to help out?
Foregone Conclusion
@Triassic Sands:
Yeah, but pretty much every party volunteer in any campaign since the dawn of time has occasionally shook his or her fist at ‘those suits in the national office’, or whatever, for not showing up with help where they are, right now. I know, I’ve done it myself at times. Sometimes it’s justified, sometimes it’s not. I don’t know which it is in this case: as Kay has shown, it’s pretty obvious that the DNC is putting money into the campaign, but at the same time is looking at the polls and thinking that it’s pointless ploughing in huge amounts when, in a year when they’re going to be outspent by Republicans, they’ve got to save their resources.
the fugutive uterus
well, i certainly hope so. Walker got a $500,000 check from ONE INDIVIDUAL DONOR. Can the DNC pony up without begging at this point? isn’t it rather late in the game to start begging donors now?
is it just me? can’t i just give the money directly to WI Dem party? fuck the DNC at this point, they never deserved Howard Dean in the first place
the fugutive uterus
@kideni: he’s going after public deer hunting!
FlipYrWhig
@Triassic Sands: Why is your sister fuming at something that has been shown repeatedly in these threads to be trumped-up bullshit? And why are you validating it?
Alex S.
It seems as if the local Dems are disappointed with the DNC because they didn’t match the funds of the Koch brothers et al. But honestly, this is probably impossible. It looks like the DNC is right when they treat this as a test-run of their ground operation.
kay
@the fugutive uterus:
The whole premise of the original Sargent piece is they needed 500 k for GOTV.
When you find out the DGA gave them more than any governor’s race, ever, that claim falls apart (hence the ‘updates’on Sargent’s piece).
They never claimed they wanted a dollar for dollar match w/Walker, because they know that’s a ridiculous request, so they set it up as GOTV.
If that part isn’t true ( and it isn’t) the whole claim falls apart.
kay
@the fugutive uterus:
You want them to spend 30 million dollars on ads against Walker in a state race where there are no undecideds?
Because that’s a match with Walker’s outside groups. 30 million. Would you agree that 30 million is a much larger number than half a million? Because that was the original claim. Now we’re at 30 million, required, or the DGA and the DNC are not “helping”?
Will
You are right on the money Kay. An anonymous Democratic Party of WI staffer complained to Greg Sargent and it launched this huge hullabaloo on the interwebs.
People are bashing the DNC left and right but no one seems to know that the DNC has already spent money on staff in WI. Also, I have seen no explanation laying out specifically what the $500K requested would be used for. Is it a paid canvass? Is it TV ads? Is it mail?
Maybe it was a mistake for the DNC not to pitch some money in here, but we don’t really know do we. All we know is that an anonymous state party official complained and so therefore the DNC is sandbagging Barrett.
This is madness.
Todd Dugdale
It seems to me that Walker’s ‘supporters’ don’t particularly like him. Even WI business-owner Republicans have told me that his agenda won’t improve the economy. There are some people who believe the propaganda, but they are the usual people who believe anything they are told.
The major motivating factor here, IMHO, is that Walker is hated by “the libs”, so he must be defended.
More and more, conservatives are being defined as “anti-liberals”, and not adherents to any particular philosophy. That’s why massive ad campaigns by the DNC would be a waste of money. The “issues” involved are not likely to sway anyone from Walker to Barrett.
feebog
Here was the mistake; the timing of the recall effort. I know those behind the recall wanted to retain momentum, but their timing sucks. First, they just had a round of recall elections for State Senate. Second, gathering signatures starting the very nano-second it was possible assured that the election would be held in late Spring or early Summer, well before the November elections. If these folks would have waited untile March and April, the recall election would have coninsided with the November general election; when you could expect maximum Democratic turnout.
Lets remember that Walker won in an off year election by a 52 to 48 percent margin. Move that same election to a presidental year and the numbers reverse.
julie
if you don’t give regularly to the DNC, then don’t complain about how much money they allocate to the WI recall effort.
Eli Rabett
What Eli wants is a candidate who will run against Wasserman Schultz next go round so he can contribute. It’s time to teach fools like her fear.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
The Democratic Party is not interested in this race. And they are not interested in supporting the unions. That’s the unfortunate effect of the complete takeover of high finance in our government, and our emerging oligarchy. It’s very sad that this party can be so incredible stupid (unions are their only means of competing with Republicans on a national level), but that’s the reality we’re in.
What you’ll need to do is simply take over the Democratic Party, and begin at the precinct level. Start there, work your way up to the local level, then county, then state. You have to do what the conservative movement has done over the last 35 years. This means thinking long-term and accepting that we’ll be losing battles in the near-term. But the goal is to build a movement over many years and hope to regain what has been, and what will be, lost.
It’s disheartening to see that Walker is going to easily win the recall election, but when the opposition is really not interested in fighting back, this is the only result. The people themselves will have to stand up and take control of the political process from the oligarchs who own this country.
geg6
Jeebus, did the last half of this dead thread become Firebagger central or what? Fuck, somehow the DNC is supposed to match the Koch’s expenditures or they are no better than the Tea Party? Fucking idiots. Grow up. And comment more often here so you might be taken seriously by those of us who do, though based your emo bullshit panic “Dems in disarray!” garbage means you are probably just ratfuckers and not Dems or liberals at all. STFU and put some skin in the game and I’ll maybe take you seriously. Otherwise, you are all the equivalent of James O’Keefe, faking and lying your way through life. That is the effect of being an emiprog. You live to ratfuck anyone who is mostly on your side and you are so intolerant of any deviation from whatever you think is “pure” that you’d rather everyone else suffer and, for some, die than give up on your impossble dream if your preferred vision of “liberalism”.
So glad this thread is dead, but I just had to get that off my chest. Oh, and you rock, kay.
Mintock
Walker delivered what he promised. Tom baby has ruined Milwaukee. The dems haven’t posted what it cost Wisconsin for the recall election. Do you think it was free? All politicians are lyres. Lesser of the two evils. Walker made it unfair how for women to make the same wage as men how? On planet Earth you get paid what your worth. This bipartisan crap needs to end. Because your a teacher you’re special? Try working all year instead of the 200 some days your contract stipulates. My parents taught me common sense. If it’s BS it’s BS. I’m tired of these commercials and thinking about how to sue the broadcasters for making me watch this crap. If Walker is doing a bad job then Barrett will do worse so show how ignorant you are on voting day. Hell, you’re probably the same ones who voted for “change.” You got it!