Terrence Wall officially drops out of Senate race, offers no endorsement

With this statement Terrence Wall officially dropped out of the GOP Senate race.

Notably absent from the statement is a mention (much less an endorsement) of any of his primary opponents.

Meanwhile with this press release the Republican Party of Wisconsin is oblivious to what looks more and more like the party handpicking its Senate candidate for the fall. You know, the thing they attacked the DPW for doing in the 7th congressional district?

Terrence Wall drops out of Senate race?

Cognitive Dissidence has it on rumor that Terrence Wall is dropping out. Blogging Blue sums up what will likely soon be the conventional wisdom on the move, calling Wall and Johnson;

“Essentially the same kind of candidate (rich, well connected “job creators” with no experience as an elected official).”

I called Wall dropping out first, due to his general horrid candidacy (poor speaker, no ideas, couldn’t win Maple Bluff trustee, etc.) but Leinenkugel blew that one for me.

Assuming the Wall news is true, we’ll move on to what’s next. Westlake has never had much money to campaign on, so there is a good chance he will stay in through the primary. He has had a wealthy opponent since Wall announced his candidacy last September. While I don’t think he can beat Johnson’s money, Johnson won the RPW endorsement last weekend which brings me to this “although” from Blogging Blue;

It’ll be interesting to see how Johnson fares as the candidate of the GOP establishment in a year that certainly hasn’t been kind to establishment candidates (just ask Trey Grayson or Vaughn Ward).

The GOP base and the teabaggers (or the GOP base/teabaggers) really seem to like Ron Johnson. But here is another “although” — Delegates to the convention and primary voters are not interchangeable.

Questions for the next three months: Will Westlake and Johnson go after each other, or Feingold? Will Westlake have the funding to get his message out about either? And will Wisconsin voters look at Johnson as an “establishment candidate?”

Voluntary voter ID is elitist

The State Government Accountability Board was absolutely right when ruling against a voluntary identification for voters opting in. When the ID-loving, make-it-harder-to-vote right is upset, the preferred outcome has generally come to fruition.

The right-wing, in its populist, take-our-country-back incarnation of late, often describes liberals as “elitists.” Really, voluntary voter ID is elitist. If you are reading this, you probably know election laws fairly well. You are different from most people. I’m not advocating uninformed voting, but the vast majority of citizens are not well versed in the rules of something done once or twice a year.

The GAB ruled against voluntary voter ID because it could confuse voters — seeing a poll worker ask someone to present ID could very easily lead another voter behind the volunteer IDer to believe they too needed ID to vote. At a restaurant unfamiliar to you, would you not follow the lead of the people ahead in line? It’s the herd mentality. Maybe sad, but true.

Of course the right doesn’t care about disenfranchising voters. Especially not the younger, less experienced type that skew Democratic. That is why they support mandatory voter ID laws — fewer voters tends to favor Republicans.

The right loves to cry that voter fraud is destroying our democracy, yet in the 2008 election there were only seven instances of fraud, out of 2.9 million voters. Hardly a threat to our political system.

This is not about encouraging uninformed voting. And it’s less about encouraging voting than it is about not discouraging it. Remember the next time Sarah Palin attacks “liberal elites”, it is her type that wishes to erect barriers to voting, for the political gain of the Republican party.

Scott Walker’s Rolling Blunder Tour Wraps Up

Updates on the final leg of Scott Walker’s Rolling Blunder Tour from Blogging Blue and Cognitive Dissidence.

Tomorrow the GOP convention begins in Milwaukee. Coincidence? Of course Slippery Scott would like us to believe that.

Update on Walker’s Rolling Blunder Tour

Eye on Wisconsin and Blogging Blue have updates on the Monday and Tuesday legs of Scott Walker’s Rolling Blunder Tour. Check them out for more on Walker’s political stunt.

Update: One-T at One Wisconsin Now has  some questions for Slippery Two-T. How will Two-T pay for the four massive tax cuts he has pledged to make as governor?

Ron Johnson is running for Senate as an opportunist

What was the “ah ha!” moment when Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson decided to run for Senate? Johnson officially launched his campaign today, and if you were curious, Charlie Sykes asked that question (mp3 audio at 5:04). Ron Johnson’s answer;

“I was watching FOX News and, uh, Dick Morris came on. He was talking about, uh, hey Russ Feingold is really, really vulnerable. Hey, if you’re a rich guy in the state of Wisconsin maybe you ought to decide to run.”

Ron Johnson should be seeking the nomination of the Opportunist Party (but so should Leinenkugel, so he’d still face a primary). But the worst part is Johnson is doing something because Dick Morris said so. If Ron Johnson is willing to run for Senate because a sleazy, political turncoat (among other things) said it was a good idea, think about his potential as a senator — “What would you like Mr. Lobbyist?” “Sure thing, you got it!”

After Johnson admits to running for Senate because Dick Morris wanted a rich guy to run, he spends the next few minutes running away from his wealth. Maybe Charlie Sykes’ listeners are dumb enough to either not notice or not understand, but the rest of us aren’t buying that Ron.

Johnson’s next bogus claim, that he is not affiliated with the tea party, was debunked at The Chief. Johnson also claims that Feingold will run a dirty campaign, despite that Johnson has only been at it for a few weeks and has already slung more mud than Senator Feingold.

Johnson has stated he will put millions of dollars of his own money into the campaign. The wet dirt will only continue.

Scott Walker’s Rolling Blunder: Wisconsin Rapids, Waupaca and La Crosse

While Scott Walker is out on a motorcycle ride promoting his campaign for governor Milwaukee County, perhaps he should tell all the businesses that were able to keep people working and keep our economy afloat due to money from the federal stimulus that they should just give the money back. Then he can go after the public services that were able to provide important care to people at a crucial time. After all, Walker detests the stimulus (except when he brags about jobs it created in Milwaukee County).

While he was in Wisconsin Rapids today, he could have stopped by the school district offices and told them that “make[ing] available special education and related services for children with disabilities” was a waste. Or at Newpage paper, he could have personally disposed of the waste products generated by paper making, instead of using the new equipment that was manufactured and installed.

While in Waupaca, Walker could have stopped at the Veterans Home and told the nurses the patient lifts and monitors they are receiving would be nice, but not the federal government’s prerogative to purchase.

In La Crosse, Walker should have gone to Workforce Connections. There, laid off workers were retrained for new careers and older workers with disabilities were trained for part-time employment. On his way out of town Monday morning, Walker will ride past Oak Avenue South, under repair using stimulus funds.

Each disbursement was a tiny cog in the economy. For every item purchased, many people had a hand in production. Slippery Scott would have these people out of work, as a political stunt to get his Party of No back in power. Thanks, but no thanks Walker.

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Tuesday update: Eye on Wisconsin and Blogging Blue have more on the Monday and Tuesday legs of Walker’s stunt.

Terrence Wall can’t have it both ways

Terrence Wall supports a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget for the federal government.  He also uses his successful real estate firm as evidence his private sector experience qualifies him for a position in the United State Senate. The run-government-like-a-business slogan is popular among the GOP, but completely at odds with a balanced budget mandate.

Successful businesses often take out loans in order to expand. T. Wall properties did, though maybe at a reduced interest rate due to guarantees and investments by Wall’s father. Regardless, Wall should know running a business is expensive, and owners simply cannot afford to pay straight cash for everything immediately.

The stimulus was an investment in the business of America’s future. To stave off a much higher unemployment rate, money was pumped into the economy. Tying the hands of Congress with a balanced budget amendment could have resulted in economic collapse.

Even Dave Westlake knows a balanced budget amendment is a bad idea. It failed years ago. A balanced budget is a good thing, but we already have a senator doing a better job cutting wasteful spending than Terrence Wall ever could.

Ron Johnson preparing dirty, misleading Senate campaign

Republican US Senate hopeful Ron Johnson, the latest entrant into the GOP primary race is preparing a dirty campaign of misleading personal attacks, judging by the hiring of Darrin Schmitz. Schmitz is responsible for what may be the only Wisconsin campaign ad still causing controversy two years after airing — the Gableman campaign’s attack on Louis Butler, called a purposeful distortion by the Journal-Sentinel.

This purposeful distortion was on display in April at the Madison Tea Party, straight from Ron Johnson himself. Johnson ranted about lost freedom and not being covered by the mainstream media, while freely speaking and acknowledging friendly members of the mainstream media in the audience.

The tea party “movement” has never been very coherent or concerned with the truth. Now that they have their own candidate we can expect constant attacks on the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution’s knowledge of the Constitution, along with (of course) his disregard for it.

On the plus side, Feingold will get the opportunity to rerun the classic 1992 “mudslinging” ad this year (which I unfortunately cannot locate online), but with his old primary opponents replaced with present day GOP foes Terrence Wall and Ron Johnson.

Wall has run a dirty campaign of falsehoods from the start, and Leinenkugel followed suit. Ron Johnson’s Schmitz hire proves him shameless. Along with Dave Westlake they are going to say anything, truth-be-damned, to attack Feingold, all while simultaneously beating the hell out of each other. It’s going to be a long summer.

Get the facts on Kagan straight, Reince

RPW Chair and lead stuntman Reince Priebus responded to the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan with a typical devoid-of-fact statement. If old wisgop.org links actually worked, the cookie-cutter introduction of “strictly interpret the Constitution instead of legislating from the bench” is probably in the response to Justice Sotomayor’s nomination. Anyway, of course the GOP wants a nominee that strictly interprets the constitution, you know, the John Roberts type, the kind of fellow that would never overturn a centuries worth of precedent to say, allow corporate campaign contributions. Right?

But on to that joker Priebus. When he declares Kagan’s “opposition to allowing military recruiters on the Harvard Law School campus” he neglects that in her official capacity, the most action she took against recruiters was to deny the use of Harvard’s Office of Career Services for a brief period. The recruiters were still welcome on campus, and Kagan has been very supportive of young people serving their country.

If any groups have lacked support for service to country in the armed forces, it has been the military (including the Commander in Chief) and Congress, unwilling to abolish Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The policy has resulted in thousands of discharges, and untold numbers of potential recruits passing up the military as a career. Kagan taking a stance (as a dean, not a judge) to call attention to a discriminatory policy that’s bad for America is in no way a blemish on her record.

If you wanted more stuntman in this post, Priebus also does some assumption-based whining in other recent press releases. Read critically.