Ask the Wisconsin Torture Caucus

Green donor to vote on Green donations

The State Elections Board has a new member,Gregory Paradise, to help decide a crucial case about Mark Green's contributions, and he should be an expert on the issue, being a $500 donor to Green himself.

The Journal Sentinel, which continues to play the role of Green advocate and apologist, reports the donation, but then tries to explain it away:

Paradise donated $500 to Green's campaign in May, according to Wisconsin Democracy Campaign records - a donation that a Doyle campaign official said proved he was handpicked by Green to serve on the panel. But two Democratic board members often have given to their party's legislators and candidates, records show.

Actually, records don't show that any other Elections Board members have donated to either Green or Doyle, unless it was in the pre-primary report filed this month, which is not in the data base yet.

If this is a Green-Doyle dispute, as it is portrayed by the newspaper, contributions to one of them might be relevant. Giving to any Republican or Democrat is not comparable to giving to one of those two, and would hardly be a disqualifier, since the board members are named by the political parties and partisan elected officials.

How independent and open-minded will Paradise be? Back to the JS story:

[Assembly Speaker John] Gard said he did not tell Paradise how to vote on any issue. "He'll figure it out," Gard said.

UPDATE: Seth Zlotocha says that if all you know if what you read in the JS, you probably have no idea what the latest case against Green is all about.

UPDATE 2: The AP reports on Paradise's appointment and his contribution to Green, but adds:

Paradise, an attorney with Mohs, MacDonald, Widder & Paradise in Madison, said he is not affiliated with any political party.

That must mean Paradise hasn't paid his party dues. If there's any doubt of his Republican connections, check these contributions to candidates for US Senate and House, Republicans all, from Open Secrets:

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
ATTORNEY
8/12/2004
$1,000
Michels, Tim J

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
ATTORNEY
10/13/2004
$500
Michels, Tim J

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
MOHS WILDER PARADISE
9/30/2003
$500
Welch, Bob

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
SELF/ATTORNEY
9/17/2004
$250
Magnum, David

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
ATTORNEY
10/7/1998
$750
Musser, Josephine

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
SELF/ATTORNEY
12/8/1999
$500
Sharpless, John Burk

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53703
MOHS MCDONALD PARADISE & WIDDER/ATT
10/12/2000
$250
Sharpless, John Burk

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI
ATTORNEY
6/19/1996
$500
Zien, David A

PARADISE, GREGORY
MADISON,WI 53711
MOHS MCDONALD & WIDDER
10/21/1996
$500
Klug, Scott L

PARADISE, GREGORY J
MADISON,WI 53711
MOHS, MCDONALD & WIDDER
1/18/1994
$500
Klug, Scott

PARADISE, GREGORY J
MADISON,WI 53703
MOHS, MCDONALD & WIDDER
1/8/1992
$500
Klug, Scott L

PARADISE, GREGORY J
MADISON,WI 53703
MOHS, MCDONALD & WIDDER
10/26/1992
$500
Klug, Scott L

PARADISE, GREGORY J
MADISON,WI 53703
ATTORNEY
7/16/1990
$250
Klug, Scott L

What the JS was saying 4 years ago

The Journal Sentinel has started a snarky new feature, designed mostly, it appears, as another platform to take potshots at Gov. Jim Doyle for things he said on the campaign trail in 2002 that either have not come to fruition or, in hindsight, turned out to be wrong.

The series is supposedly about "what the candidates were doing and saying four years ago." But Doyle was running for governor, while Congressman Mark Green doing little except raising and banking Washington special interest money while winning a lopsided re-election victory. So Doyle clearly will be the recipient of most of the cheap shots.

Here's Friday's:

4 years ago, Doyle didn't expect 5% growth

Madison -- Four years ago, then-candidate for governor Jim Doyle attacked a prediction that future state revenues will grow by about 5%. But that's exactly the growth that his own state budget director recently predicted, and said it will wipe out any future budget deficit.

On Sept. 25, 2002, the Democrat's campaign ridiculed the prediction by the top deputy to then-Republican Gov. Scott McCallum that tax collections would go up by about 5% a year.

"Scott McCallum has been spending too much time with his friend Rosy Scenario," Doyle, then the attorney general, said in a statement. "That is exactly the kind of wishful thinking and dishonest budgeting that got us into a $2.8-billion (deficit) hole to begin with."

According to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, state tax collections have averaged annual growth of 5% for decades.

Now, fast-forward to Aug. 15 of this year, when a Doyle appointee, state Budget Director David Schmiedicke issued his own "rosy scenario." It dismissed conclusions of Republicans like Mark Green, the GOP candidate for governor, and the non-partisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance that there is a deficit -- a two-year gap that could be $2 billion or more, depending on how you count.

Said Schmiedicke: "Over the past 20 years, revenues have grown at an average rate of approximately 5% a year. Assuming only average growth -- and without having to cut anything from the budget -- the state will see revenue growth of about $1.9 billion. That more than covers the so-called 'structural deficit'."

Schmiedicke's report came out days before Doyle proposed new tax deductions for health-care premiums paid an employer, if those premiums are not already tax-exempt, and for child care.

Another in an occasional series of what candidates for governor and their aides were saying, and doing, four years ago.

And here's what the newspaper didn't tell you:

Reporter Steve Walters forgot to mention that we were just coming off of an economic recession that had been made worse by the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The previous two years had shown very low growth.

Here's what the JS had to say in an editorial at the time:

Fuzzy math from McCallum
Posted: Sept. 28, 2002

We mean no disrespect when we assert that straight talk in this gubernatorial campaign will be at a very high premium. Example: Gov. Scott McCallum's recruiting of Rosy Scenario. The other day, talking about economic growth to the La Crosse Tribune, McCallum said his computer models estimated an increase in state revenue of more than 5%. This, the governor seemed to imply, would do wonders toward addressing Wisconsin's fiscal mess - specifically, spending projected to exceed tax revenue by as much as $2.8 billion for the biennium beginning next July 1. "The focus needs to be on growth," the governor said, "instead of saying how deep do (cuts) need to be."

There are a couple of problems here. First, the budget repair bill that McCallum signed in late July already may be obsolete. Tax revenue for fiscal year 2001-'02 - the first year of the current biennium, which ended June 30 - fell short of expectations by nearly $190 million. As a result, revenue must grow by 6.8% in the current fiscal year to hit estimates made by the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau earlier this year.

Slight problem No. 1: The state has averaged about 5.5% in annual revenue growth over the past two decades, and it may be mighty difficult to hit even that target if the national and state economies don't pick up some steam soon. The fiscal bureau itself acknowledges as much: It has projected an increase of tax collections in the current fiscal year of 3.1%, less than half of what's needed to fill the gap.

Slight problem No. 2: A return to average revenue growth, unlikely as it is, would not absorb a $2.8 billion shortfall, still leaving a massive hole - more than $1 billion - to fill. McCallum has ruled out any and all tax increases. Fair enough: We don't much like tax increases, either, and we believe the governor is right to hold the line. But exactly how does he propose to solve the problem if he is not prepared for deep cuts in spending?

Attorney General Jim Doyle, McCallum's opponent, hasn't earned a bye in this fix-the-budget board game. The Democratic candidate also has ruled out general tax increases on income and sales, regularly stressing that Wisconsin taxpayers have paid their fare share and that the state must shed its reputation as a high-tax state. But Doyle's education proposals might well result in higher property taxes, as McCallum supporters assert in attack ads, unless he can detail another way to pay for them.

Even so, McCallum was Tommy Thompson's lieutenant governor for 14 years and has been his own man in the hot seat since February 2001. Along with the Legislature, he was a party to the budget repair bill that, in fact, repaired nothing because it used onetime tobacco-settlement money to patch things up.

Both men need to better spell out how they intend to deal with the state's fiscal mess. But given his performance during the state budget follies of 2002, McCallum shoulders the bigger burden in explaining how he intends to tame a structural deficit once and for all.

From the Sept. 29, 2002 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

-- Joe Heller, Green Bay Press Gazette, via Cagle.

Can anyone take this case?

Congressman Mark Green wants the state supreme court to rule on whether he must return $467,000 in special interest money that the State Elections Board is illegal.

We pointed out a couple of potential problems and conflicts and suggested the court could be shorthanded.

The Associated Press has expanded the list:

If the case gets to the Supreme Court, there are a number of potential conflicts:

Justice David Prosser served as a Republican member of the Legislature and speaker of the Assembly at the same time Green was caucus chairman.

Justice Jon Wilcox is a former Republican lawmaker who has had his own run-ins with the Elections Board.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley received a $100 donation from the governor's wife, Jessica Doyle, in December 2004 for her successful campaign for re-election the next year.

Justice Louis Butler was appointed to the bench by Doyle in 2004.

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson also has ties to the Doyle family, having been longtime friends with Doyle's recently deceased mother.

It takes four justices out of seven to agree to hear the case. The AP is suggesting that anyone who ever met Jim Doyle or Mark Green may be disqualified. In fact, when the AP gets done, there are only two left: Pat Crooks and Pat Roggensack.

Carrie Lynch, however, has discovered a $500 contribution from Mark Green's campaign to Roggensack when she ran for the court. So strike her.

That leaves Pat Crooks, who may have a little problem in light of all of the contributions he's taken from the law firm representing Green. If $100 from Jessica Doyle is an issue, these would be, too:

Clark, Jeffrey P
$100 - Thursday, February 16, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Brookfield, WI 53005

Graber, Richard W
$250 - Thursday, February 16, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Shorewood, WI 53211

Clark, Jeffrey P
$100 - Tuesday, March 07, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Brookfield, WI 53005

Weber, Ralph A
$100 - Thursday, December 15, 1994
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Wauwatosa, WI 53213

Stanton, Thomas M
$150 - Tuesday, October 18, 1994
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Menasha, WI 54952

Stanton, Thomas M
$150 - Tuesday, March 21, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Menasha, WI 54952

Clark, Jeffrey P
$50 - Monday, August 07, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Brookfield, WI 53005

Stanton, Thomas M
$100 - Friday, August 11, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Menasha, WI 54952

Graber, Richard W
$150 - Thursday, March 16, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Shorewood, WI 53211

Weber, Ralph A
$100 - Friday, March 24, 1995
Reinhart, Boerner, et al
Lawyers/Law Firms/Lobbyists
Wauwatosa, WI 53213

So who's going to hear this case? If you believe in the theory that friendship, an acquaintance, or small contributions make a judge unable to decide a case fairly, on the merits, the whole court will have to sit this one out.

UPDATE: It turns out that Pat Crooks is "a dear friend" of Mark Green's.

UPDATE 2: On the Elections Board, Green donor to vote on Green donations.

Dear Mr. Editor ...

The dialogue continues, as Mike Plaisted writes the Journal Sentinel again.

Today's target: The Spice Boys.

UPDATE: Plaisted gets a screw-you response from the paper's managing editor, but the paper does publish an abbreviated letter to the editor.

Quote, unquote

"I think that I've become -- I hope -- a credible spokesman for a muscular view of anti-terrorist activity by the Democrats as well as the country. The fact is, I've never been just an anti-war guy."

-- Sen. Russ Feingold.

Rounding up Republican votes

Since Republicans claim the State Elections Board shouldn't be partisan, and members should look at the law, not their political loyalties, what's their rush to get another GOP representative on the board before the next vote on Congressman Mark Green's money?

The Greenies did a bonehead thing by hiring a lawyer from the same firm as one of the board members, Patrick Hodan, who had to abstain from the vote in the last go-around. The board voted 5-2 to tell Green to return $467,000 in illegal contributions from federal PACs. Both no votes were Repubs,, while four Dems and a Libertarian appointee voted yes.

Today's story:

Elections Board member resigns ahead of key vote on Green

By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press, September 28, 2006

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A Republican member of the state Elections Board who recused himself from matters involving Mark Green's campaign has resigned from the board.

Patrick Hodan of Milwaukee said he had to resign because his law firm represents Green's campaign in its dispute over $1.3 million that Green raised as a congressman and transferred to his run for governor.

The board has already ordered Green to get rid of $468,000 of the transferred money.

The resignation comes just one week before it is to consider whether to strip Green of an additional $775,000 that a watchdog group contends cannot be used in Wisconsin.

"Given the importance and significance of the matters that likely will come before the Board in the next several weeks, I believe it is important that the Board have a full complement of voting members to deal with these matters," Hodan wrote in a resignation letter dated Wednesday.

Hodan's law partner, Don Millis, represents the Green campaign. As a result, he recused himself from the Aug. 30 vote in which the board voted 5-2 to order Green to give up $468,000 in donations from political action committees not registered in Wisconsin.

Hodan was appointed to the board in 2002 as the designee of Assembly Republicans.

There's nothing wrong with the Rs wanting all the votes they can get. But they want to have it both ways, condemning the Democrats who voted as mindless partisans, while lining up their own people to vote with Green.

Isn't politics fun?

UPDATE: Green donor to vote on Green donations as the Election Board's newest member.

A new 'dialogue' with JS editors

Mike Plaisted, a Milwaukee defense lawyer who blogs semi-occasionally, has started a dialogue, he says, with Journal Sentinel editors over their coverage of the governor's race.

So far, it's more of a monologue. Plaisted writes an insightful letter to the editor, the JS responds with more of the same kind of coverage that provoked the letter, and Plaisted writes another letter.

The good news is that rather than wait for any of his comments to appear in the newspaper, which could be a long wait, he has decided to post them on his blog. He's threatening to do a daily critique; I hope he does.

In case he does, you might want to add this to your blogroll.

Debate tonight on Iraq policy

Iraq: Stay the Course or Withdrawal?

A debate's set tonight at 7 at Northshore Library, 6800 N. Port Washington Rd., sponsored by Grassroots Northshore, the same folks who sponsored the recent debate on the gay marriage and civil unions amendment.

Jack Murtaugh of 4th Street Forum will moderate. Van Mobley, a history professor at Concordia University, and Darryl deBoer, an Iraq/Afghanistan Veteran, will argue to stay the course.

For withdrawal will be Rae Vogeler, Green Party Candidate for US Senate, and Kelly Parrson, an Iraq Veteran.

U.S. troop withdrawal is on the Nov. 7 ballot in Milwaukee and many other communities across the state.

The group will sponsor a death penalty debate on Oct. 11 at the Whitefish Bay Library.

Going after the goo-goos

I've certainly had my complaints about the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and Common Cause, the "good government" groups, or goo-goos, that seem to find an ulterior motive for every dollar anyone contributes to a candidate.

I've voiced some of those complaints on this blog.

Mike McCabe of WDC has been willing to pile on Gov. Jim Doyle whenever the news media have wanted a quote. The goo-goos have had more than their allotted 15 minutes of fame this year.

I've often thought they were misguided, or at least overzealous. But I've never complained that they are partisan, picking on Democrats. They pick on everyone.

The Republican Party disagrees. In an ill-advised release today, the Rs accuse the Democracy Campaign of being Doyle dupes. It calls WDC "puppets of the Doyle campaign."

The WDC, you see, filed the complaint with the State Elections Board about Green's illegal $467,000 in special interest PAC money, and now has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission. Doyle and the Democrats, in this case, are happy to see WDC challenge Green.

That, according to the Rs, means WDC is "doing the bidding of the Doyle campaign."

Somehow, I don't think that will play very well, at least with anyone who's been paying attention.

Green gets a mild spanking

I wondered whether he could get away with a TV spot in which the narrator actually claims the Journal Sentinel said something it didn't say, like: "The Journal Sentinel reports Doyle secretly rigged the State Elections Board vote to try to steal the election."

The newspaper responds with a mild rebuke, flogging Green with a wet noodle:

Editorial: Green ad steps over the line

A recent television ad for Rep. Mark Green includes the caution, "Don't be fooled."

We agree. The ad says the Journal Sentinel reports that Gov. Jim Doyle "secretly rigged a state Elections Board vote to try and steal the election."

Don't be fooled. The newspaper didn't write that. News stories reported on calls from a Doyle campaign attorney to Democratic members of the Elections Board before a key vote that was to determine if Green should return nearly $468,000 that went from his congressional campaign fund to his governor campaign. Another news report cited a call from the state Republican Party head to a board member on the same matter.

A Sept. 22 editorial mostly bemoaned the blatant partisanship of the Elections Board in that vote and urged reform that would remove partisanship from such decisions. Specifically, it urged passage of legislation that would have removed the partisanship.

But the editorial also agreed with board counsel that there was likely nothing illegal about those calls, though it welcomed an investigation into whether open meeting laws were broken. So, "rigged?" "Steal?"

There is something rigged here, but that would be the system itself. In campaign finance generally and on the Elections Board, partisanship trumps the public good. Board members are chosen in a system that ensures partisanship.

Yes, some of Doyle's campaign finance actions do raise smoke. As does the timing of an endorsement of Green by Realtors and home-builders, more than $100,000 from these interests and a proposal he issued on housing regulations.

Ethics is a worthy issue in this campaign. But misrepresenting what's reported won't help the cause.

Boy, that smarts.

Ask the candidate

WISN-TV, Milwaukee's Channel 12, seems determined to become the top station for covering politics. Frankly, there is not much competition. The station's latest:

What Do You Want To Ask The Gubernatorial Candidates?

MILWAUKEE -- Do you have a question or questions you would like to have Gov. Jim Doyle or Republican challenger Mark Green answer?

Next week, WISN 12 News anchor Terry Sater will be a panelist questioning the candidates during a primetime debate.

If you submit your questions, 12 News will try to get them answered.

E-mail your question to webstaff@themilwaukeechannel.com

The debate is on Friday, Oct.6, from 7 to 8 p.m. and will be broadcast statewide.

More or less negativity ahead?

Expect Less Mud to Be Flung in Political Ads
Advisers: Attack Spots Don't Wash With Cynical Voters

That's from Advertising Age.

But, as they told us in the Marine Corps, there's always that 2% that didn't get the word.

Supreme Court could be shorthanded

Congressman Mark Green is eager to have the State Supreme Court decide his appeal of the State Elections Board ruling that he has $467,000 in illegal special interest money in his campaign.

Although it is a non-partisan court, the political affiliations of the justices are common knowledge. There are four Republicans and three Democrats, or three conservatives and three liberals, if you prefer.

But who will hear the case, if the court agrees to take it?

Justice Jon Wilcox's own campaign for the court was fined $60,000 by the elections board -- the biggest such penalty in state history.

As a campaign lawbreaker who's had a run-in with the State Elections Board himself, Wilcox, a former Republican legislator, should recuse himself from the case.

Carrie Lynch says Wilcox isn't the only one who should refrain from participating.

UPDATE: Wisconsin Democracy Campaign files a Federal Elections Commission complaint, wants all $1.3-million returned.

What the Iraqis think

Think Progress has more.

Cockfighting gets Green's juices flowing

You won't often hear me say this, but I am in agreement today with Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner.

Sensenbrenner and I think Congressman Mark Green's priorities are out of whack.

With all of the pressing issues facing Congress in the closing days of its session, Mark Green's top priority is -- a bill to ban cockfighting and dogfighting.

Green is ready to go to the mat with Sensenbrenner, and may ask the House to suspend the rules to take it up. AP reports:

In a statement, Sensenbrenner said he opposes animal fighting but that Congress should spend its remaining days on more important issues, such as border security, terrorist tribunals, and updating foreign intelligence surveillance laws.

"Trying to ram-through animal fighting legislation with these issues outstanding would win the prize for 'misplaced priorities,"' he said.

It's hard to argue with that, especially since cockfighting already is banned in every state except Louisiana and New Mexico. All 50 states ban dogfighting.

What is it about this issue that gets Green so worked up? It makes you wonder if there's an organization like the Anti-Cockfighting Political Action Committee pushing the bill, in addition to the Humane Society.

Has anyone ever seen a dogfight or cockfight in Wisconsin? Have you even heard about one?

This little dustup with the chairman is just the latest in along list of misplaced priorities for Green.

He's voted for Bush budgets with trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the richest Americans, and billions for big oil, taking the US from its biggest surplus to its deepest debt ever. At the same time, he's voted to cut vital programs that would help Wisconsin famililes -- student loans, health care for seniors, aid to farmers, veterans benefits. He's voted eight times against raising the minimum wage.

All in a day's work. Our man in Washington.

UPDATE: A dog-loving friend says there is dogfighting in Wisconsin. It's already illegal, however, just like gay marriage, so we probably don't need a federal law or a constitutional amendment.

UPDATE 2: Hulk Hogan's for the bill, even though it could end his career.

Almost forgot: On the state level, Green's top priority is trying to get kooky part-time lecturerer Kevin Barrett fired. Cheap thrills, and cheap headlines.

Burying the bad news

American subscribers to Newsweek will get a little different view of the world this week than Newsweek readers overseas. Johnny Cougar has the evidence.

Building name recognition

There is certainly a time and a place to practice civil disobedience, but I'm not sure it's on the campaign trail when you're running for office. From the Waukesha Freeman:

BROOKFIELD - Bob Levis, Wisconsin Green Party candidate for the 5th Congressional District, was arrested Monday during a peace protest outside the office of his former high school friend and now political opponent, U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner.

Levis and four others, including Wisconsin Green Party candidate for lieutenant governor, Leon Todd, each received a $487 ticket for disobeying a police officer after they blocked the Bishops Way exit onto Bluemound Road from Sensenbrenner’s office during the noon-hour protest, according to a news release issued by the Brookfield Police Department.

On the other hand, that is a lot of publicity for $487, and given the way the media covers third-party candidates it may be the only way either of them gets their name in the Freeman.

Will Rogers, not Jesse James

If I did only half of the things i get credited or blamed for, I would be one busy guy.

I know how Jesse James felt when he got blamed for every robbery in six states, even when he was home in bed when the occurred.

Jessica McBride:

MONDAY, Sept. 25, 2006, 6:53 p.m.
Speaking of media hits...

Jeff Wagner is right (in another of his superbly argued columns)...

The Spivak and Bice hatchet job this Sunday on Milwaukee County DA independent candidate Lew Wasserman hit below the belt. I'll come out and say it: It had Xoff's hand written all over it. Calling someone's kids and basically asking if they like their dad? Some things should be off limits. Yes, even in campaigns, and, even in a Spice Boys column.

I'm actually more like Will Rogers than Jesse James. All I know about Lew Wasserman is what I read in the paper.

For someone who holds herself out as a journalist, or at least a journalism teacher, that is a totally reckless, baseless charge, made without a shred of evidence. It would be hard to find any evidence, of course, because I am totally innocent. And Jeff Wagner, while he didn't mention my name, basically seconded her motion. Dad29 chimed in, too, hiding behind his anonymity:

As Wagner (via Jessica) points out, the hit-job done by the SpiceBoyzzz had all the elements of a Christofferson/Xoff campaign trick: ignore the issues, go for the personal attacks.

Speaking of personal attacks ... Am I guilty till proven innocent? Maybe I should hire that Wasserman guy to defend me. He now comes highly recommended by McBride and the other right-wingers, even though he comes out of deep left field.

UPDATE: I should not have lumped all right-wingers together. Texas Hold 'Em and Right Off the Shore have actually looked at Wasserman's campaign materials, and reach a different conclusion.

Afterthought: You don't suppose the source could have been one of those ex-wives or four kids he forget to mention, do you?

Quote, unquote

"It's a good thing I had a bag of marijuana instead of a bag of spinach. I'd be dead by now."

-- Willie Nelson, after a recent bust on his bus. The quote is probably apocryphal; it's all over the Internet, but not in any news sources. Too good not to share, though.

Extra! Green appeals, but we don't know what

Seth Zlotocha probably thought he was being funny when he wrote on Monday about Mark Green's court case:

I'm also giving 5 to 1 odds that tomorrow's Journal Sentinel article on the decision will focus on the subsequent appeal should the ruling go against Green -- and I wouldn't even put it past the news editors to run the story in the Metro section.

It turns out he was prescient, although wrong about placement; the story did run on page one.

But he got the spin and the headline right:

Green plans appeal
Judge rules against him on funds; state high court is next

Madison - Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green vowed Monday to take his fight to spend $467,844 in out-of-state donations to the state Supreme Court, after a Dane County judge upheld an Elections Board order that he divest himself of the money.

Green campaign aides said they will ask the state Supreme Court to take the controversy directly, bypassing the Court of Appeals. The Green campaign promised to put $467,844 from political action committees in a separate account and not spend it, pending a Supreme Court ruling.

What's missing? Well, now a judge -- not just the State Elections Board -- has said that Green has $467,000 in illegal special interest money in his campaign.

You wouldn't know that from the story. The words "illegal" or "broke the law" or "violated the law" don't appear in the story.

We do get this choice, pull-out quote from Green: "Today's ruling did not give us more clarity"

Really? It seemed pretty clear. A judge agreed with the Elections Board and said Green's PAC money is illegal.

The story tells us that the judge is a Doyle appointee, but doesn't say he got the case after Green asked for a different judge; the first one was not a Doyle appointee. And its analysis of the Supreme Court fails to make it clear that there are four Republicans and three Democrats on the court. Instead, we're told:

The justices' partisan loyalties have been blurred by recent decisions, with key votes being cast by Justice Pat Crooks and Justice Patience Roggensack.

The kinds of cases they've split off on are about issues like caps on malpractice awards, not partisan issues. Crooks and Roggensack are both Republicans.

The AP plays it straighter:

Judge: Elections Board correctly ordered Green to forfeit money

By RYAN J. FOLEY

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The state Elections Board correctly ordered Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to get rid of $468,000 in campaign donations from political action committees not registered in Wisconsin, a judge ruled Monday.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess rejected Green's request for an injunction to stop the board's order from going into effect. He said Green wasn't likely to prevail on the merits of his case.

"The bottom line is that the Elections Board reached the correct result, regardless of the infirmities, if any, in its process," he wrote...

The board said the money violated Wisconsin campaign finance laws requiring committees to be registered here.

Earlier: Green loses in court; conspiracy continues.

UPDATE: Green finds the missing $467,000.

Mark Green's positive campaign

The Xoff Files on Aug. 6:

Green vows to run positive campaign

By Charlie Mathews
Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC-- Gubernatorial candidate Mark Green sought votes and money Friday in the Lakeshore area, while promising to run a clean, positive campaign.

"Politics has to be about giving people something to vote for," said the Republican congressman from Green Bay, who is seeking to unseat incumbent Gov. Jim Doyle.

"Negative ads that are over the top turn people off," Green said of TV commercials he admitted he hasn't seen, but believes do not help either major party gubernatorial candidate.

His excuse then was that he "hadn't seen" the ads his friend Steve King was running.

What's his excuse now, since his own campaign is running the slimiest ad of the year.

The Journal Sentinel will be surprised to find out that "The Journal Sentinel reports Doyle rigged the State Elections Board vote to try and steal the election." That's what the ad says. It uses newspaper "clippings" that are put together like a ransom note -- a word here, a word there.

UPDATE: The Greenies and their allies are in full negative attack mode. The Republican Governors Assn. just finished running a Georgia Thompson spot Monday, and today All Children Matter pick up where the RGA left off. The ACM spot, you won't be surprised to hear, is another attack ad on Doyle trying to make him look like a crook. What's it all mean? Green's losing, down in the polls, has no positive message that works, and is going to spend the next six weeks trying to tear down Doyle. All of the negatives they've run so far haven't worked; I don't think these will, either.

WHY GREEN'S WORRIED. Two recent polls show Doyle beating Green on his home turf, the Spice Boys report.

Green loses in court; conspiracy continues

Now a circuit court judge has ruled that Congressman Mark Green's transfer of $467,000 in federal special interest money to his campaign for governor was illegal.

Green says he's appealing directly to the State Supreme Court, but will set that money aside in the meantime and not spend it.

In last Thursday's hearing the judge suggested that Green had come into court with "unclean hands" because he had not complied with the Elections Board order to divest himself of the money within 10 days. Putting the money into escrow amounts to washing his hands.

You can read the judge's order yourself. Among other things, he suggested Green had used the wrong avenue to appeal on the board's rule.

But based on one read-through, these seem to be the key paragraphs:

In short, a "donation" under 2 U.S.C. § 439a(a)(5) is a "contribution" subject to the limitations and other regulations contained in Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin statutes governing the use of money in Wisconsin political campaigns. Thus, even if the Court were to adopt Green's argument that the Elections Board should be enjoined from enforcing its Emergency Rule and Order because they are illegal for any number of reasons -- arguments which raise some serious and legitimate questions -- Green still cannot succeed on the ultimate merits of this case because the Court cannot grant the requested declaratory judgment finding "that funds a state campaign committee has on hand when it converts from federal registration are not counted against Wisconsin's contribution limits." (Complaint, paragraph 50) Controlling federal law, through its incorporation of Wisconsin's campaign finance law, in fact compels the opposite finding. ...

For the same reasons that Green cannot demonstrate that he will likely succeed on the merits of the case, he falls short of showing irreparable harm if the temporary injunction is not granted. That is to say, whether the Elections Board is enjoined from enforcing the Emergency Rule and Order or not, Green's duties under the law remain the same. Under 2 U.S.C. 439a(a)(5) and Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin statutes which it incorporates, Green must subject the donation from the federal campaign to the provisions of Wisconsin law governing "contributions" to political campaigns. Thus, at least at this very preliminary stage of the lawsuit where the pleadings are not even complete, it is simply unnecessary for this Court to enter the thorny procedural and constitutional thicket created by the Election Board's actions in promulgating the Emergency Rule and issuing its Order, let alone allow it to sidetrack the Court's decision on Green's Motion for Temporary Injunction. The bottom line is that the Elections Board reached the correct result, regardless of the infirmities, if any, in its process.

(Emphasis mine)

Steve Walters of the Journal Sentinel starts the conspiracy theory, noting that the judge was appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle. Walters doesn't note that the original judge assigned to the case was the county's chief judge, Michael Nowakowski -- who was not a Doyle appointee, Green's campaign asked for a replacement, which is how Judge Richard Niess got the case.

UPDATE: Dave Diamond thinks it may be time for Green to move on to another subject.

MORE BAD NEWS? The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, flushed with success, says in its e-mail alert today that it is "researching the issues and evaluating whether to file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission," which could question almost the entire $1.3-million Green laundered into his gov's campaign, not just the $467,000 in PAC money.

UPDATE: Judge rules against Green; Journal Sentinel forgets to mention it.

Mail in your ballot, and don't forget your ID

Hell-bent on passing a photo ID requirement for voters, Congressman Mark Green and his Republican colleagues in Congress trampled on the rights of states like Oregon, where they actually have been trying to find innovative ways to make voting easier, not harder, and increase, not decresase, turnout.

In Oregon, where voting is done by mail, the new law would pose no small problem. Blue Oregon explains.

Cheney, Cheney, he's our man

Decisions, decisions.

If I'm going to the Pfister to see Mr. Popularity, Dick Cheney, today, should I just buy the regulasr $1,000 blue plate special ticket, or pop for the five grand to have my photo taken with him?

I hope there are lot of photo ops with Congressman Mark Green and Dick Cheney. They would look good in some commercials about Washington corruption and the debacle in Iraq.

The event is one more way for special interests to give money to Mark Green. The checks go to the party, which then spends it on behalf of Green's campaign.

Does that sound shady? Does it remind you of Green's problems with taking special interest money for one campaign and illegally using it for another?

This event seems legal, so enjoy the lunch. Hope the judge's decision in the Elections Board case this afternoon doesn't give anyone indigestion.

Chaney's positives-negatives in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll are 34-50, with 13% "very positive" and 35% "very negative." Hope it rubs off.

UPDATE: Did you know that Paul Soglin and Dick Cheney were classmates? Well, sort of.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I don't suppose, in light of this report yesterday, that anyone will ask him about this, from Think Progress:

CAUGHT ON TAPE: Cheney 'Can't Buy' Idea That Iraq War Is Creating More Terrorists

President Bush isn't the only one who ignored the findings of the NIE that "the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism." Vice President Cheney did too.

On the September 10, 2006 broadcast of Meet the Press, Tim Russert presented Cheney with a CBS/New York Times poll that said the majority of Americans agree with the intelligence community's assessment that our actions overseas are creating more terrorists. "I cant buy that," Cheney responded.

UPDATE: Cheney, addressing a huge throng of 125 at the Pfister, defends the war. Green doesn't stand or sit anywhere near him, but says not to read anything into it. If all 125 paid $1,000 (doubtful) that should just about pay the costs to fly Air Force 2 to Milwaukee for the event.

CARRIE LYNCH: Green takes the money and runs.

Guess who's paying for security?

Let the wingnut speak

James Wigderson has touched off quite a debate over whether a speaker he describes as an anti-Semite should appear before the right-wing Wisconsin Forum.

If you don't like it, don't go. Stand outside and protest. Tell the sponsors you disagree with their decision. E-mail advisory board members (especially John Savage, who's he's feeling left out of the e-mail loop). Attend the event and walk out when the speaker starts to talk. But let him appear.

If we give the Nazis a permit to rally at the State Capitol, these conservatives certainly can invite whomever they like.

Is this a great country or what?

Reynolds taps campaign to keep the juice on

State Sen. Tom Reynolds, R-Pluto, may seem like a dim bulb to some observers.

But he's bright enough to figure out how to get his campaign to pay for the utilities in his home -- which, of course, is also his campaign headquarters, Gretchen Schuldt has discovered.

Hmmm. I work out of a home office...

Stay of execution in Mineral Point

Another great idea shot to hell.

There'll be no reenactment of a hanging in Mineral Point next weekend, George Hesselberg reports in the Wisconsin State Journal.

What's to blame? Simply:

The delicate sensibilities of the populace, the recommendation of a tourism consultant and the uncomfortable and unplanned connection to the November election referendum on the death penalty doomed the ambitious plans of a pair of local boosters.

In a way, it's too bad. Maybe they could have combined it with a reenactment of the Kenosha hanging of John McCaffrey in 1851, when it took him about 15 minutes on the end of the noose to die in front of a crowd of thousands. It was the only legal execution in the State of Wisconsin (Wisconsin was still a territory for the Mineral Point hanging), and was so gruesome it led to abolishment of the death penalty.

Maybe they could take the show on tour around the state during October, reminding the people of Wisconsin why this state hasn't had capital punishment for 153 years -- and why they should vote to keep it that way on Nov. 7.

Thanks for asking, but no thanks

My favorite Milwaukee daily asks: Is it time to lift nuclear ban?

No, it's not.

Not until there is some safe way to handle and store the deadly waste those plants produce, which is so potent it needs to be kept out of the environment for 250,000 years -- give or take a few.

Every day, the plants we already have keep producing more of the highly radioactive waste, and we keep stockpiling it.

Twenty-five years ago, when Wisconsin was considering a moratorium on nuclear plant construction, the industry said the solution to the waste problem was just around the corner. Now, they say it's just around the next corner.

Is it time to lift the ban? Not on your life.

Is Iraq just a fart in a windstorm?

George Bush tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer than in the grand scheme of things, the ongoing violence and death in Iraq amount to almost nothing -- a fart in a windstorm, as one of my political friends (who shall go nameless) might say.

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war... We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see -- you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people... Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there's a strong will for democracy. (emphasis added)

Hat tip: Carpetbagger Report via Think Progress.

Posing for holy pictures

Some of the same Republicans who killed an ethics reform bill in the Assembly are now running for re-election as ethics reformers.

I'd heard about the mail from State Rep. Judy Krawczyk (R-Green Bay), who helped kill the ethics bill.

It turns out that what she's doing is part of a broader GOP strategy to try to turn a political liability into an asset.

The Journal Sentinel has the story.

Another DA candidate bites the dust

You have to wonder sometimes where John Chisholm found his opponents in the campaign for Milwaukee County district attorney. Did he recruit them himself?

First it was MacMac, Larraine McNamara-McGraw, his Democratic primary opponent, who suggested Milwaukee police may have shot a 13-year-old girl -- a suggestion that had zero basis in fact and made MacMac look like a loon.

Having beaten MacMac 65-35 in the primary, Chisholm now faces Lew Wasserman, an independent, in the general election. No Republican even filed. And if any independent has ever been elected to office in Milwaukee County, no one remembers it.

Any remote chance Wasserman would be taken seriously was killed off today by the Spice Boys' Sunday column.

It turns out that Wasserman has been a little less that forthright in his biography. He forgot to mention four of his six children, and two of his three wives.

And although postng the photo above (that's him the center) on his website, Wasserman didn't really explain his abbreviated time in the Army until the Spice Boys asked him about it. Then he offered a variety of reasons for his early discharge, none of them very convincing:

As it turns out, Uncle Sam asked him to hit the road after only 10 months of service. Records show that he initially was given a general discharge "under conditions other than honorable." Eight years later, Wasserman, then a law student, persuaded the military to upgrade his dismissal to a general discharge "under honorable conditions."

Even with the switch, Wasserman acknowledged that this is still short of the honorable discharge given to those who successfully complete their service time.

"I didn't want to leave the military," he said. "I didn't go up to somebody and say, 'Can I get out?' "

At first, Wasserman said he was tossed after an incident at a base in Georgia in which he removed the clip from his sidearm because he was afraid a prisoner that he was bringing to the hospital would overpower him, grab his weapon and shoot him.

"Shortly after that, some sergeant in my company came to me and said, 'You're going home,' " Wasserman said. " 'We don't know what to do with you, so you're going home.' "

After we questioned whether that really was enough of a screw-up to get a ticket home, Wasserman blamed his exodus from the service on the anti-Semitism that he said ran rampant in his unit.

"I was the only Jew in a company of 180 men, and I got hassled for that on a daily basis," Wasserman said. "Sometimes that was physical."

Finally, Wasserman said that when he used the f-word to a sergeant and mouthed off to officers - details that he said he was recollecting as our contentious interview continued - his military career ended.

Chisholm was an Army lieutenant who trained as a paretrooper and served a tour as an infantry officer in Korea.

Wasserman's exchange with the Spices about whether he is a public defender is a classic, too. Check it out.

(Disclosure: My daughter is Chisholm's campaign manager. But I'd write this in any case.)

Iraq war has made terrorism threat worse

This just in:

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has made the threat of terrorism worse, and fueled the radical terrorists' movement.

No, it's not Sen. Russ Feingold talking, although he has been saying exactly that for quite a while.

This time, it's U.S. intelligence agencies. The NY Times has the story:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23-- A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document...

The report "says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," said one American intelligence official.

Don't know much about Ramadan...

... and don't want to know, either. This is the kind of insightful commentary we've come to expect from the Texas Hold 'Em Blogger:

HAPPY RAMALAMADINGDONG

September 23rd, 2006 by Peter

One section of Islam celebrates Ramalamadingdong starting today, one celebrates it starting tomorrow.

Whatever date the wackos start celebrating, it's time for the rest of us to start being even more observant, considering the possibility of a major jihadist attack occurring during the holiday.

Posted in Islamofascism, Islam & Violence

Gee, Peter, I wonder why some Muslims don't like Americans very much.

Only a billion Muslims (wackos) will observe Ramadan, the most sacred time of their year. (File that under Islamofascism and violence.)

Voice of America notes that even George W. Bush has expressed good wishes as Ramadan begins.

From Bush's message:

Ramadan and the upcoming holiday seasons are a good time to remember the common values that bind us together. Our society is enriched by our Muslim citizens whose commitment to faith reminds us of the gift of religious freedom in our country.

Laura and I send our best wishes for a blessed Ramadan. Ramadan Mubarak.

GEORGE W. BUSH

I know Jessica McBride, like Peter, long ago declared she knows all she wants to about Islam. But in case anyone else would like to know more about Ramadan, here's a link.

Scandal vs. sanction

The Georgia Thompson case is now officially a scandal, according to today's page one headline.

And the State Elections Board's finding that Congressman Mark Green has illegally transferred $467,000 in special interest money, and the board's order to return the money? For the last two days, that has been described as a "sanction," here and here.

Do you think the headline writers are conscious of how their work will look in campaign television commercials, or is that just an accident?

I'm trying hard not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it gets harder every day.

UPDATE: The final piece of evidence that the Journal Sentinel new pages have leaned heavily Greenward: McBride defends the newspaper. I rest my case.

The plot thickens in Elections Board case

Here's a little something else for Paul Bucher to investigate. It wasn't front page news, of course, and the Journal Sentinel didn't do its own reporting, but at least this story made the paper -- or at least part of it did.

For some mysterious reason, only about half the story ran, on the front of the Metro section, with a line that said turn to 5B for the rest. But the rest didn't run, so you never got to read the part about Wiley's phone call, or the Democratic reaction. I'm not suggesting it was intentional, but it is still distressing.

GOP leader also contacted board

No strategy discussed in brief call, Wiley says

Associated Press

Madison-- On the day a district attorney announced he will investigate lobbying of Elections Board members by an attorney for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, the head of the state Republican Party said he too had conversations with a board member the day before a key vote.

At issue is the appropriateness and legality of conversations and e-mails that took place before the board voting 5-2 on Aug. 30 to require Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to return nearly $468,000 in campaign donations.

On Thursday, the Journal Sentinel revealed that three Democrats who voted for Green to return the money had been contacted in the days leading up to the vote by Doyle campaign attorney Michael S. Maistelman.

Elections Board attorney George Dunst has said there was nothing illegal about the contact, and Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard said Friday he will not be launching an investigation.

But Paul Bucher, the Waukesha County district attorney who lost in the Sept. 12 Republican primary for attorney general, said Friday that he believes he has jurisdiction to look into the allegations surrounding the meeting that occurred in Brookfield, which is in his county.

Bucher said he plans to look for violations of the state's open meeting laws, ethics code and lobbying statutes.

That is where the story ends, at least in my edition of the newspaper.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story:

Meanwhile, Republican Party executive director Rick Wiley said Friday that he spoke with Elections Board member John Savage, a Republican who was selected to serve by the party, on the day before the vote. Wiley said he called Savage to consult with him after hearing that Savage told people at a GOP fund raiser that he did not believe the vote was going to go in favor of Green.

Wiley said Savage told him that given the partisan makeup of the board - which has four Democrats, three Republicans, one Libertarian and one non-partisan appointee - it was unlikely Green's position would win out. Wiley said he told Savage he had to agree, but they didn't discuss any other strategy about the vote.

A call to Savage's home late Friday rang unanswered.

Wiley said he talked to no other board members and that he knows of no one else with the party or Green's campaign who spoke to the board.

Doyle's campaign seized on the news.

"For days Republicans have been pointing fingers at everyone but themselves to distract voters from the simple fact that Congressman Green violated state and federal laws with his illegal transfer," said Melanie Fonder, Doyle's spokeswoman. "What's wrong here is the Republican hypocrisy has been exposed."

Wiley said he figured that would be the Democratic response, but his brief conversation with Savage was different from the e-mails Maistelman sent that outlined specific action board members should take and how they should vote.

"He was bound and determined to write the language for this transfer and how they were going to deem that Mark Green did this illegally," Wiley said.

The three Democrats who were lobbied by Maistelman, along with another Democrat and a Libertarian board member, voted in favor of the order against Green. Savage and another Republican member voted against it.

The reason it's not a better, juicier story is that Maistelman put things in writing. Wiley wisely made a phone call, and no one will ever know what was said in that conversation. Good to hear it was not about "strategy." Maybe that's because the Republican board members were automatically going to vote to let Congressman Mark Green break the law. It's a little hard to believe that Wiley called Savage to find our how many members of the board were Republicans, and hard to understand why, only four of nine members are Dems, why it should be assumed the decision would go against Green.

There was nothing wrong with Maistelman contacting board members, and nothing wrong with Wiley's phone call. But, sauce for the goose ...

Afterthought. It should be noted that this AP story comes after two days of the JS failing or refusing to ask the right questions, and letting Green and the GOP get away with carefully parsed statements that "no one from the campaign" had contacted any board members. I still say that if Green's lawyer didn't talk to any board members before the meeting, he should be fired for malpractice.

UPDATE: This Dem Party release is amusing and on target:

Wiley Calls for Resignation of
Republican Elections Board Member

RPW Executive Director Attacks Democrats
for Doing Exactly What He Himself Did

MADISON-- The hypocritical partisan attacks from Republicans just keep coming.

Yesterday, the Republican Party of Wisconsin called on Democratic members of the State Elections Board to resign over contacts with a Democratic elections lawyer that the board’s own attorney said were legal and appropriate. [Source: Associated Press, 9/22/06]

That same day, it was learned that RPW Executive Director Rick Wiley called his own appointee on the board just one day before the board ruled that Congressman Mark Green violated state campaign finance laws. [Source: Associated Press, 9/22/06]

UPDATE 2: Saturday's story was reprinted in Sunday's paper, inside the Metro section, in my edition, with a note saying only part of the story ran in some editions because of a production error.

UPDATE 3: A nugget from WisPolitics' report to subscribers:

[Republican board member John] Schober said he was not contacted prior to the Green vote. But, he said, it isn't unusual for members to receive e-mails as a group and wouldn't condemn his fellow board members for their contacts with Maistelman.

"Mere contact in and of itself isn't prohibited," said Schober, who was appointed by Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center. "The fact somebody contacted them to me isn't improper. It isn't for me to judge other board members and how they arrive at their decisions."

The O'Reilly Enemies List

Not since Richard Nixon have we seen so comprehensive a list of people who need to be punished for their transgressions.

In fairness, this is technically not an "enemies" list. It is, Media Matters says, "the list of people he specifically attacks" in his new book, Culture Warrior. [It} "shows that among the dozens there appear to be only two clear conservatives -- Michael Savage and Ann Coulter." Don't you wish you were in this distinguished company?

ACLU
Air America host Al Franken
Michael Savage
The New York Times
Air America Radio
Boston Globe
Washington Post
Baltimore Sun
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Miami Herald
New Orleans Times-Picayune
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Kansas City Star
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Houston Chronicle
Denver Post
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Oregonian
San Francisco Chronicle
Sacramento Bee
Los Angeles Times
St. Petersburg Times
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert
New York Times columnist Frank Rich
MoveOn.org
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)
Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU
University of California-Berkeley professor George Lakoff
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Harris Green
Howard Dean
Progressive financier George Soros
Progressive financier Peter Lewis
Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz
New York Daily News entertainment columnist Jack Matthews
Dallas Morning News columnist Macarena Hernandez
Denver Post columnist Cindy Rodriguez
Dan Rather
Tom Brokaw
Ted Koppel
ABC News producer Rick Kaplan
Walter Cronkite
Bill Moyers
Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
British Broadcasting Co.
Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter
Ann Coulter
New York Times Magazine columnist Randy Cohen
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger III
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller
Sam Donaldson

Jon Stewart

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof

New York Times assistant editor Adam Cohen

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jeff Gelles

Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board

Associated Press television writer Frazier Moore
Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker
Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson
CNN
Ted Turner
National Public Radio host Terry Gross
Jane Fonda
Jeremy Glick, author and son of 9-11 victim Barry Glick
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan
Filmmaker Michael Moore
Barbra Streisand
Washington State Supreme Court
Associated Press
Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt
The "majority" of the Vermont press
Susan Sarandon
George Clooney
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA)
Alec Baldwin
Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin
David Letterman

GOP abhors playing politics

Isn't it disgusting that someone's politicizing the State Elections Board case against Congressman Mark Green? Republilcans are outraged that anyone would play politics with a board appointed by politicians.

I'm glad we have a principled prosecutor who can step in and do the right thing, even if he has no authority.. Shouldn't he be out rounding up illegal aliens?

Now those dirty Dems are smearing Mark Green's reputation. What next?

UPDATE: The plot thickens.

Role reversal: Voters knock on candidate's door

WisPolitics reports:

After Reynolds Misses Debate, Organizers Drop By His House

By David A. Wise
WisPolitics.com

WAUWATOSA -- A small group of organizers and attendees of a 5th Senate District candidate forum paid a visit to the West Allis home of Sen. Tom Reynolds Wednesday night to express their discontent with the fact the Republican incumbent refused to attend a debate earlier that evening.

Reynolds said he didn't attend the debate with Democratic challenger Jim Sullivan out of concern that possible footage of the event would be used against him in an attack ad.

I assume they didn't bring a camera.

Quote, unquote

"Work like hell for campaign finance reform, but until then donate 'til you bleed."

-- Russell Wallace, quoting his unidentified political mentor on his Reform Dem blog, where he has concluded that money and television advertising win elections.

Hat tip: Waxing America.

To lobby or not? Doyle damned either way

Sometimes you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Thursday, the do-gooders, politically naive, and Republican partisans all joined the chorus to complain that someone lobbied the State Elections Board on behalf of Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign. Even an editorial writer or two chimed in.

Two years ago, some of the same people criticized Doyle for not lobbying the Elections Board.

The issue then was regulation of issue advocacy campaigns, which the board rejected by a single vote. One of the "no" votes was cast by Martha Love, then a member of the board representing the Democratic Party. The other votes against it all came from Republicans, and the proposal failed 5-4.

Here's what Jay Heck of Common Cause had to say about it:

The commitment of Governor Jim Doyle to this or to any campaign finance reform measure must also be called into serious question yet again. Doyle, the titular head of the state Democratic Party, said he supported this measure but yet again failed to secure enough votes to get it passed. Does anyone seriously doubt that if the Governor had really wanted to see this reform measure passed by the state elections board, that he would have been denied by members of his own political party?

The Democratic appointment of Assembly Minority Leader Jim Kreuser (D-Kenosha) to the Elections Board changed his no vote in May to yes in support of the reform measure largely because State Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison) had 14 Assembly
Democrats sign a letter to Kreuser's appointment to the board, Carl Holborn, in support of closing the issue ad loophole in August.

Had Governor Doyle called Martha Love--which he did not do-- he could have had secured this reform. He did not and the reform measure lost by a single vote.

Lobbying members of your own party was a good thing then. The end justifies the means, apparently. So it was good that Holborn changed his vote after getting some pressure from Assembly Dems, but bad that he was lobbied via e-mail by the Doyle campaign's attorney?

More from The Badger Herald:

The Elections Board is composed of nine members: four Democrats, three Republicans, one Libertarian and one appointment from the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Martha Love, the only Democrat on the Board to vote against reform, joined the three Republican and one Libertarian Board members, who voted to defeat the proposal.
The outcome of last week's decision has caused some to question Governor Jim Doyle's dedication to campaign finance reform.

However, Melanie Fonder, a spokesperson for Doyle, said the Governor repeatedly made it clear he supports reform and that he is disappointed with the Elections Board ruling...

"This latest episode where Gov. Doyle, who did nothing to convince Martha Love [to vote for reform], is another example of his insincerity for campaign finance reform," Heck said.

Fonder said "it's very unfortunate," but she placed most of the blame on the Republicans. She also noted that if a single Republican had been willing to vote for reform, the legislation would have passed.

"The Governor is disappointed that the Republicans killed this,"Fonder said.
Heck, on the other hand, noted that the Republicans have always opposed reform and were never expected to vote in favor of regulation.
"
[It is wrong] to suggest that Republicans are to blame here," Heck said.

And a Journal Sentinel story by Steve Walters, the same guy who broke the big "scandal" Thursday:,

Elections Board refuses to regulate 'issue' ads

Democrat joins 3 Republicans, Libertarian to defeat measure, 5-4

Those who have been pushing campaign-finance reform for years lamented the vote and said Doyle should have done more to try getting it approved.

"It's a lost opportunity," said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, a non-profit group that helped negotiate a campaign-finance package that died in the Legislature. "We haven't done anything in this state since 1977 to reform our campaign-finance laws, and that's just astounding."

...Three board members appointed by Republicans, Brant and Milwaukee County Democratic Chairwoman Martha Love voted against the proposed rules. They outvoted Myse and three board members named by Doyle and other Democrats.

Heck and Mike McCabe, executive director of the non-profit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign that monitors campaign cash, blamed Doyle for failing to convince Love to change her vote.

Doyle "says he supports (regulation), but I've yet to see actions backing up those words," McCabe said.

Doyle and his campaign have long opposed the transfer of federal campaign money into a state account. They opposed it when Tom Barrett did it in 2001, and they opposed it when Mark Green did it. This time, the campaign's actions backed up its words. Is everybody happy? I think not.

UPDATE: The plot thickens.

Mark Green, our man in Washington

They say your life and property are never safe when Congress or the state lefislature is in session.

Look at how much damage Congressman Mark Green managed to do in a very short trip to Washington, as reported by Cory Liebmann of One Blog:

Mr. Green Goes to Washington (Votes Twice for Torture and Once to Disenfranchise)

Congressman Mark Green took a short break from campaigning and fundraising to go to Washington D.C. to vote on two very important items of interest. Whether the U.S. should unilaterally change the Geneva Convention meaning of torture and whether voters should have to show a photo ID when voting...

Congressman Mark Green is apparently so fond of torture that he voted for it on the House Judiciary Committee numerous times in only one day. The first time that the House Judiciary Committee voted on torture the President's proposal was defeated. Surprisingly three Republicans voted with all of the Democrats in rejecting the use of torture. Not Mark Green.

Not being happy with the result, Congressman F. Jim Sensenbrenner rounded up the two Republican members that were absent during the first vote and twisted the arm of a third and held what amounts to a do-over. With the second try the dictatorial Republicans were able to put their seal of approval on Bush's desire to dishonor our commitments to the Geneva Convention. So Congressman Mark Green showing that he will follow Bush to the end, followed through with a yes vote for torture twice in one day.

Then Congressman Mark Green stood on the House floor making the tired old claims of possible voter fraud in Wisconsin. By the way, what is it with the radical right wing and their constant bashing of our beloved state? First they bash our economy, then they accuse our largest city of being the "murder capital of the U.S." and now their accusing us of sponsoring voter fraud...

So it looks like Congressman Mark Green was a busy man yesterday. Even though the media has failed to ask him a few important questions regarding his opinion as a U.S. Congressman, he came through for Wisconsin voters yesterday and showed us two things. He is apparently for torture and for disenfranchising voters. I don't count either of those as Wisconsin values.

Here's what the NY Times had to say about the photo ID bill backed by Green:

Keep Away the Vote

One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party's strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression, intentionally putting up barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box. The House of Representatives took a shameful step in this direction yesterday, voting largely along party lines for onerous new voter ID requirements. Laws of this kind are unconstitutional, as an array of courts have already held, and profoundly undemocratic. The Senate should not go along with this cynical, un-American electoral strategy.

The bill the House passed yesterday would require people to show photo ID to vote in 2008. Starting in 2010, that photo ID would have to be something like a passport, or an enhanced kind of driver's license or non-driver's identification, containing proof of citizenship. This is a level of identification that many Americans simply do not have.

The bill was sold as a means of deterring vote fraud, but that is a phony argument. There is no evidence that a significant number of people are showing up at the polls pretending to be other people, or that a significant number of noncitizens are voting.

Noncitizens, particularly undocumented ones, are so wary of getting into trouble with the law that it is hard to imagine them showing up in any numbers and trying to vote. The real threat of voter fraud on a large scale lies with electronic voting, a threat Congress has refused to do anything about.

The actual reason for this bill is the political calculus that certain kinds of people -- the poor, minorities, disabled people and the elderly -- are less likely to have valid ID. They are less likely to have cars, and therefore to have drivers' licenses. There are ways for nondrivers to get special ID cards, but the bill's supporters know that many people will not go to the effort if they don't need them to drive.

If this bill passed the Senate and became law, the electorate would likely become more middle-aged, whiter and richer -- and, its sponsors are anticipating, more Republican.

Court after court has held that voter ID laws of this kind are unconstitutional. This week, yet another judge in Georgia struck down that state's voter ID law.

Last week, a judge in Missouri held its voter ID law to be unconstitutional. Supporters of the House bill are no doubt hoping that they may get lucky, and that the current conservative Supreme Court might uphold their plan.

America has a proud tradition of opening up the franchise to new groups, notably women and blacks, who were once denied it. It is disgraceful that, for partisan political reasons, some people are trying to reverse the tide, and standing in the way of people who have every right to vote.

UPDATE: The new law would cost the states $11-billion. Any idea how Gov. Green would pay for it?

All the news that fits our point of view

All in a day's work for Journal Sentinel editors:

THURSDAY, Sept. 21, 2006, 1:05 p.m. , JS Online:
Justice Department: Green transfer illegal

Friday morning paper:
Green heads to court over sanction

The news, of course, is not that Green is going to court. That was reported last week.

The news is not that a Doyle lawyer lobbied some members of the Elections Board, although Steve Walters managed to start today's story with that. It was reported yesterday.

The new development was that the state Dept. of Justice argued that all of the $1.3-million Green transferred from his federal account was illegal, except for $43,000 he could transfer from one committee to another. Previously, only $467,000 in political action committee money had been questioned.

The online story made that point. But by morning all was back on track in the JS newsroom, where everything Jim Doyle does is wrong and everything Mark Green does is just peachy.

UPDATE: Jay Bullock on the JS' campaign narrative.

UPDATE 2: Gretchen Schuldt, a former JS reporter, notes a little inconsistency.

How Madison can keep its identity

Madison, worried that it might somehow turn into Milwaukee, gets some advice from Mayor Tom Barrett about 10 ways to make sure that never happens.

UPDATE: Dave Diamond says the real question is how to keep Madison from becoming Waukesha.

State Sen. Ron Brown anti-family?

Those shady right-wing groups are at it again, running negative radio commercials in the Eau Claire/Chippewa Falls area, where State Sen. Dave Zien is in some real trouble. The spots, sponsored by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, Builders and others, rip Zien's opponent, Pat Kreitlow, for opposing the so-called Taxpayer Protection Amendment, a constitutional amendment that went down in flames last session.

A Daily Kos diary describes the spot:

Two adults, a male & a female, talking about how they spent a lot on school supplies & clothes. They talk about how much they're taxes and how they can't keep their money because of that. Then the woman says you should hear how bad it will get with Pat Kreitlow, since he's against the "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" which would cap taxes & spending. She says Kreitlow calls it a scheme & a gimmick. They wonder why he opposes lowering the tax burden, and lowering taxes to keep jobs to then keep keep kids living in the Chippewa Valley. Then, the best part of the ad: the two claim that Kreitlow isn't worried about kids' future, and since he's against the "Taxpayer Protection Amendment," he's against families. That's right, Pat Kreitlow is against families.

What makes this especially interesting is that Ron Brown, the State Senator in the district adjoining Zien's, is one of five Republican Senators who voted against the TPA, also known as Bride of TABOR, when it died in the Senate.

Brown, who like Zien is targeted by Democrats this fall, is the only one of the five up for re-election this fall.

Will we hear radio spots from WMC et al. saying Ron Brown is anti-family? Or will the Democrats have to run them?

Today's 'expose'

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

People lobby the State Elections Board members to try to persuade them to vote their way.

Not surprised?

The Journal Sentinel thought it was worth the top headline on page one today:

Doyle lawyer urged sanction
He lobbied 3 on Elections Board before Green vote

Madison - A lawyer for Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign repeatedly lobbied three Democratic members of the State Elections Board before they voted with the majority to order Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to divest $467,844 in donations from out-of-state political action committees, records show.

Giving it that kind of play, of course, suggests that the paper uncovered some wrongdoing.

You had to read to the 14th paragraph to find this:

[Doyle's lawyer Michael] Maistelman's contacts with the three board members were legal, said board legal counsel George Dunst. Any member of the public, and officials of the Green campaign, could have contacted board members to argue their position before the vote, Dunst said.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," as Jerry Seinfeld would say.

Quote, unquote

"...It's like, are we bored with the war now? Is that the new thing? We don't cover a war guys are fighting? And I watch the news, I don't see the war any more. It has been taken off television, and Bush must love it. Certainly Karl Rove loves the fact that the Iraq War has gotten boring for the American people..."

-- Chris Matthews on Imus, via Think Progress.

So much for supporting the troops

This Federal Times story speaks for itself.

Parental leave bill killed

Congressional negotiators have killed a Senate-passed proposal granting liberal time off work for people caring for the children of deployed U.S. troops.

A two-part leave plan had passed the Senate earlier this year, amending the federal government's donated leave program and encouraging private-sector businesses to also create flexible leave for people, other than parents, who are carrying for the children of deployed troops.

Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis., was the chief sponsor of the plan that was attached to the Senate version of the 2007 defense authorization bill. He called it the Military Family Support Act, and said it was aimed at caregivers who were helping single parents or dual-service couples in which both the husband and wife were deployed.

Sen. James M. Jeffords, I-Vermont, was the chief co-sponsor for the proposal for a benefit that would apply to those who are 21 years old or older and are designated as the primary caregiver for the child of a deployed service member.

For federal workers, Feingold's plan would have allowed leave donated by co-workers to be used ahead of regular leave for caregivers who need time off when carrying for children. Current rules allow donated leave to be used only after all regular leave has been exhausted for someone who is not the parent or legal guardian of a child.

For the private sector, Feingold's provision encouraged, but did not require, businesses to create liberal leave programs for caregivers.

The Senate passed the leave plan in June by voice vote, an indication that the Senate did not consider it controversial. It ran into problems, however, when the House and Senate began negotiations to write a compromise version because the provision attached to the defense bill falls under jurisdiction of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The chairman of that committee, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., announced he opposed the plan because it considered it unnecessary.

That left House negotiators no option but to refuse to accept it, according to congressional aides involved in the negotiations who asked not to be identified because details about the closed-door talks over the defense bill are considered sensitive until work is completed and because they are not authorized to talk with the press.

Rep. George Miller of California, ranking Democrat on McKeon's committee, had urged adoption of the plan but he couldn't persuade McKeon, and because he is a Democrat in a Republican-controlled Congress, his recommendation carried less weight to negotiators than what the Republican chairman wanted.

Prediction: Sullivan will win debate

It's debate night again in the 5th State Senate District.

My money's on Jim Sullivan, the Wauwatosa alderman and Democratic candidate, who will show up.

It would be a nice surprise if the incumbent, Republican Tom Reynolds, showed up. But he's afraid if he does someone might record what he says for posterity.

The debate -- or Sullivan forum -- is at 7 p.m. at St. Therese Catholic Church, at 95th & Bluemound Road.

Meet Jack Bauer.

He plays to win.

Confused?

Brawler explains.

Back by popular demand

Meet the next President?

The San Francisco Examiner's headline, "Meet the Next President: Russ Feingold knows what he wants," makes it sound like our boy is in the race for sure.

The article puts some words in Feingold's mouth:

The White House is where Feingold wants to go.

He certainly doesn't say that, and says he doesn;t even know if he'll run.

But the Examiner seems certain. Story.

Voucher group to invest $1-million in Green

A school choice group based in Michigan, but with Wisconsin connections, has bought three weeks of television time in Wisconsin at a cost estimated at close to a million dollars to help Congressman Mark Green in the governor's race.

It begins on Sept. 26, the day after the current negative commercial from the Republican Governors Assn. ends. No coincidence.

Also, it's no coincidence that Green released his education plan, including a call to expand school choice, Tuesday, a couple of days after the buy was placed.

Is that pay to play, or just politics? Is this different from Green accepting more than $100,000 from real estate interests just before announcing his housing plan, which benefited them?

(I let the news media know about the buy yesterday, but they showed no interest. Too busy combing through candidate finance reports, looking for $1000 from somebody with a state contract, I guess.)

All Children Matter is the group which did the opposition research and filed the complaint about Dem State Senate candidate Donovan Riley double-voting in Illinois and Wisconsin. Riley, who dropped out of the race, was a school choice opponent running against Jeff Plale, a school choice supporter. All Children Matter crowed about that, and said that would free up money for other races, including the gov's race, describing Green as a "champion of school choice."

An affiliate, Alliance for Choices in Education, ran radio commercials attacking Doyle on the school choice issue in February during a dispute over raising the cap on school choice enrollment in Milwaukee. Doyle agreed to a compromise, but apparently will get no credit for that.

The new million-dollar buy is bound to be negative, and may never mention school choice (especially since it only benefits Milwaukee. I don't think I'd be advertising that in Green Bay.)

So, what does Green's education "plan" have in common with his other "plans?" The Journal Sentinel:

Brookfield - U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Green Bay, the Republican candidate for governor, endorsed a broad set of education initiatives Tuesday, including expansion of Milwaukee's voucher program and merit pay for teachers, but fell short on providing some critical details.

I will leave the analysis to Jay Bullock, who does a thorough job and concludes:

All told, then, the Mark Green "plan" for education in Wisconsin is at best a collection of stale conservative ideas backed by clearly flawed studies or anti-union ideology. At worst, it's a cynical and empty pile of rhetorical sugar that the yeast that are his supporters can gorge on--and, predictably, they're already blowing gas...

Without any actual examination of what's in these proposals or an understanding of the underlying issues, Green's supporters have just jerked their knees with joy that Green wants to expand choice and weaken or eliminate the collective bargaining power of that evil union. They don't give any thought for whether these proposals would do thing one to improve teaching and learning or save taxpayers any real money.

And these proposals won't: What Greens's got is a collection of empty rhetoric and promises to help private schools, not public ones. You've got the end of collective bargaining with no promise of reward (except a commission to study merit pay) for teachers who lose their protections. You've got gimmicky one-size-fits-all solutions imposed on the hundreds of widely varying Wisconsin school districts. There is nothing about addressing, for example, the achievement gap or, as Doyle has done, providing students an incentive to take accelerated classes. How anyone can call that awesome or ambitious or significant is beyond me.

Lunatic fringe alive and well in Wisconsin GOP

Jessica McBride, back from a little post-primary hiatus, devotes her latest op ed column to adding up how many Democrats voted for people in the primary that she considers to be left-wing lunatics.

She can't understand how people could vote for Ben Masel, Chip DeNure, or Larraine McNamara-McGraw, to name a few of her targets. McBride opines:

But the fact these candidates garnered more than, say, 1 percent to 3 percent of the vote says something about the shifting center of the Democratic Party. It's increasingly moving from Lieberman left to Lamont loony. Or from linear thought to, well, nonlinear thought.

Well, hold on a minute.

None of the candidates she trashes came even close to winning their primaries. All were soundly rejected by people who voted in the Democratic primary.

On the other hand, Republicans have actually nominated and elected at least one certifiable loony.

State Sen. Tom Reynolds, pride of West Allis, got 5,673 votes to defeat incumbent Peggy Rosenzweig in the Republican primary in 2002. In the general election in that Republican-dominated district, he got 31,693 votes. That's four times as many votes as her target Chip DeNure got in the entire 3rd Congressional District, and 50% more than MacMac got in her losing DA campaign.

And McBride will be among those trying to help Reynolds, whose antics and opinions regularly embarrass her mentor, Charlie Sykes, and even harder-core wingnuts, in his bid to win another term.

The final canvass isn't in yet, but one Robert Gerald Lorge was unopposed on the Republican primary ballot for U.S. Senate. Let's see how many Repubs voted for the accused child molester.

I won't even add up the votes in the Republican AG primary, where GOP voters had a choice between two extremists and picked the real one.

I don't know a lot about some of the losers in GOP legislative races, but I do know that people like J. P. Drengler got 10% of the primary vote.

The lunatic fringe is well-represented in the Wisconsin Republican Party, where they actually win elections and become leaders in the legislature. I haven't begun to scratch the surface.

Glass house, Jessica. Glass house.

UPDATE: Tom Reynolds has agreed to debate Jim Sullivan if the audience is blindfolded. Power Progress has more.

UPDATE 2: Carrie Lynch offers another example of GOP extremist candidates.

Strategic Vision has Doyle up 4

Strategic Vision, the Republican polling firm that many Dems think cooks the books -- or doesn't even interview anybody -- has new poll results that show Gov. Jim Doyle leading Congressman Mark Green 46%-42% in the governor's race. Its last "poll" showed Green up by 1%.

No news release on it from Green today, I'll bet.

UPDATE: Rasmussen has Doyle up 3.

Others abandon Ney, but Green still loyal

Congressman Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who pleaded guilty to corruption charges, isn't getting a lot of sympathy in the political world. Even the woman Ney backed as his hand-picked successor has called on Ney to resign.

But not his good buddy from Wisconsin, Congressman Mark Green. Green, you'll recall, brought Ney to Milwaukee to tell us about honesty and election fraud. If he does resign, maybe he could come and campaign some more for Green.

Hat tip: Talking Points Memo.

UPDATE: Carrie Lynch on
Green ignoring the corruption in Congress .

The fix is in

Wisconsin is back in the top 10 states where the governorship is most likely to change parties in November, according to The Spin, a Washington Post blog that rates the races.

After dropping from 9th to 11th, Wisconsin's back at No. 9, apparently because of a successful GOP spin campaign. Seth Zlotocha has more.

UPDATE: The Fix incorrectly says:

(a new RGA ad takes [Doyle] to task for the guilty plea of an aide who admitted to rigging bids for state travel contracts).

There was no guilty plea and no admission of any bid-rigging.

Obeying only the laws we like

The Capital Times:

Editorial: Mark Green's lawlessness

When the late, great Madison lawyer Edward Ben Elson ran for a judgeship some years ago, he suggested that citizens should "only obey good laws."

Coming from Elson, a humane and decent man who mocked a legal system that he thought was often unfair and abusive, the line was both amusing and instructive.

But U.S. Rep. Mark Green, who is neither so humane nor so decent as Elson, has now made the political parodist's slogan the guiding principle of his Republican campaign for the governorship of Wisconsin.

Green raised almost $500,000 from out-of-state special interests who could not give to his campaign. Then he transferred the illegal money from his federal campaign account to his state account.

When State Elections Board called Green on the move, the congressman attacked the board, peddled ridiculous excuses and finally announced a plan to sue the board for wronging him by enforcing state law. At the same time he is complaining about the ethics of the man he seeks to displace, Gov. Jim Doyle, Green has displayed dramatic disregard for ethical and legal standards.

Green is now running an "only-obey-good-laws" campaign. When the law applies to him, Green neither respects nor obeys it.

Unfortunately, the Republican nominee for governor is not trying to make a ideological point in the way that Eddie Elson so well and wisely did. Rather, Green, like so many petty lawbreakers before him, is trying to take the money and run.

Eddie Ben Elson also announced his candidacy in the nude, as I recall. At least Mark Green spared us that.

-- M. e. Cohen via Cagle.

Avoiding a Dukakis moment

Political Wire reports:

For the second time in a month, Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R) "requested news coverage of an event and then refused to allow photos to be taken," according to the Patriot Ledger.

The reason? Healey didn't want to be seen wearing "a hairnet at a fish processing plant" or "a bright yellow hard hat she donned for a tour of the Twin Rivers Technologies plant."

"Massachusetts politicians have been sensitive to pictures of themselves in strange head gear since former Gov. Michael Dukakis squeezed into an undersized Army helmet and posed on a tank in 1988 while running for president. The image is remembered as a political gaffe of the first order."

I've seen a candidate wearing a hairnet at a cheese factory, and it ain't pretty.

Think Mark Green dancing around with an Ipod, only worse.

The topic tells all

Paul Soglin waxes eloquent about a recent discussion of Milwaukee-Madison cooperation. He makes some interesting points.

Maybe the topic should have been, "How to Keep Milwaukee from Becoming Madison," with its smug, self-satisfied, superior attitude that leaves Madison looking snootily down its nose at its working-class cousin.

I lived 23 years in Madison and now 10 in Milwaukee, so I may be able to say that without being banned from the Capital City. The real title of the discussion -- "How to Keep Madison from Becoming Milwaukee" -- speaks volumes.

Lt. Commander Green reporting for duty

Camera shy? No wonder

Progressive Majority has uncovered one more good reason for State Sen. Tom Reynolds to avoid debating in front of a camera.

Quote, unquote

"I've got one piece of advice for anyone out there considering a run for public office: Don't. The benefits don't outweigh the costs anymore."

-- Jessica McBride, whose husband, Paul Bucher, lost the Republican primary for attorney general last week.

Molly Ivins on Ann Richards

A salute from one legendary progressive Texas icon to another:

Austin, Texas - She was so generous with her responses to other people. If you told Ann Richards something really funny, she wouldn't just smile or laugh, she would stop and break up completely. She taught us all so much -- she was a great campfire cook. Her wit was a constant delight. One night on the river on a canoe trip, while we all listened to the next rapid, which sounded like certain death, Ann drawled, "It sounds like every whore in El Paso just flushed her john."

She knew how to deal with teenage egos: Instead of pointing out to a kid who was pouring charcoal lighter on a live fire that he was idiot, Ann said, "Honey, if you keep doing that, the fire is going to climb right back up to that can in your hand and explode and give you horrible injuries, and it will just ruin my entire weekend."

She knew what it was like to have four young children and to be so tired you cried while folding the laundry. She knew and valued Wise Women like Virginia Whitten and Helen Hadley.

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin' and greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my boy, how are you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department." Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie's palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am Mrs. Miles."

One of the most moving memories I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle with a group of prisoners. Ann and Bullock had started a rehab program in prisons, the single most effective thing that can be done to cut recidivism (George W. Bush later destroyed the program). The governor of Texas looked at the cons and said, "My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic."

She devoted untold hours to helping other alcoholics, and anyone who ever heard her speak at an AA convention knows how close laughter and tears can be.

I have known two politicians who completely reformed the bureaucracies they were elected to head. Bob Bullock did it by kicking ass at the comptroller's until hell wouldn't have it. Fear was his m.o. Ann Richards did it by working hard to gain the trust of the employees and then listening to what they told her. No one knows what's wrong with a bureaucracy better than the bureaucrats who work in it.

The 1990 race for governor was one of the craziest I ever saw, with Ann representing "New Texas."

Republican nominee Claytie Williams was a perfect foil, down to his boots, making comments that could be construed as racist and sexist. Ann was the candidate of everybody else, especially for women. She represented all of us who have lived with and learned to handle good ol' boys, and she did it with laughter. The spirit of the crowd that set off from the Congress Avenue Bridge up to the Capitol the day of Ann's inauguration was so full of spirit and joy. I remember watching San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros that day with tears running down his cheeks because Chicanos were finally included.

Ann got handed a stinking mess: Damn near every state function was under court order. The prisons were so crowded, dangerous convicts were being let loose. She had a long, grinding four years and wound up fixing all of it. She always said you could get a lot done in politics if you didn't need to take credit.

But she disappointed many of her fans because she was so busy fixing what was broken, she never got to change much. The '94 election was a God, gays and guns deal. Annie had told the legislature that if they passed a right-to-carry law, she would veto it. They did, and she did. At the last minute, the NRA launched a big campaign to convince the governor that we Texas women would feel ever so much safer if we could just carry guns in our purses.

Said Annie, "Well, you know that I am not a sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag."

-- From AlterNet.

Gay families are families, too

Fair Wisconsin's television campaign takes a new tack today, moving beyond the theoretical and legal discussions of what the state constitutional amendment might mean to people in domestic partnerships, which has dominated the campaign until now.

The new, emotionally-charged spot talks directly about the impact of the amendment on gay families, especially at a time of crisis. It is a powerful commercial.

Watch it here. And learn more about Jean and Lynn's story here.

Peg does the right thing

Peg Lautenschlager shows some class. It had to be a hard thing to do. Good for her.

Lautenschlager offers support for party at rally
Losers in House race also at Democratic event

Green Bay - Four days after she was unseated by a fellow Democrat, state Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager appeared at a party-unity rally with her recent rival, Kathleen Falk, and pledged to work her "hardest" for the ticket in November.

"I'm a Democrat," Lautenschlager said Saturday when asked if she had a hard time deciding whether to attend the event.

Falk, the Dane County executive, told an auditorium full of vocal partisans that "primaries are not easy among families," and that she was grateful for Lautenschlager's support.

The event was conceived by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold a few months ago in anticipation of hard-fought primaries for both attorney general and the 8th Congressional District seat. Feingold said he sought commitments from the candidates back then to appear together afterward, win or lose.

Also speaking Saturday were all three candidates for that House seat, along with Gov. Jim Doyle, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl and Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton.

Feingold emceed what was an unusual partisan rally, in which speakers acknowledged the awkward and divisive contest for attorney general and sought to patch things up by paying tribute to Lautenschlager while touting the general-election candidacy of the person who defeated her.

Lautenschlager did not mention Falk by name in her remarks, but other Democrats were grateful for Lautenschlager's presence, since her absence would have sent an unwelcome signal.

"When you plan a unity rally, you want it to go well," Feingold said.

"We commit ourselves to move forward and move on to this important November election, to move on in unity," Lautenschlager told the crowd, which gave her several ovations. "We pledge to work our hardest to ensure a Democratic victory in November."

Lautenschlager alluded to the incident that might have been her political undoing - her 2004 drunken driving arrest - when she told the audience that she would be leaving the event before its conclusion to go to an obligation in Fond du Lac.

"I won't say what I really want to say here," she joked, adding, "We will drive safely home," prompting laughter.

The rally was also meant to bring together the Democratic contestants for the House seat in northeastern Wisconsin: winner Steve Kagen and losers Jamie Wall and Nancy Nusbaum.

All three had nice things to say about each other.

Falk said Lautenschlager was gracious when they spoke after Tuesday's primary.

Doyle told the audience that hard-fought primaries "divide the family," but he praised Lautenschlager and the losers in the 8th Congressional District for showing "class."

The governor told a reporter afterward that he wasn't concerned about divisions from the primary.

"I've been through tough primaries," said Doyle, who defeated Falk in a three-way primary for governor in 2002. "People get over them in a hurry."

EARLIER: GOP not quite as good at kissing and making up.

Love it or leave it

Woe is us. Our business climate is going downhill. Again. Or still. Take your pick.

The prophet of doom? None other than John Jazwiec, the head of something called RedPrairie in Waukesha, who thinks Wisconsin is a socialist state.

If that sounds familiar, it's because he said the same things in June, when the Journal Sentinel gave his views a huge amount of space and attention. JJ went on to offer some advice to Democrats: Be more conservative than Republicans and all will go well.

He pretty much repeated himself on Friday, but it was worth another 26-inch story in Saturday's business section.

JJ insists he's not looking for handouts, but here's what he wants:

Jazwiec's "wish list" is ambitious and, at least in part, likely to remain wishes: an immediate 50% tax cut by the incoming governor and eventual elimination of taxes; phasing out of "the welfare system;" elevation of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee "into one of the nation's elite schools;" less state attention to Madison and more to Milwaukee; and development of technology centers near "creative" areas of the city such as Brady St.

Commerce Secretary Mary Burke pointed out that many firms are thriving and expanding here, including GE Technology just down the road from RedPrairie, which hosted Friday night's debate between the candidates for governor.

"It's just very dangerous to take one person with 200 employees and make what his personal opinion is representative of business," Burke said.

Sure, we'd like RedPrairie to stay here and grow, but if that means state and local officials must line up to kiss his rear end -- and apparently more than once -- we may want to consider putting out energy elsewhere.

It's a good thing I'm not the governor. (Many people will agree with that sentiment, not that there was ever any danger I would be.) I'd probably tell JJ to love it or leave it, and not to let the door hit him in the rear end if he decides to leave. He's a chronic malcontent who will never be satisfied or appeased, and there's something about his tone that just sets me off.

But the Journal Sentinel seems to think he is the Voice of Business. Maybe the newspaper could give him Paddy Mac's op ed space so he could bitch and moan twice a week.

I'm a little tired of the JJ Show. Can you tell?

UPDATE: Brew City Brawler catches JJ bragging about RedPrairie's ability to attract top-notch people.

UPDATE 2: Tom Still of the Wis. Technology Council, in a column:

MADISON – Two news stories in the past week have stirred debate about the future of Wisconsin’s high-tech sector. Is the state competing in the global economy, as CDW Corp.’s acquisition of Berbee Information Networks Corp. suggests, or a low-talent, high-tax backwater, as RedPrairie executive John Jazwiec repeatedly insists?

While there’s good reason to listen to Jazwiec when he says he has trouble recruiting top-flight executives to Wisconsin, the $175-million acquisition of Berbee by Fortune 500 company CDW is a far stronger signal about the state’s standing in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.

Live debate blogging

Hey, there's Fredericka!

And Mike Jacobs, too!

We the People always has a really interesting format.

And such informed questioners. Here comes the first one.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Boy, that went fast.

I think Doyle won.

'I'm not a parent, but I play one on TV'

In addition to the "authorized and paid for" political disclaimer, perhaps Congressman Mark Green's commercials should include a disclosure, like other commercials, that says, "Dramatization."

AP reports:

Green acknowledges use of actors in new television ad

By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Republican Mark Green's campaign acknowledged Friday it is using actors in a new television ad in which the gubernatorial candidate criticizes admissions and tuition policies in the University of Wisconsin System.

The 30-second ad is scheduled to begin running statewide next week, said Green campaign spokesman Luke Punzenberger, who acknowledged the use of actors in response to questions from The Associated Press.

Green, a congressman from Green Bay, is challenging Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in the Nov. 7 election and has made rising tuition in the UW System on Doyle's watch a theme in the campaign.

Doyle's campaign pounced on the revelation late Friday, hours before the two candidates were to square off in their first debate.

"U.S. Rep. Green can't find any real middle class and working families to buy the cheap distortions that he's spinning," said spokeswoman Melanie Fonder. "If you don't have any real Wisconsin families who support those distortions, I guess you have to find some make-believe ones."

The ad features Green and his wife, Sue, sitting next to two couples at a high school football game. One couple claims their son has been put on a waiting list for an unidentified UW school even though he was on the honor roll.

"They are letting out-of-state kids in who have worse grades than the Wisconsin kids who don't get in," one male actor says.

"I thought it was called the University of Wisconsin," a female actor says.

"It gets worse," Green tells them. "Jim Doyle raised tuition for Wisconsin families and actually cut it for out-of-staters."

Doyle's ads have used real Wisconsin voters to drive home his message.

In his first ad, nine citizens tout aspects of Doyle's record as their names are flashed on the screen. In another, Jody Montgomery of Verona holds her diabetes-stricken daughter to praise Doyle's stance on stem cell research and call Green "too extreme."

Green's ad on Friday takes aim at two major issues facing Wisconsin families: rising tuition and perceived difficulties getting into some UW campuses.

The ad refers to a June vote by the UW System Board of Regents to cut tuition for out-of-state students at all UW campuses except UW-Madison while raising tuition by 6.8 percent for resident students.

Regents said the cut in tuition was meant to reverse a decline in nonresident enrollment that was costing the UW System millions of dollars in tuition revenue. Those students still pay three times more than their in-state counterparts.

The ad also alleges that UW schools are admitting nonresident students ahead of more-qualified residents.

But UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley warned Green in a letter last week that "nothing could be further from the truth."

"At no point during our admissions process do residents directly compete against nonresidents for spots in the freshmen class," Wiley wrote. "Both applicant pools present impressive academic credentials and are evenly matched academically when ACT scores are compared."

To back up its claim, Green's campaign cites statistics showing nonresident students had lower school ranks and test scores than Wisconsin students in UW-Madison's freshman class.

Wiley said using those standards to suggest nonresidents are less qualified "is an apples-to-oranges comparison."

He cited different state high school standards, grade inflation in other states and the fact that many high-achieving high schools do not provide class rank.

© 2006 The Associated Press.

Young Republican thugs start early

This is a tactic that will do serious damage to Congressman Mark Green's candidacy if it continues.

Consider the context. This was not a Doyle campaign event. He was being interviewed on an E. coli outbreak that has already claimed at least one life.

"Dump Doyle!" and "Liar!" seem just a tad inappropriate.

Denials are nice, but if Green's campaign doesn't get this under control, he will pay a price.

Green backers disrupt Doyle press event

A group of unidentified protesters disrupted a news conference by Gov. Jim Doyle today, drowning out some of his comments on an E. coli outbreak and on reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange.

Chants such as "Dump Doyle!" "Liar!" and "State for sale!" continued throughout Doyle's comments.

The Democratic governor's aides immediately blamed the disruption on the campaign of U.S. Rep. Mark Green, Doyle's Republican opponent, but the Green camp denied responsibility.

The protesters, less than a dozen in number, were armed with homemade signs and at least one megaphone. They appeared at the Watertown Plank Road park-and-ride lot in Wauwatosa before the start of the news conference.

Doyle tried first to wait them out, then started and stopped his comments a few times before finally deciding to ignore the protesters and press on.

Some of the signs referred to a University of Wisconsin tuition increase. Other chants included "Travelgate!" and "Tax freeze fraud!"

The protesters finally disbanded when Doyle turned the microphone over to Jim Elliott, chairman of the Milwaukee County Research Park Board, to discuss the economic impact of Zoo Interchange reconstruction. Elliott said the protest was just an example of democracy at work in a free society.

This was the first time a Doyle news conference was disrupted in this way, Doyle spokesman Dan Leistikow said. And although the governor jokingly referred to the protesters as "my fan club," Leistikow said it was "pretty appalling" that Green supporters would interrupt a public health announcement about an outbreak that had killed someone.

Luke Punzenberger, a spokesman for Green, said the GOP nominee's campaign did not organize the protest.
"It wasn't from us," he said. "It's not something we organized. It's not something we condone... If Mark was there, he would have walked right up to them and told them to cut it out because it is not the way we want a campaign run and it is not something we want to be associated with."

Doyle campaign spokesman Anson Kaye said he did not buy the Green campaign's denial.

"A handful of goons show up at an event, regurgitating an ad Congressman Green just put up this morning," Kaye said. "It's pretty clear where they came from and it's consistent with Congressman Green's desire to put his personal ambition above the welfare of Wisconsin."

UPDATE:
Charlie Sykes says of the story:

DUMB AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. This is just stupid. The grownups are going to have step in.

Kissing and making up

It could be a little tense in the green room while the speakers are waiting to be introduced at Saturday's Democratic Unity Rally on the UW-Green Bay campus.

The event will feature: Governor Jim Doyle, Senator Herb Kohl, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, and 8th Congressional District Candidates Steve Kagen, Nancy Nusbaum, and Jamie Wall. Senator Russ Feingold is the host.

Organizers say response has been so good they have had to move to a bigger space.

The atmosphere may be a little frosty despite predicted 80-degree temps, but at least they all have agreed to make nice.

On the Republican side, things aren't exactly hunky dory. Paul Bucher urged Republicans to get behind J.B. Van Hollen, who kicked his butt in the primary.

Bucher didn't even put out his own statement, but let the Van Hollen campaign quote him in its release:

"J.B is our party's choice. I encourage all my supporters to help him in his effort to become the next Attorney General of Wisconsin."

Not one positive word about Van Hollen,but he is "the party's choice."

Don't look for a joint appearance any time soon, judging from this report:

Asked if he would be campaigning with Van Hollen before the general election, Bucher hesitated. "I guess I'll have to wait and see if that request is made and see what I'm doing at the time."

Would you consider volunteering?

"No."

Didn't think so.

UPDATE: Peg does the right thing.

Green puts 'For Sale' sign out for Realtors

Congressman Mark Green, who sees a link between every dollar Jim Doyle raises and every action Doyle takes, has been caught red-handed taking money from Realtors with one hand while writing proposals to benefit them with the other.

The latest example was in August, when Green pocketed more than $100,000 days before he unveiled a plan to ease up on regulation of the real estate industry, the AP reported.

But that's just the most recent. The Journal Sentinel reported recently on a 2002 case where Green collected special interest money from Realtors and paid them back with a letter saying exactly what they wanted on a pending federal rule.

Today, One Wisconsin Now says Green started trading favors with the Realtors back in his legislative days:

In January 1994, Green received $1,220 in Wisconsin Realtors Association PAC and conduit money and then was the main author of a bill to give real estate agents a partial exemption from a fraudulent sales representation law. The bill, which passed the state assembly in November of 1995, would only make real estate agents legally responsible only if they knowingly gave false information to a client, unlike other sales representatives who are responsible even if they did not know the information was false. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Assembly Sold on Realtors Bill," November 15, 1995; Wisconsin State Journal, "Assembly OKs Bill to Protect Real Estate Agents from Lawsuits," November 15, 1995)

Think that's all? Wanna bet? Stay tuned, as we learn more about the guy who would be governor.

Will Green show up for debate?

Tonight's the first of two debates between Governor Jim Doyle and Congressman Mark Green, assuming Green shows up for the televised matchup, to be broadcast statewide at 7 p.m.

The Republican playbook in Wisconsin this year has been to run away from opponents.

State Sen. Tom Reynolds has already ducked one debate and is well on his way to doing it again.

State Sen. Dave Zien dissed his primary opponent and sponsors of a radio debate by backing out at the last minute.

Congressman F. Jim Sensenbrenner is avoiding challenger Bryan Kennedy, having just refused another debate invitation, this from a Latino organization in his district.

Green's campaign manager, Mark Graul, was a no-show for a public radio call-in show when he didn't even have to face anyone from Doyle's campaign.

So, two questions as we await tonight's scheduled encounter:

Will Green show up?

If he does, will he be wearing his Ipod?

Quote, unquote

"I come from the state of Joe McCarthy. (I) know a third-rate McCarthy when I see one. And we saw one yesterday."

-- Rep. Dave Obey, on House Majority Leader John Boehner's questioning of Democrats' patriotism.

Vote count problems, here and there

Screaming headlines about hand-counting ballots in the City of Milwaukee, although I will bet $10 to a doughnut that the only numbers that change significantly are the total number of votes cast, not the candidate totals.

Meanwhile, if you look hard enough, you might discover that there were widespread problems in Waukesha, too. But hardly worth mentioning, apparently.

Baldwin stands alone

Profiles in courage: Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin does the right thing and votes against a Sept. 11 memorial resolution that was hijacked and turned into a partisan measure by House Republicans.

Instead of a neutral resolution acknowledging what happened on Sept. 11, and honoring the victims, the GOP used it to praise every partisan piece of garbage they've passed in the name of fighting terrorism -- even Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner's anti-immigration bill.

The NY Times explains:

Congress has passed a resolution every year. In non-election years, the resolution has simply noted the valor of rescue workers and extended sympathies to families.

But in election years -- 2002, 2004 and now 2006 -- the Republican-controlled House has included language heralding accomplishments in the war on terror. This time, the Republican version of the resolution applauded the reauthorization of the legislation known as the USA Patriot Act, as well as the tough immigration bill passed in the House.

Republicans loaded up the resolution with that language, ready to paint anyone who voted against it as unpatriotic or coddling terrorists, and knowing that most members would simply vote yes, rather than face those attacks.

Every member of the Wisconsin delegation except Baldwin voted yes, even though they, like her, had voted against many of the bills praised in the resolution. Even Dave Obey and Gwen Moore caved.

But Baldwin stood on principle, and was one of only 22 House members to vote no.

The AP reports:

Baldwin contended the GOP "disgracefully politicized what should have been a solemn and sincere resolution."

"Instead they converted the resolution into an endorsement of the PATRIOT Act, punitive immigration bills, and other highly controversial measures, which many of my constituents oppose," she said in a statement explaining her vote.

She added it was disrespectful to the Sept. 11 victims and families to be "playing election year politics" with the anniversary.

Predictably, her opponent fired off a press release attacking her vote, calling her "misguided" and "out of step" among other things.

Actually, Baldwin is very much in step with her constituents, and probably with a majority of the people in Wisconsin, who don't like how 9/11 became an excuse for a misguided war. It's too bad no one else in the state's delegation had the courage to stand with her. But it makes what she did all the more praiseworthy.

Another two-faced suburban Republican

This is where we came in.

September 2005: Michael Rosen of the Milwaukee Area Technical College faculty (and union president) was nominated by Gov. Jim Doyle for a spot on the state's Techncal College Board.

State Sen. Alberta Darling, a Whitefish Bay River Hills Repub, praised Rosen -- and then voted against him as the Senate rejected his nomination.

Fast-forward to this month. The governor nominates Rosen again.

State Rep. Sue Jeskewitz, a Menomonee Falls Repub, had this to say in a September 2005 e-mail when Rosen's first appointment was announced:

Dear Mike,

Congratulations! I just read about your appointment to the WTCS Board. I know you'll get a lot of good work done in your new role, and I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Sue

Office of Rep. Sue Jeskewitz
608-266-3796
1-888-529-0024 toll free in Wisconsin only
314N, State Capitol
Madison WI 53708

Wednesday, she issued a press release with a different tune:

..."Senate confirmation of Rosen's appointment would have been tantamount to asking the fox to guard the chicken coop." Rosen is AFT local 212 president, the largest union representing Milwaukee Area Technical College faculty where Rosen is employed as a professor of economics. Jeskewitz believes this is a blatant conflict of interest...

"I have met with Michael Rosen on many occasions and he is a perfectly nice man and a very knowledgeable one as well," explained Jeskewitz. "However, I do not believe that someone who is a union president at any technical college in the system belongs on the Wisconsin Technical College System board."

Who did she think she was sending that e-mail to, some other nice man named Michael Rosen?

Is there one suburban Republican with a mind of her own? Or do they all just fall into line when leadership says jump? I suspect that's a rhetorical question. As John Prine says, "A question ain't really a question if you know the answer, too."

Dane is different? GOP judge is different

From Charlie Sykes's blog:

DANE COUNTY IS DIFFERENT
Check out this judge's sentence

One of three young men accused in a stabbing and baseball bat attack on others in a gang-related incident a year ago was put on probation for eight years Monday, but was not given any more jail time because he has been behind bars for more than a year.

Hector Romero, 19, of Madison, and his companions attacked a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy on Columbus Lane on Madison's east side April 30, 2005. The 17-year-old suffered damage to his heart, lung, liver and diaphragm in the attack, in which one of the victims identified Romero as the man who stabbed the 17-year-old.

The 15-year-old was clubbed in the head with a baseball bat.

Probation? Probation? What's in the water in Kalthleen Falkland?

That prompted this e-mail:

From: Michael Basford
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 7:30 AM
To: 'sykes@620wtmj.com'
Subject: re: DANE COUNTY IS DIFFERENT

Charlie,

You could point out that the judge was Hon. Patrick J. Fiedler -- who was Ronald Reagan's US Attorney in Wisconsin's Western District, Tommy Thompson's Secretary of Corrections, and was appointed to the bench by Gov Thompson. I look forward to reading your clarification.

MB

Sykes has been too busy lionizing Bob Ziegelbauer to clarify that it was a Republican judge, not Kathleen Falk, who did the sentencing. But I'm sure it's coming.

CRG has no shame, keeps plowing new ground

Here we go again: The LaCrosse Tribune:

Group to defend 'average taxpayer'

Vowing to become a "special interest group for taxpayers," Citizens for Responsible Government-La Crosse announced its formation Tuesday.

"You have interest groups of all varieties, but there's very few ... that advocate just for the average taxpayer," said Steve Gores, one of the founders.

They've affiliated with the CRG Network, a Milwaukee-based group that helps organize and support citizen watchdog groups in Wisconsin.

Their main occupation is recalling elected officials. Fresh from a miserable failure in Sheboygan, after embarrassing themselves in Madison, CRG has decided to Go West.

Last November, CRG announced it would put "boots on the ground" in all 72 counties and have a $1-million warchest to beat Gov. Jim Doyle.

How's that going? I'd urge any Republicans wondering where to invest to write a check to CRG, rather than wasting it on a contribution to a candidate or the Republican Party. But don't take my word for it, Republican readers. Take it from one of your own:

Assembly Majority Leader Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, attended the group's announcement and said he's "looking forward to them watching over me, over my colleagues in the Legislature, and certainly over every tax dollar that's spent in La Crosse County."

Forget those checks to Huebsch and the Republican Assembly committee; invest today in CRG.

Green tactic comes home to roost

Congressman Mark Green, the Republican Party, Republican talk radio, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the Journal Sentinel have set the standard for what looks like scandal when it comes to campaign contributions -- Basically, taking any contributions from anyone you know, like, every did business with, or might have some business relationship with in the future.

No surprise, then, that Green finds himself hoist on his own petard, or as Dave Diamond puts it, just as stinky as the other guy.

It's an Associated Press story. Let's see if it makes the Milwaukee paper.

UPDATE: Yes, the story makes the JS. Not on page one, where virtually every Doyle contribution story as landed, but on page 5 of the Metro section.

Catching up with the news

Today's Journal Sentinel Daywatch story sounded familiar:

Hearing set on Green PAC money

Madison - A Dane County judge has set a hearing for Sept. 21 on the request of Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green for a temporary injunction that would block a state Elections Board order that the Green campaign give up $467,844 in donations from out-of-state political action committees.

Circuit Judge Richard Niess set the hearing after Green's campaign formally asked for a temporary injunction, saying the order to divest unfairly singled it out because candidates for the last 29 years have been able to transfer money from their federal account to their state campaign fund.

That's right. It was reported here on Tuesday.

Quote, unquote

"We're going to ignore the elephant in the room, after declaring victory on behalf of the people, victory on behalf of racial prejudice and gender bias," she said. "I'm going to continue to fight against the blindness and the dumbness that has surrounded this campaign."

-- Losing Milwaukee DA candidate Larraine MacMac McNamara-McGraw to WisPol on election night. Interpretations welcome.

Ballots don't add up

Is this a big deal?

In a word, no.

Is the sky falling?

No.

Is there any suggestion of fraud?

No.

Is there any indication it affected the vote counts for candidates?

No.

Should it be fixed?

Of course.

Would photo IDs have helped?

Of course not.

Ann Richards, R.I.P.

Ann Richards, the outspoken and hilarious Democrat who was a one-term governor of Texas, is dead at 73.

The highly quotable Richards was probably best-known for her comment about George H. W. Bush: Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

That came in her speech at the 1988 Democratic national convention, which is well worth a read.

She is widely credited with saying, also of Bush the elder, "He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple," although the provenance of that remark is in dispute, the honor and may belong to Jim Hightower or someone else.

With or without that line, Richards leaves a legacy of quotable quotes. And she didn't need a joke writer.

She lost the governorship after a Karl Rove-orchestrated smear campaign accusing her of illegal drug use. Rove went on to bigger and better things.

Asked once what she might have done differently had she known she was going to be a one-term governor, Richards said:

"Oh, I would probably have raised more hell."

Washington Post obituary.

Death before abortion, Van Hollen says

Well, here's one clear difference in the attorney general's race: J.B. Van Hollen is a "100% pro-life candidate," which means he is against abortion in any and all circumstances -- rape, incest, or even to save a woman's life.

You were raped and impregnated by a family member and may die if you don't have the abortion? Don't come running to J.B. He thinks life is sacred -- except yours.

Here's what it takes to get the Pro-Life Wisconsin endorsement:

To those who are actively involved in the pro-life struggle on a daily basis, "pro-life" means defending each and every innocent human life at all stages of development and in all circumstances, including those whom it is not "politically correct" to protect -- the child conceived in rape, the child whose mother's life is perceived to be in danger, the disabled preborn baby, or the "terminally ill" who are viewed as "burdens" on society. It is clear that life begins at conception/fertilization, so it is clear that that may never be an exception to an innocent child's right to life.

The Pro-Life Wisconsin Victory Fund

"supports candidates for public office who demonstrate a commitment to protect each and every innocent human life -- in all circumstances and at all stages of development."

This is the group that is so extreme that Congressman Mark Green was afraid to reply to their questionnaire. Here's what that extremist group has to say:

"It's exciting and very gratifying to see a 100 percent pro-life candidate win this Republican primary race. J.B. Van Hollen has proudly declared that life begins at conception and that he will work to defend the right to life of all preborn children.

That is a message that resonates with voters. It is clear, consistent and compassionate. It is a message that is in stark contrast to the views of Kathleen Falk, and one that we believe will prevail in the November general election.

More and more Wisconsinites recognize that abortion kills babies and hurts women. Wisconsin needs an attorney general who will work to protect the most innocent among us -- our preborn brothers and sisters.

Pro-Life Wisconsin enthusiastically congratulates J.B. Van Hollen for his victory Tuesday night and looks forward to his victory in November.

A modest proposal

Paul Soglin: Jail all young black men.

Jessica McBride probably thinks Soglin finally got one right. Before she endorses it, would someone tell her he's kidding?

The morning after

Random thoughts:

Ds outnumber Rs. The top statewide primary for both major parties was the attorney general's race. Is it significant that roughly 360,000 people voted the Dem primary and only 240,000 on the Republican side? That's 50% more Ds than Rs. Does that bode anything for November, or was it driven by local races?

Sore losers. It is difficult to be gracious in defeat, but for most candidates the biggest audience they will ever have is for their live election night speech, win or lose. That's one that leaves a lasting impression with viewers. Paul Bucher's complaints about buying elections and Wisconsin being for sale may have made him feel better for a minute but didn't get him a thing. Bucher managed to spend $300,000-plus himself this year without ever getting on television.

I didn't see Lautenschlager's speech, but it sounded like she said all the right things. She didn't call Falk to concede apparently, but that's just bad manners. I wouldn't read too much into it. In the heat of the moment, the last thing a losing candidate wants to do is to call the winner. And Peg pretty much does want she wants. Jim Doyle is still waiting for Don Hanaway to call and concede the 1990 AG's race. [Jeff Wagner, too, from the 1994 campaign, I'm reminded. Maybe he could just do it on the air, during his "Department of Justice" show.]

Will Lautenschlager blame Jim Doyle for her defeat, and for urging Falk to get into the race? Probably. The real question is whether Lautenschlager will be vindictive and use her remaining days in office to try to take Doyle down with her. There was talk of that possibility in DOJ even before the primary, and Lautenschlager and some of her lieutenants have already demonstrated their willingness to leak information about investigations for political purposes. It could be a messy eight weeks.

Invisible race. Who even knew there was a GOP primary for lieutenant governor? Nick Voegeli, whoever he is, got 44% of the vote against Jean Hundertmark, the anointed candidate.

Kagen prevails. Republicans targeted the right Democrat in the 8th Congressional District, attacking Steve Kagen even before the primary. If they hoped their early negatives would cost him the nomination, they were wrong. He won a three-way race pretty handily and clearly is the candidate with the resources and campaign to slug it out with John Gard.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. David Clarke got a little scare Tuesday but will be back as Milwaukee County Sheriff, much to the chagrin of the Democratic Party, since Clarke is a Republican who runs as a Dem. Conservatives crow that Republicans can win in Milwaukee, citing Clarke (who runs as a Dem) and County Exec Scott Walker (who runs in a non-partisan election). But no R is going to win countywide in a partisan race. Vince Bobot probably would have beaten Clarke if he had run a television campaign, but neither candidate did, relying on mail, billboards and yard signs. That kind of race favors Clarke, the incumbent with good name recognition and the ability to get on TV newscasts almost at will. Clarke will get talked into running for a higher office, but it's clear he can be beaten, as he was in the last mayor's race. And I don't believe, for all of talk radio's efforts, that there were enough GOP crossovers to make a difference for Clarke.

Earlier, Election Night musings.

AFTERTHOUGHT: The Journal Sentinel is oh-so-careful not to overstate things. It's headline, "Clarke, Chisholm survive" is interesting, since John Chisholm "survived: with 65% of the vote in the Milwaukee DA's race. The paper says "both men will be favored heading into the Nov. 7 general election." I guess so, since Clarke is running against a Republican and Chisholm against an independent in a county where Democrats always win the county offices. The story on the Waukesha DA and sheriff's races throws caution to the wind, with a headline, "Schimel, Trawicki likely clinch it":

Waukesha County voters delivered political victories Tuesday to two county insiders, elevating Brad Schimel in his bid to become district attorney and virtually re-electing Sheriff Dan Trawicki in decisive Republican primaries.

But there's still a disclaimer:

With no Democrat running in either race, both Schimel and Trawicki appear on their way to election in November, barring any successful write-in campaign.

Or one of them dropping dead, or moving to Arizona, or something.

The Cap Times comes around. Madison's Capital Times has been Lautenschlager's biggest booster and Falk's harshest critic in the AG primary, but in an editorial today says: To those Democrats who retain some animus toward Falk for making the race, we have three words: Get over it. Wisconsin needs a progressive attorney general.

Progressive Majority candidates win. Candidates endorsed by Wisconsin Progressive Majority won 8 out of 9 legislative primaries Tuesday, and maybe nine.

Covering the races. WISN-TV, the Channel 12 ABC affiliate, is working hard to become the go-to station in Milwaukee for political coverage, and has devoted more airtime to the campaign than anyone else in the market. If you missed it, you can go here to watch Paul Bucher's concession speech, John Chisholm's victory speech, and more.

First projection(s)

With about one-third of the vote in, it appears safe to say that Paul Bucher will get a higher percentage of the primary vote than Scot Ross.

Ross ran the better campaign, but had a guy named LaFollette on the ballot.

---

One of The Xoff Files' analysts in Central Wisconsin predicted at 9:19 p.m. that Kathleen Falk will win the Dem AG primary, based on what's happening in the Dem stronghold of Portage County.

---

Even with two men in the race and Emily's List behind her, Nancy Nusbaum looks destined to finish third in the 8th District Dem Congressional primary.

---

David Clarke is going to be re-elected Milwaukee County sheriff, despite a strong challenge from Vince Bobot, who ran a well-funded grassroots campaign. A little television might have put Bobot over the top, but he didn't run any.

---

No surprise here, but my daughter's candidate, John Chisholm, is winning 60-40 in the Milwaukee DA primary over MacMac. Maybe pandering doesn't pay after all. Wait till that word gets out in political circles.

---

One of the first calls Republican Sheriff David Clarke received after winning the Democratic primary Tuesday night was from Congressman Mark Green. Need I say more?

UPDATE: The morning after.

Riemer to Walker's rescue?

From the Department of Irony:

Milwaukee County, in serious financial trouble, has to look far beyond County Exec Scott Walker's rhetoric and sound bites and consider some real solutions.

Who do they turn to? David Riemer, the guy who proposed some serious health care policy reform when he ran against Walker in 2004. His detailed plan, as I recall, was relegated to the Journal Sentinel business page. From that February 2004 story:

Milwaukee County executive candidate David Riemer on Thursday outlined a proposal aimed at taming runaway health insurance costs in government and the private sector, which he said were contributing to job losses and higher taxes.

If elected, Riemer said, he would take the lead in organizing a voluntary pool of employers, public and private, that would purchase employee health insurance together in hopes of pressuring the health care market to lower costs.

County Executive Scott Walker quickly criticized Riemer's plan as beyond county government's scope and overly reliant on the public sector.

"If he was applying to be head of the state insurance commissioner's office, that would be a good starting point for this discussion," Walker said.

Riemer disagreed, saying that leadership was needed to rein in health costs that are "punishing private corporations and the small businesses of Milwaukee, destroying jobs and exporting large parts of our economy to other states and nations like Mexico and China."

Riemer said of Walker, "He really just fundamentally doesn't get it." It's the biggest issue in the race, he said.

Riemer, of course, was right, and now Walker says he would welcome his help to try to save his skin.

Zeth Zlotocha's analysis: Finally, a Great Idea for Milwaukee County

UPDATE: Michael Mathias says Walker hoped to be governor before the roof caved in, and seems to have no clue about how to repair it.

Fordham study flunks review

A couple of weeks ago, we challenged a Fordham Institute study which was sharply critical of Wisconsin's public school academic standards, rating the state 46th of 50 states. We, and others, pointed out some critical analyses of Fordham's earlier studies.

Now comes some fresh information, which may not susprise you, but could be news to the Journal Sentinel, which gave the Fordham study top of page one play:

EAST LANSING, Mich. - A new report from the Fordham Institute, “The State of State Standards 2006,” assigns letter grades to each state for its academic content standards and claims that higher content standards lead to better student test scores.

In a Think Twice review of this report, University of Colorado Professor Kenneth Howe found no evidence to support the validity of the grades and also found no support for the report’s claim that higher content standards lead to an increase in student achievement.

Howe criticized the report, authored by Fordham’s President, Chester Finn and two of his colleagues for hiding controversial, value-laden criteria behind the supposedly objective A-F grades awarded. In fact, he points out that the grading criteria used by Fordham are directly at odds with those of reputable professional organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English. Howe concluded that the report’s grading practices were “selectively data-mined and were seriously lacking in methodological rigor.”

According to Howe, “…no evidence is offered that the grades are valid measures of the quality of state content standards. Readers are asked simply to rely on the overall conclusions reached by Fordham and its graders, supplemented by a few cursory statements in the state documents regarding strengths and/or weaknesses.”

Howe concluded with an even stronger criticism: “The post-hoc massaging of the data reaches the point of absurdity, as the authors search for some approach to the data that might lend support to Fordham’s conclusion that content standards of the kind it rates highly do, in fact, result in improved student performance.”

The review recommends that policymakers and educators avoid basing any decisions about policy or practice on the grades assigned by the Fordham report.

Howe’s review and a link to the Fordham report containing Wisconsin's report card are available here.

The Think Twice project provides the public, policy makers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected think tank publications. It is a collaboration of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University and the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado and is funded by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Green wants a new judge

Congressman Mark Green not only thinks the State Elections Board is unfair, but he doesn't trust Dane County Circuit Judge Michael Nowakowski, the county's chief judge, either.

Nowakowski was assigned the Green Elections Board case, but Green has asked for a substitution.

UPDATE: Green gets a new judge.

Madison - Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess has been assigned the court fight by Mark Green, the Republican candidate for governor, against an Elections Board order that his campaign divest itself of $467,844 in donations from out-of-state political action committees.

Dane County Circuit Judge Michael Nowakowski withdrew as the first judge assigned to Green's case. The request for a new judge reflected concern that Nowakowski, as chief Dane County judge, has such a full calendar that he may not be able to consider the case quickly.

When they sued last Friday, Green's lawyers said they plan to seek a temporary injunction forbidding the Elections Board from carrying out its order to divest the $467,844. The Board gave the Green campaign 10 days to divest itself of the money -- a deadline that a state Justice Department attorney said ends at midnight Monday.

Green gets a new judge, and a new spin from the JS, which says Nowakowski withdrew. Actually, Green filed for the substitution, asking that Nowakowski be replaced, claiming Green was worried Nowakowski was too busy. Nowakowski did not "withdraw."

But Doyle appointed Niess, just like he appointed some of the members of the Elections Board. Hmmmm, now what?

What's next? The Scott Jensen change of venue request, because there are too many Democrats in Dane County?

UPDATE: A lawyer who's watching the case offers this:

Green not only sued to kill the order of the SEB but he also sued for money damages and attorney’s fees and for violating his Constitutional Rights. This could back fire since he is bringing up issues other then the SEB order. The SEB could serve Green and Graul with Discovery, including to take their depositions.

This could turn into a 3 Ring Circus with questions about political donations to Green’s campaign including tickets to sporting events and concerts from Jack Abramoff.

Remember what happended to Clinton when he had to give a videotaped deposition?

Then there's this from Green's PR man Steve Walters of the JS:

Green sued all but one on board

Madison - Trivia question: Which of the nine state Elections Board members was not sued by the Mark Green for Governor campaign?

Answer: Patrick Hodan, law partner of the two lawyers, Dan Millis and Daniel Kelly, who filed the suit late Friday.

The suit asks a Dane County judge to stop the board from enforcing its order to return $467,844 in donations to Green's federal campaign from out-of-state political action committees. Those donations were part of $1.3 million Green moved from his federal campaign fund to his state account, to jump start his campaign for governor, in January 2005.

Because he is a partner in the same firm with Millis and Kelly, Hodag recused himself when the Elections Board voted to order the Green campaign to divest the $647,844 on Aug. 30. Four Democrats and Libertarian Party board member Jacob Burns voted for the order; Republican board members John C. Schober and John Savage sided with Green.

The omission of Hodan from the list of defendants is even more curious because the Supreme Court designee on the board, David Anstaett, missed the Aug. 30 meeting -- and got sued anyway by the Green campaign.

Looks like Don Millis may have a conflict of interest and may have to cease representing Green.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Judge Niess has scheduled a pre-trial conference for Sept. 21.

Next: Marriage to dead cows?

A debate on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at Northshore Presbyterian Church, 4048 N. Bartlett Ave., sponsored by Grassroots Northshore.

Rick Esenberg and Pastor Reed Heckmann will argue the pro-amendment case, with Attorney Lester Pines and Rev. Drew Kennedy will be arguing against it.

I don't know anything about the two ministers, but the attorneys involved are certain to offer some reasoned arguments, unlike those made by Julaine Appling of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, who says that a defeat of the amendment will lead not just to same-sex marriage, but legalized polygamy and group-marriage.

"Right behind (the homosexuals) are standing the polygamists,"she said, according to the LaCrosse Tribune.

And right behind the polygamists, no doubt, are standing those who want to practice bestiality. And behind them, the necrophiliacs.

First thing you know, it will be legal for a Wisconsinite to marry a cow or a corpse. Or a dead cow.

I think you'll hear more lucid arguments Wednesday night.

The world according to Zogby

It's no secret what I think of Zogby polls. Ask President Kerry about them.

But, for the record, Governor Jim Doyle leads Congressman Mark Green 49.4%-45.7% in a new Zogby/Wall Street Journal poll.

No poll in the world can give you accurate numbers with tenths of a per cent; that is a joke. Any pollster who claims that kind of precision is a fraud. Zogby says its margin of error is plus/minus 3.5%, and in truth it is probably much higher, given their use of online respondents. But even using their number, that is a potential swing of 7% from the numbers they report.

Nonetheless, with a 3.5% margin of error, Zogby said Doyle has "lost ground" since their last poll. Doyle led by 6.5% last time and 3.6% now. That's well within the margin of error.

Doyle's under the magic 50%, it's true. But Zogby says Sen. Herb Kohl only has 50.3%, to 35.5% for Robert Gerald Lorge. If you believe that, I'd like to make a small wager on the November election with you.

Meanwhile, Doyle can celebrate that he's only a point behind Kohl, not a bad place to be.

Clearly, this exercise is worthless -- just like the poll.

Election eve silliness

ELECTION NIGHT UPDATES here.

---

I was out all day and seldom answer the phone anyway until I know who it is, but I missed a lot of autocalls. Seven and counting, so far, from: Tommy Thompson (for Van Hollen), Scot Ross, Kathleen Falk, Herb Kohl, Paul Bucher, Jeff Plale, and Larraine McNamara-McGraw.

The Republicans may want to check their list.

Add another just now from a live volunteer for Herb Kohl, the first real, live political call all day.

[AFTERWORD: I intended to say that I don't think autocalls are effective for persuasion, at least not when they come in bunches on the day before the election. I have received a few over a period of weeks from Falk, which may be a better tactic. I do think calls are a cheap way to remind people to vote on Tuesday, by placing calls during the day so they get the reminder when they get home. But that calls for a targeted list of people you expect to vote for you, or, in the general election, to wards that vote heavily for your party.]

[UPDATE: Forgot to mention emails today from Scot Ross, Kathleen Falk, Jeff Plale, Peg Lautenschlager, Bill Elliott, Steve Kagen, and John Chisholm.]

---

MacMac (Larraine McNamara-McGraw to the uninitiated) has broken new political ground with a revolutionary strategy -- introducing a totally new message in her campaign for Milwaukee County DA on the day before the election. In both her call and the mail that came today, she says the DA's budget is $16.5-million and asks whether we're getting our money's worth.

If she thinks that's a winning issue, perhaps she should have raised it a little earlier. She's never mentioned it before. Ironically, MacMac was known to be part of the Spendthrift Caucus on Milwaukee's City Council when she was an East Side alderoid.

Way too little, way too late.

UPDATE: Because I live in Milwaukee, I didn't get the MacMac autocall pitting suburbs against the city, but Jim McGuigan did. There must have been a different message for each suburb, suggesting, I guess, that they weren't getting their fair share of service. The way to rectify that would be to distribute crime more equally across the county.

---

Apparently, the Republican AG's race is over. Stacy Forster of the Journal Sentinel reports:

Candidates send out last-minute messages

Madison -- Republican attorney general candidate Paul Bucher sent a Web ad to a half a million supporters ahead of tomorrow's primary election.

The ad, which was shown at the state Republican Party convention in May, features people involved in prominent Waukesha County cases that Bucher handled as district attorney reflecting on their experiences with him, said his campaign manager Davin Fischer...

Bucher's primary opponent, former U.S. Attorney J.B. Van Hollen, sent nearly 300,000 pieces of mail over the weekend to the homes of 150,000 Republican primary voters, said his campaign spokesman Brian Fraley.

Considering that there probably won't be 500,000 total votes cast in the GOP primary, Bucher's in great shape if he has "a half a million supporters."

--John Sherffius via Cagle. (Click to enlarge)

McBride, not Sykes, the brains of the outfit?

Boy, was I wrong.

All this time, I've been thinking that Charlie Sykes was Jessica McBride's Svengali, dominating her brain waves and guiding her thoughts.

It turns out that Jessica and Charlie's brains are linked, but she's the one who sets the tone. He just follows along.

How else to explain these two posts? Note that Jessica's came more than 12 hours before Charlie's. McBride:

SATURDAY, Sept. 9, 2006, 11:47 p.m.
Thought on Eugene Kane

He's written a column on Sheriff David Clarke that is somewhat on the mark. What's up with Kane? He's making far more sense these days. But a thought occurred to me after reading this paragraph:

In a time when the black community is reeling from senseless violence, dysfunctional social behavior and abhorrent mob behavior, Clarke's consistent "law and order" mantra is appealing to many blacks who appreciate the message regardless which party it's coming from.

If anyone else said the first part of this sentence, including David Clarke and "right wing radio", Kane would criticize them harshly for it. Guess he's the only one he allows to deliver the message

And now Sykes:

SUNDAY, Sept. 10, 2006, 1:33 p.m.
BACKWARD REELS THE MIND

In the even-a-blind-squirrel category today:

The JS edit board endorses Sheriff David Clarke, calling him a "change agent."

Even more mind-reeling, a sympathetic column on Clarke by Eugene Kane that includes this:

In a time when the black community is reeling from senseless violence, dysfunctional social behavior and abhorrent mob behavior, Clarke's consistent "law and order" mantra is appealing to many blacks who appreciate the message regardless which party it's coming from.

Senseless violence? Dysfunctional social behavior?

Isn't that exactly the kind of rhetoric that Kane dislikes so much when it comes from "right wing" talk radio?

Or is it now OK to say, now that Kane has noticed what's happening? In any case, it's an intriguing (and somewhat surprising) column.

What do you think? Brain link? Plagiarism? Or do talk radio minds simply think alike?

Can't wait to see what Jeff Wagner says.

Don't bother me with the facts

Dick Cheney was in top form on Meet the Press. WashPost reports:

During the interview, Cheney continued to make the argument that there was a relationship between Hussein and al-Qaeda going back at least a decade before the U.S. invasion. He asserted that the now-deceased al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan and "set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02 and was there from then, basically, until basically the time we launched into Iraq."

But a newly declassified report released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee found that the Central Intelligence Agency, by October 2005, had debunked the idea that there was any pre-war relationship between Zarqawi and Hussein's government. The report said the CIA assessment concluded that the government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."

Cheney said he had not read the report.

And doesn't intend to, either.

GOP getting down, dirty and personal

This won't come as news to people in Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District, where Reppublicans are running personal attack ads against one of the Democrats, Steve Kagen, even before the primary.

That attack is part of a larger strategy to go after Democrats not on their voting records but on whatever sort of personal dirt they've been able to find, the WashPost reports:

In a Pivotal Year, GOP Plans to Get Personal
Millions to Go to Digging Up Dirt on Democrats

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall. The first round of attacks includes an ad that labeled a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin "Dr. Millionaire" and noted that he has sued 80 patients.

"Opposition research is power," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), the NRCC chairman. "Opposition research is the key to defining untested opponents."

And, yes, before the comments come from the army of trolls who are my faithful readers, I've been known to run a negative ad or two in my time. I'm not passing judgment here, just reporting the facts.

One big happy GOP family

Body language says a lot.

New Republican State Chairman Brad Courtney talks about the two GOP candidates foe attorney general in Tuesday's primary. That's Paul Bucher, center, looking like he's in a straitjacket,and J.B. Van Hollen smiling at right.

If you'd like to see more photos from the Washington County brat fry, Owen Robinson's got 'em.

Considering Paddy Mac's source

Sometimes this is just too easy.

Patrick McIlheran, the Journal Sentinel's home-grown conservative columnist, suggests Sunday that requiring photo ID cards will increase voter turnout.

Here's how Paddy Mac describes his source for that remarkable claim:

John R. Lott Jr. suggests otherwise. He's an economist who raised eyebrows some years ago with data showing that more legal gun possession can reduce crime. He published a paper last month looking for effects from voter-ID requirements.

Lott, the National Rifle Association's favorite scholar, certainly has raised some eyebrows. He has quite a national reputation -- as a fraud.

An editor's commentary from Science magazine summarizes the situation pretty well:

Here is John Lott: ex-University of Chicago Law School, now at the American Enterprise Institute. His book More Guns, Less Crime claims that on 98% of the occasions in which citizens use guns defensively, the mere production of a weapon causes the criminal to desist. These data were allegedly based on some 2000 interviews conducted by Lott himself. But when pushed for the survey data, Lott gave a hauntingly familiar explanation: His hard drive had been destroyed in a computer crash. Apparently the dogs in this controversy eat everyone's homework.

Wait. It gets even funnier. As the debate over gun laws spilled over from the scholarly journals to the Internet, Lott was defended passionately by a persistent ally named Mary Rosh. She attacked Lott's academic critics, including John Donohue of Stanford Law School, claiming in one posting that Lott had been the "best professor I ever had." Alas for Lott and his case, Mary Rosh now turns out to be -- John Lott!

There is an entire Who is Mary Rosh? website devoted to all things John Lott. It's filled with highly entertaining stories about John Lott, and his fan, Mary Rosh. Here's a snippet from the August 2006 issue of Chicago magazine:

...Lott also stirred controversy by examining crime in the United States, turning econometrics toward the question of whether gun-control laws really reduced violent crime. His conclusion—that gun-packing communities were safer—set off howls of protest from gun-control advocates. Critics attacked Lott’s research as technically flawed if not bogus, and he has been defending himself against such charges ever since.

Lott has had to defend himself over an embarrassing gambit, too. In 2001, somebody named Mary Rosh began posting on online forums, gushing over Lott as a writer and teacher: “I had him for a PhD level empirical methods class when he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania back in the early 1990s, well before he gained national attention,” Rosh wrote, for example, “and I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had.” This was posted in, of all places, a chat room about the TV show The West Wing (an episode dealt with gun politics).

The writer with this high regard for John Lott turned out to be . . . John Lott. “Mary Rosh” was an alias derived from the first names of Lott’s sons, Maxim, Ryan, Roger, and Sherwin. Julian Sanchez, a blogger at the libertarian Cato Institute, busted Lott, and The Washington Post broke the story in February 2003. “I probably shouldn’t have done it—I know I shouldn’t have done it—but it’s hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously,” Lott told the Post. He later wrote on his Web site, “I had originally used my own name in chat rooms but switched after receiving threatening and obnoxious telephone calls from other Internet posters.”

Lott has his own blog, which Sunday featured a post and link to McIlheran's column. A mutual admiration society -- Lott, Rosh, and McIlheran. Mary John is moderating comments, so don't bother trying to raise these questions.

Drunk driving arrest is fair game

Scott Milfred of the Wisconsin State Journal says it is Peg Lautenschlager, not her opponents, who made drunk driving an issue in this campaign. He's right.

And it's not just her mistake and arrest, but many of the details and unanswered questions about the incident, and how she handled it, that make it a legitimate issue to raise. He writes:

The race for attorney general is not about incumbent Peg Lautenschlager's drunken driving conviction.

It's much more about the details surrounding the conviction, her failure to come clean, and what it all says about her character.

And as much as the drunken driving incident has exposed Lautenschlager in her re-election bid, it's also being used to try to shield her from legitimate criticism.

First the facts:

Lautenschlager isn't just another drunken driver in the state that made beer famous. For one thing, Lautenschlager wasn't drinking beer. She has long stuck to her story -- the one police hear all the time -- that she only had two glasses of wine.

Yet her preliminary breath test that fateful night in 2004 suggested her blood alcohol level was about 0.12 percent -- well above the legal limit for driving.

Breath tests can be off. That's why police take blood tests of drivers suspected of drinking too much. But Lautenschlager refused to take a blood test, another violation of the law by the person who is supposed to be the state's top law enforcer.

Another key point: While many state residents have been busted for boozing behind the wheel, very few have done so in their boss' car. And in Lautenschlager's case, her boss just so happens to be the people of Wisconsin.

Lautenschlager also drove her employer's car into a ditch and damaged it while drunk. She delayed talking in detail to the public about the incident, refusing to take any questions at a press conference.

Then her bosses, the people of Wisconsin, found out she had been commuting a long way in her state car to work without reimbursing her boss like she was supposed to. So she had to pay a fine and reimburse the expense.

Then the people of Wisconsin learned about other minor damage to her state car. In addition, her husband had been driving it and signing state gas card receipts - charging as much as $66 for a car wash and cleaning.

To no one's surprise, other candidates for attorney general this fall have pointed to Lautenschlager's poor judgement and mistakes.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who is running against Lautenschlager in Tuesday's Democratic primary, simply states in a TV ad: "Our state's top cop convicted of drunken driving in a state car, fined for misuse of the car by the (state) Ethics Board."

Falk could have used police video from Lautenschlager's arrest. But Falk didn't.

Republican candidate for attorney general Paul Bucher also has focused on Lautenschlager's drunken driving conviction in a radio ad. He notes Lautenschlager has admitted she made a terrible mistake, "But a mistake stops being your own business when it takes away your ability or your desire to lead on an issue as serious as drunken driving."

Bucher, Waukesha County's district attorney, then criticizes Lautenschlager in his ad for failing to support tougher penalties for first-time drunken drivers who cause most fatal and serious alcohol-related crashes.

The other GOP candidate in Tuesday's primary is former federal prosecutor J.B. Van Hollen.

Lautenschlager apologists have tried to argue that merely bringing up Lautenschlager's drunken driving conviction and all that goes with it is akin to dirty campaigning. They're trying to turn Lautenschlager's biggest negative into a positive. If an opponent so much as mentions drunken driving, the spin goes, that opponent is being unfair and cruel.

I don't think so.

To repeat: This is the state's top law enforcer who broke the law. That's obviously an appropriate issue in the race.

If Democrats in Tuesday's primary want to forgive Lautenschlager for her conviction, her poor handling of its aftermath and subsequent mistakes, so be it.

But don't blame Falk or Bucher for making legitimate points about a mess that Lautenschlager alone created.

How's that again?

WisPolitics reports on a sparsely-attended gun nut sportsmen's meeting sponsored by Uber Nut Bob Dohnal, where Congressman Mark Green waxed eloquent about guns:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green, who was the keynote speaker at the conference, said that without concealed carry legislation law-abiding hunters are having their rights infringed upon.

“The fact is, that we have a tremendous amount of sportsmen in this state, including myself, who are law-abiding and feel safer with guns,” said Green. “As long as we have a conceal carry law in effect, we will be able to help educate people more about guns and we will be able to provide more training.”

Hunters are infringed on? Because they can't stick a rifle down their pantleg, or what?

And what exactly is it that prevents people from being educated about guns or trained to use them now?

No comment comes a little late

You gotta love this response to the Journal Sentinel, which asked all of the AG candidates whether they would continue to pursue investigations of the Doyle administration:

Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, Democrat: I will not comment on ongoing investigations.

She should have added: Ask my top lawyer, Mike Bauer. He's happy to talk, especially when there's some political advantage to be gained.

Until the Lautenschlager-Bauer regime, the practice in the State Dept. of Justice had always been not to comment on investigations, or even to confirm whether one was underway.

Quote, unquote

“The president has basically said: I’ll agree to let a court decide if I’m breaking the law if you pass a law first that says I’m not breaking the law.”

--Sen. Russ Feingold on Bush's warrantless wiretap bill, which Feingold stalled.

Runnin' Reynolds fleeing another debate?

Camera-shy State Sen. Tom Reynolds, who was a no-show at a debate last month because video cameras weren't banned, and he was afraid they would catch him looking/saying something stupid, is well on the way to doing it again.

Reynolds and his opponent, Wauwatosa Alderman Jim Sullivan, had agreed some time back to debate at St. Therese Catholic Church, 9525 W. Bluemound Rd., on Thursday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. Other congregations are co-sponsors.

At Reynolds' insistence, the Sullivan campaign agreed that it would not videotape the debate, and would not use video from the event in campaign commercials. That is spelled out in a letter from David McGinnis, who is organizing the event, to the candidates:

"In order to deal with Senator Reynolds' concerns, we have all agreed that the two campaigns will not videotape the event. And the campaigns have agreed that any video that might be taken at the event will not be used in campaign ads," the letter says.

"We cannot prohibit all taping," McGinnis wrote, "in part because of modern technology. We cannot and will not confiscate cell phones with video capability, nor are we in a position to issue press credentials. This provision, however, would seem to address Mr. Reynolds' concerns."

Well, guess again. Reynolds is now telling the organizers that unless they ban all video and audio taping during the show, we will not participate.

That is sheer lunacy. But you'd expect lunacy from a lunatic, so maybe it shouldn't be surprising.

What is surprising is that any elected official, no matter how far out in orbit he might be, would take the position that no one can record what he has to say at a public event -- an event at which he is appearing because he is asking people to reelect him to office.

Sullivan's campaign and the sponsors already have gone the extra mile. There is no good reason Sullivan shouldn't be able to use what Reynolds says in a commercial. But if he's willing to agree to that to get Reynolds to come out of his hole, that's his decision.

I hope the organizers will stand up to Reynolds' threats and go ahead with the event, whether he decides to show up or not. Sullivan and Reynolds' empty chair at the last event sent a message to voters. A repeat performance would simply reinforce the message that their State Senator is too paranoid to tell them why they should vote for him.

Let the forum proceed. If it does, I predict there will be some cameras there. And that Reynolds will be a no-show, bringing himself one step closer to a well-deserved defeat in November.

UPDATE: Gretchen Schuldt on that wacky Reynolds crowd. The Spice Boys have more on the debate debate.

Green stem cell plan: 2 thumbs down

The editorial pages of the state's two largest-circulation newspapers are usually on opposite sides politically. But both agree that Congressman Mark Green's transparently political stem cell proposal is a bad idea.

The conservative Wisconsin State Journal says, Don't waste green on Green's scheme:

Green wants to pour $25 million of state money into risky, unnecessary research that could actually slow efforts to boost medical understanding and treatments.

Green cannot escape the fact that he is on the wrong side of the embryonic stem cell debate. And in the heat of this election year, he's looking for a way to embrace the popular and promising science without offending an increasingly narrow slice of active and outspoken, socially- conservative supporters.

And the liberal (remember, we're talking editorial pages) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says:

Editorial: Green's near-empty proposal

... Green's proposal to use $25 million in state money to finance research to look for procedures in which embryos will not be destroyed appears overly optimistic and possibly unrealistic. Green is basing his plan on the announcement by scientists at a California company that they extracted cells from embryos using a technique sometimes employed in genetic screening. But the excitement over that announcement has since been muted because all the embryos were destroyed in the process of the research and the scientists simply extrapolated their findings.

But as stem cell researchers and others point out, the techniques cited by the California company as yet are far from viable and thus require far more work and time. In the meantime, the embryonic stem cell research already taking place at UW and other labs around the country is at a distinct disadvantage because of limits imposed by Bush in 2001 blocking federal funding for new embryonic stem cell lines.

Green has disappointingly voted in favor of continuing those restrictions. What's more, one of the congressman's campaign aides said this week that, despite Green's new plan, he still opposes the use of any new taxpayer money for research in which embryos are destroyed. That condition applies, the aide said, even to research looking for ways to save the embryos. Considering the experience in California, that may prove to be a tough hurdle for researchers to overcome, at least initially.

Thanks in part to Green, scientists already have a big enough hurdle to clear - the ban on new federal funding...

Why Repubs try to suppress the vote

Political Wire:

GOP Hopes Rest on Low Turnout

White House strategists see low November turnout blunting Democrats’ edge in polls," according to Washington Wire. "In nearly all 2006 primaries so far, turnout has fallen below 1982-2002 midterm average. One exception: above-average participation in Connecticut’s Senate primary nominating antiwar Democrat Lamont over incumbent Lieberman."

Hotline On Call: "The key to analyzing this trend properly, we think, is to remember that for Dems to retake control of the House, they'll need high turnout only in four or so states with several House race toss-ups each (Ohio, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania).... as well as high turnout in about a dozen other districts. Unless they're going to pick up the Senate, too, Dems probably don't necessarily need a higher share of the two party vote nationwide."

I stand corrected; Bucher decides

I predicted Waukesha DA Paul Bucher wouldn't make a decision until after Tuesday's AG primary about whether to prosecute a police officer who killed a suspect with a taser gun.

I was wrong: Bucher won't prosecute.

If this were Milwaukee DA Mike McCann, Jessica McBride Bucher would be calling for his scalp.

Quote, unquote

“It’s a pretty extraordinary day when a member of the U.S. Congress goes to court to endorse the idea that he doesn’t have to follow Wisconsin laws."

-- Anson Kaye of Jim Doyle's campaign, on Congressman Mark Green's court challenge to the State Election Board's order to return $467,000 in illegal special interest money.

--Steve Kelley, New Orleans Times-Picayune, via Cagle.

Pollster just makes it up

I have a couple of others someone should investigate.

Pollster Pleads Guilty to Fraud

The Associated Press

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.

Tracy Costin pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Costin, 46, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when she is sentenced Nov. 30.

As part of her plea agreement, Costin agreed to repay $82,732 to the unidentified clients for 11 jobs between June 2002 and May 2004. DataUSA is now known as Viewpoint USA.

According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys.

An FBI affidavit from 2004 quotes a supervisor of the company estimating that 50 percent of the data sent to Bush's campaign was falsified. FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli, who wrote the affidavit, said Thursday that investigators were not able to verify the claim related to Bush because that data was not located and analyzed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.

Hat tip: Political Wire.

Waukesha tries end run to Lake Michigan water

The City of Waukesha covets Lake Michigan water, but 20-year-old federal law and a US-Canada compact agreement both make it near impossible for Waukesha to pipe in the 20-24 million gallons of water daily it wants.

That's because Waukesha is outside the Great Lakes basin, and disposes of its wastewater in the Fox River, meaning a diversion of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha would end up as a net loss to Lake Michigan.

Because existing federal law and the US-Canada compact say that all eight Great Lakes states' governors have to approve diversions of water out of the Great Lakes basin, a diversion plan by Waukesha is probably dead on arrival.

Michigan's governor in June blocked a much smaller diversion plan filed by the City of New Berlin, and that included returning treated wastewater to the lake.

So while Waukesha searches for new water sources, and is finally pushing conservation after decades of over-pumping its existing wells, it has come up with a new strategy to get more water while it continues to annex property and push sprawl and job creation farther from Milwaukee's labor force and built economy:

The strategy: Claim that Waukesha isn't really outside the Great Lakes basin after all and thus is already grandfathered as a user of Lake Michigan water.

And can have the water it wants with only a simple permit filing with the Wisconsin DNR and without making an application for review and approval by the other governors under either the compact or federal law.

Jim Rowen uncovered the strategy in documents provided by the Waukesha Water Utility, and suggest that if Waukesha doesn't get its way, litigation could result.

You can read the records here .

Doyle drops in vulnerability ranking

Wisconsin drops two more notches on the list of governorships most likely to change parties in November.

The weekly list by the WashPost's Chris Cillizza now has Wisconsin at #11, down from #9 last week.

Says Cillizza: "Doyle is still vulnerable, but he seems to have righted the ship."

Meanwhile, Minnesota makes its first appearance on the list at #15, with Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty in some trouble.

Green's extreme abortion position

Abortion rights seems to have disappeared from the political discourse in the Wisconsin governor's race, no doubt to the relief of Extreme Mark Green. Green wants the anti-choice people to know he's one of them, but would rather not have the general public realize how extreme he is on the issue.

A Des Moines Register story offers a reminder:

Nussle asserts he'd outlaw all abortions in Iowa
'I am not for an exception for rape and incest,' he says. He would permit use for saving mothers' lives.

Boone, Ia. -- Republican Jim Nussle said Wednesday he would sign legislation as governor banning all abortions in Iowa, except those that would save the life of the mother.

Democrats had accused the Manchester congressman of trying to soften his position on the social issue.

It reassured social conservatives made nervous by reports that Nussle would consider keeping abortion legal and prompted sharp criticism from Democrat gubernatorial nominee Chet Culver, who has said he would block attempts to restrict access to abortions.

Nussle's position sets him apart from most GOP candidates in states with competitive races for governor, coming at a time when regulation of abortion could be handed back to the states if Roe vs. Wade is overturned...

Among Republicans running in competitive gubernatorial races, only U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Wisconsin shares Nussle's position.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported in April:

Green wants to revive Wisconsin's criminal abortion statute, which banned all abortions except those to save the life of the mother and exposed doctors who performed abortions to prison time. The law remains on the books but hasn't been enforceable since a 1970 federal court ruling, three years before the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade.

The question for Green, which no one has asked, is would he sign an abortion ban? It seems pretty clear the answer is yes, but that should be on the record before voters choose a governor on Nov. 6. It is not just a hypothetical question, as new laws in South Dakota and Louisiana have demonstrated. It's too important to let Green have a pass.

UPDATE: Brew City Brawler says the Journal Sentinel needs to ask Green a few more questions, instead of just printing the pap he provides to their "Issue of the Day."

Cute GOP trick may undermine Green's case

So the Republican Party says it will file a complaint with the State Elections Board against Tom Barrett, who moved his money from a federal campaign to his governor's campaign in 2001, with the blessings -- or at least the non-enforcement -- of the elections board.

Well, swell. Maybe I should sign on. I tried in 2000 to do something about it, and the Doyle campaign tried again in 2001.

I certainly welcome the idea that at the same time Congressman Green is in court, arguing that it is perfectly legal for him to keep the $468,000 in dirty federal PAC money, that Green's party will be filing a complaint arguing that it's illegal.

I'm no lawyer, as any number of lawyers will attest, but it seems to me that might tend to undermine Green's case just a tad.

Here's the story on the GOP's latest lunacy. I say, Bring it on!

GOP complains about Barrett's cash move

Madison - Republican Party of Wisconsin officials said today they will file a formal complaint with the state Elections Board that makes this point: If Mark Green's transfer of $1.3 million from his Congressional account to his state campaign fund in 2005 was illegal, so was a similar move of more than $700,000 by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in 2001.

In 2001, Barrett -- like Green today -- was a member of Congress campaigning for governor. He lost the Democratic primary to Gov. Jim Doyle, however, who is being challenged by Green on Nov. 7.

Last week, the state Elections Board ordered that Green's campaign divest itself of $467,844 in political action committee donations from groups not registered in Wisconsin. The $467,844 was part of the $1.3 million the Republican candidate moved to his state campaign account one day before the Elections Board changed the rules to say only money given by Wisconsin PACs can be used by candidates for governor.

The Green campaign continued today to study whether to sue first to block the board's order, or wait and respond when the state Justice Department tries to enforce the order.

In a statement, the GOP said it wants the Elections Board to use the standard it set in the Green case to reconsider its approval of the Barrett transfer.

UPDATE: Speaking of cute tricks, AG Peg Lautenschlager either is blinded by politics or doesn't know the first thing about campaign finance laws, based on this totally bogus story:

Lautenschlager accuses Falk of improper campaign donations

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- State Justice Department attorneys have agreed to represent the state Elections Board as it tries to force Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to give up $468,000 in campaign donations the board contends were illegally transferred.

But Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said she won't handle any day-to-day decisions in the matter because the board's actions might affect the finances of her opponent in Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Lautenschlager's campaign on Thursday accused Kathleen Falk of improperly moving about $3,500 from her campaign fund as the Dane County executive to her attorney general fund...

He insisted Falk has done nothing wrong. State law governs contributions to the county account, rendering it a state account that was simply renamed for her attorney general race, Collins said.

"Every single one of these contributions were and are legal," Collins said. "She's just trying to get herself a nice story."

Spokesmen for the state Ethics Board and state Elections Board also said Falk's transfer of funds did not appear to involve any rule violations.

That's because Lautenschlager is trying to compare apples and kumquats. The issue with Green is moving federal PAC money from a federal account to a state account. State candidates who choose to run for another, higher state office -- a state rep for state senator, AG for governor, alderman for mayor, etc -- simply change the name of their committees, since the money they raised was already done under state campaign rules. If Lautenschlager doesn't know that, she should find another job.

Doyle still up by 9 in new poll

Another poll with Doyle's lead in the high single digits.

Will we get a new one tomorrow morning from Republican Strategic Vision, saying it's a tie? That's what happened last time WISC-TV released an independent poll.

JS Daywatch:

Latest poll says Doyle up 49%-40%

Madison - A poll this week of 600 likely voters in the Nov. 7 election for governor gave incumbent Democrat Jim Doyle a 49%-to-40% lead over Republican challenger Mark Green.

Green Party candidate Nelson Eisman got 1% of the vote; the rest of those surveyed were undecided in the poll by Research 2000 that was paid for by WISC-TV. The Sept. 5-7 telephone survey had a margin of error of 4%.

The new poll gave Doyle about the same lead as a station's last poll in mid-August. Then, Doyle had a 48%-38% margin over Green, who represents northeast Wisconsin in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The new poll said Doyle's important "favorable" rating was 51%, a 3% gain from August -- a gain influenced by Doyle's TV ads. Green's approval rating in the new poll was 37%, a 2% drop since August. But one out of every three likely voters polled said they had no opinion of Green -- a sign that he is still much less known.

Other trends in the new WISC-TV poll: Doyle was slightly more popular with women respondents, and had a 2-to-1 lead -- 59% to 27% -- over Green in Madison, the governor's home town. Green's biggest support came from his Green Bay-area neighbors, where he only trailed Doyle by a 41% to 46% margin.

Doyle lead Green 53% to 36% among Milwaukee-area voters. Milwaukee County voters cast 15% of the statewide vote for governor four years ago.

Despite the way it's reported, the breakdown is by region, not city. Madison includes much of southern Wisconsin, and Green Bay much of the northeast.

What makes TV news special?

Excuse me, but what is the big deal about the Doyle campaign using some short clips from two Madison newscasts in its latest commercial? (See it here.)

The stations are unhappy, although they have no legal recourse, and the media are covering it like it's news.

How many political spots do you see every day that feature newspaper clippings or headlines as part of the visuals?

They are there for a reason; it's called independent or third party verification that the claims made in the spot are true.

The newspapers are used to it. Using them as sources is perfectly legitimate.

What is it about a TV newscast that makes it so special or different? What better verification than to have it come right from the mouth of a news anchor?

One news director says it makes it look like the news anchors are endorsing Doyle. That's just nonsense. When the spots use a newspaper, do people think the paper is endorsing the candidate? Of course not.

Do people prefer it when spots feature a phony news format, to make it look like a newscast, as a recent negative spot by Watergate thug Steve King's Coalition for America's Families did?

Give me a break. Get over it. And stop the whining. Unless the argument is that TV news is not really news.

Green's favorite scientist gets grilled

While Congressman Mark Green reaches for a perceived lifeline to keep his campaign from drowning in the stem cell research issue, a Republican U. S. Senator who -- unlike Green -- actually supports the research "lashed out" at the scientist who reported the new "breakthrough" that Green has grabbed onto. The WashPost has the story.

Quote, unquote

"When you’re caught breaking the law, it takes truly stunning audacity to announce that it proves your opponent is corrupt."

-- Joel McNally, in a Shepherd Express column on Congressman Mark Green, the State Elections Board, and illegal PAC money.

Molly, Owen share Aggie pride

Don't tell proud Texas Aggie Owen Robinson of Boots and Sabers, but he and radical, ribald, rabble-rousing Molly Ivins are now fellow alums. I'll let Molly tell it:

I know it's bad form to brag, but I am now a graduate of Texas A&M University, and you can't stop Aggie pride. I became a diplomee of the great institution in College Station after successfully completing the three-day short course in beef cattle this summer. I specialized in forage management and graduated "Quel fromage!" meaning "avec distinction."

It is also true that I was banned from the campus of Texas A&M many years ago after some students invited me to make a political speech. Also Quel Fromage! So you see how far we have all come.

The most amazing part of cow college was meeting the cow whisperer. Think of everything you know about moving cattle from one place to another -- for shots, round-up or loading into trucks for market -- just physically moving a lot of cattle. GEE, GIT ON, GO DOGIE, whistle, whip crack, move 'em out, chase 'em down. Turns out all these years we've been doing it wrong.

What happens when you scare a cow by making a lot of noise and chasing it down and forcing it to move where it doesn't want to go is the cow responds by relieving itself. And since a cow has three stomachs, it can unload up to 20 percent of its total weight at one go, the last thing you want just before you take it to market to sell.

So the latest thing in cattle handling is cow whispering (I'm not making this up -- this is straight from A&M). Either on foot or horseback, you just kind of sidle around your herd without upsetting them, talk to them gently and suggest they might like to go THAT way for a while, and then perhaps a tour along the pen line, and then perhaps some consideration of the gate and another little tour of the pen line. But all of this is done without loud noise, sudden movements or eruptions of testosterone. It's such a revolutionary development of an American macho tradition it's a little like watching NFL teams come onto the field in tutus. But it also works a lot better on the cows.

If you want to know about Cow Whisperers Against the War, read the rest here.

Mark Green's grassy knoll theory

Cory Liebmann of One Wisconsin Now on the theory that Jim Doyle was the lone gunman who shot down Mark Green's illegal PAC transfer:

... [T]hings that you must believe if you accept right wing conspiracy theories regarding the recent ruling by the state Elections Board.

You must believe that the NON-PARTISAN Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is somehow a tool of a Governor that they have repeatedly criticized.

It was reported that the Libertarian member lead the charge on the board, so you must believe that the Democratic Governor somehow has control over the Libertarian Party.

You must believe that even though new members are occasionally appointed, that bodies such as the state Elections Board should never reverse anything that they have ever ruled on in the past.

You must support George Dunst in his current defense of Green's special interest money, while ignoring what Dunst said only a few years ago regarding a similar situation; "the movement of PAC money from federal to state campaign coffers, would require the PACs to be registered in Wisconsin."

You have to believe that the law is relative and only applies when it is convenient and helpful to the people that you agree with

Right to Life shows new flexibility

I guess I owe Wisconsin Right to Life an apology.

I've always thought they were a bunch of hard-line, inflexible zealots.

But it turns out that they are just as capable as any other political group of doing an about-face and totally changing their position if it will help their favorite candidate, Mark Green, a pro-life hero.

Carrie Lynch has the goods.

-- Working for Change. (Click on cartoon to enlarge)

New GOP debate strategy: Duck and cover

Endangered Republican State Senators must be getting some advice from their caucus staffs campaign advisors along the lines of, "We can reduce the chances that you'll l say something stupid if you don't say anything at all."

First it was Tom Reynolds, backing out of a debate with Dem challenger Jim Sullivan for fear that someone would tape him and use his own words against him.

Now it's another GOP crackpot, Dave Zien, who was a no-show for a public radio debate with his primary opponent, Karen Anderson, even though he had agreed to be there. Pat Kreitlow, the Dem candidate, chided Zien, who was reportedly cutting a TV commercial instead of debating.

Zien's no-show was reminiscent of Mark Green campaign manager Mark Graul's failure to show up for a half hour on public radio awhile back.

Is there something about public radio that makes these guys shy, or is it just disdain for the public in general?

'This may sting a little'

Waukesha DA Paul Bucher is tranquilized before his next scheduled debate with J.B. Van Hollen in the Republican attorney general primary. The wire coming out of his head is unexplained, but may be how Jessica McBride implants thoughts in his brain.

Joking aside, it's clear the taser can be a deadly weapon.

UPDATE: Waukesha County inquest juries are just like Milwaukee's. What will Bucher do? Nothing before the primary, I'll bet.

Shameless spin for Green's cynical move

Still reeling from today's top Journal Sentinel headline, in which the paper helps Congressman Mark Green in his cynical attempt to confuse voters on a critical issue that could decide the election, I came upon this from Brew City Brawler,:

JS Spins mightily for Green

Unbelievable. Mark Green, seeing he's getting pounded on the stem cell issue, reaches for a straw and says he's in favor of research to take cells from embryos without destroying them. Even though that the only experiments in this area destroyed the embryos.

How does the JS treat this obvious political trick? By slapping it above the fold on the front page -- without any suggestion, until the jump, that the research Green is clinging to has been a failure. The JS surely knows that a lot of its busy readers often don't look beyond the front page or make it to the jump. And objections to Green's tack from third parties lie near the bottom of the story.

Absolutely contemptible.Unbelievable.

The Brawler suggests Mark Green propose creating a dinsosaur preserve in Northwestern Wisconsin. It would be great for tourism! We could just use that whole clone-dinosaurs-from-DNA-extracted-from-a-mosquito-trapped-in-amber technology we saw in Jurassic Park. That's been as successful as the technique he's embracing on embryonic stem cell research. And the JS will report it as straight news -- and maybe even knock Doyle for lack of vision!

Dream no small dreams!

My sentiments exactly.

Maybe you can fool enough of the people enough of the time, if the newspaper helps you do it.

UPDATE: Michael Mathias says it was not Green's finest hour, but his "no details available" idea was par for the course.

Destroying the embryos in order to save them

Congressman Mark Green, who never met an embryo he didn't like, tried desperately today to get on the right side of the stem cell research issue.

He pledged $25-million to try to find a way to create new stem cells without destroying embryos.

The problem is that the great new breakthrough he wants to fund just admitted that it destroyed all of the embryos in its project.

Dave Diamond asks :

If the research involves destroying embryos in order to figure out how not to destroy embryos, how does that resolve the "ethical dilemma"?

Seth Zlotocha says:

... here's what Wisconsin Right to Life had to say on the topic today: "Amazingly, some researchers are claiming in the wake of this untruthful revelation that if we could just use tax dollars for this unethical research – well, problem solved. How about just discontinuing the unethical research and using adult stem cells which are daily providing real treatments for real people?"

Sounds like a certain GOP candidate we know has some explaining to do.

UPDATE: Carrie Lynch:

Let's just call this what it is and get it over with here Team Green. You found yourself on the losing end of an issue so you compromised your beliefs to try to gain some ground back. Those little clumps of cells are either children being experimented on or they are not.

In the end Congressman Green is using the "suffering" of what the extreme right, and until today Congressman Green himself, called children for his political gain.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brew City Brawler calls it the $25-million embryo.

MacMac rides the Moonbeam Express

-- Stuart Carlson, Journal Sentinel
You certainly have to give Larraine McNamara-McGraw some credit. She not only knows how to get the undercovered Milwaukee County district attorney's race on the front page. She knows how to keep a story alive.

First, she suggested that the police may have shot 13-year-old Candace Moss, a victim of senseless violence. That wild statement at a forum, which had no basis in reality, got her on page one -- and roundly condemned by a lot of responsible people.

Monday, MacMac issued a statement attacking the Journal Sentinel for its reporting, saying her statement was distorted, and then basically repeating it:

The speculative question related to the police was just one among several. And surely a report of some twenty shots makes this question legitimate.

The paper gave her a break with its story today, ignoring most of her inflamatory language, and never mentioning her attack on the newspaper. The bland headline: "DA candidate modifies remarks."

Those who attended the NAACP forum where she made the original remarks say she suggested more than once that the police may have been responsible for the shooting. Vince Bobot, a candidate for sheriff, reportedly responded strongly to MacMac's crazy claim, but was not quoted in the original story. Joel McNally of WMCS Radio moderated the debate, but apparently no reporter bothered to ask him what she said.

Conservative bloggers went after MacMac right away, causing me to speculate about whether my cohorts on the left would give her a pass. Since then, Jim McGuigan has endorsed John Chisholm:

John Chisholm is well qualified to be the next Milwaukee County District Attorney. His opponent, Lorraine McNamara-McGraw opened her maw this weekend to spout ridiculous rhetoric which shows she lacks both common sense and the temperment to be DA.

Timothy Rock comments:

Milwaukee police may have been involved in many disturbing incidents over the past two years, but her comments are extreme pandering for which there is no excuse.

And Michael Mathias joins in, albeit a little halfheartedly. He correctly notes there is a bigger problem than what MacMac said. But a candidate for DA pandering by attacking the police at an NAACP event makes it worse, not better.

The Journal Sentinel endorsed Chisholm today, in a mild editorial clearly written before MacMac boarded the Moonbeam Express. We'll see if they follow up and comment further.

GOP candidate plays the gay card

I am almost left speechless by this news release from a Republican candidate for the Assembly:

SHAWANO, WI: 6th Assembly District Conservative Republican JP Drengler was campaigning Saturday evening at the 125th Shawano County Fair's GOP booth. JP took a moment to deflect criticism of a fellow Republican primary opponent. Drengler's opponent who, though being gay, supports the 'traditional definition' of marriage, as being between one man and one woman. His opponent has stated so in newspaper ads and also during a forum held earlier this week in Shawano.

"I attended grade school with (my opponent) and witnessed first-hand the cruelty some classmates directed toward him. My opponents' marriage position is based on his growing up in a traditional supportive family with a loving mother and father and several siblings." Drengler stated, completely and tactfully disarming his opponents' critics.

"I for one don't understand the gay lifestyle but acknowledge that there are many gay conservatives. They vote based on the issues. Both Ronald Reagan and Governor Arnold 'the governator' Schwarzenegger have reached out to Log Cabin Republicans, seeking support on conservative fiscal issues. I would not expect these fellow Republicans to do anything less than to vote on the 'issues' facing Wisconsin, rather than on one's (sexual) orientation. My opponent though is NOT a conservative, buy any measurement." Drengler states.

Drengler then got to the issues.

The issues being that his opponent is not really a conservative. Did he mention that he's gay (not that he wants anyone to vote based on sexual preference, of course.)

I know nothing about Drengler's opponent or his sexual orientation, nor do I know anything about Drengler or his sexual preference, since he didn't mention it in the release. But, as Drengler put it so well, it's really not relevant, right?

Actually, it appears Spengler has three GOP primary opponents, and he never names a name, just gives enough clues for people to figure it out. Cute, just like the headlne suggesting the release is to "defend" his opponent. (Is Bob Dohnal working in that race?)

One can only hope that conservatives in that district will repudiate this repulsive behavior by Drengler. But I am not holding my breath.

Green: Stem cell conversion, or diversion?

Extreme Congressman Mark Green, who marches to the Right-to-Life drummer on the stem cell research issue, says he has a major accouncement to make Tuesday on stem cell research.

It's one of two things:

1. Green has been struck by lightning on the road to Damascus (one of his 100 stops in 100 days) and is going to do a complete reversal, using a recent breakthrough as the cover. The anti-choice extremists are unlikely to let him do that.

2. More likely, he's going to try to throw up some more dust and smoke, to try to confuse people about the issue and give them the false impression that he is pro-science and pro-research.

Whichever it is, the reason is not in doubt. It's because he's getting his ass kicked on the issue and sees that it could cost him the election.

If that's the case, a big old flip-flop about now won't save him. But don't put it past Green, Mark Graul, and the rest of the Green Team weasels to give it a try.

MacMac self-destructing in DA race

In case you missed it, Larraine McNamara-McGraw, who wants to be Milwaukee County DA,went around the bend Saturday.

The Journal Sentinel reported Sunday in a front page story:

Debate takes unusual turn
Candidate asks if police were involved in girl's shooting

The murder of 13-year-old Candace Moss as she sat in front of a neighbor's house Wednesday devastated a family, terrorized a neighborhood and shocked a city.

But an unexpected chapter was added to the tragedy Saturday when Larraine McNamara-McGraw, a Democratic candidate for Milwaukee County district attorney, asked if police had something to do with the slaying.

"I'm wondering who might have shot this child. The paper (Journal Sentinel) said errant shots or bullets. Is it possible police shot that child?" McNamara-McGraw said during a candidates forum at the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

That wild accusation from someone who wants to be the district attorney? It's a job that calls for judgment, to make decisions that sometimes truly are life and death.

MacMac was playing to the crowd, pandering to an audience that distrusts the police, and rightfully so, based on some bad experiences.

But she went so far over the edge of rational discussion and debate that she has discredited herself as a candidate.

As her opponent, John Chisholm, pointed out, a suspect already has been arrested in the case. It is not a police officer.

I was going to write more, but this email from one Milwaukee police officer says it well:

In today's political climate, I understand why people are more critical of the police. The M.P.D. has had more than its share of bad press lately. I have no problem with strict scrutiny of police actions.

Having said that, it is reckless for Larraine MacNamara-McGraw to publicly suggest the police shot young Candace Moss without a shred of evidence to back up her accusation. You can't accuse a private citizen in such a way, so why take the "errant shot" at the police, Ms. McGraw?

We need a DA who is firmly rooted in common sense and reality. Not some wacko dreaming up conspiracy theories. If she wants to play detective, I suggest she grab some popcorn, sit down and watch Law & Order.

It was MacMac's second bad debate moment this week, although the first pales in comparison to Saturday's outrage.

UPDATE: Dad29, Rick Esenberg, Jessica McBride and Owen Robinson all chime in. Please don't tell me the lefties are going to be silent on this one.

BACKDATE: Jeff Wagner commented on MacMac's candidacy before the latest lunacy.

TUESDAY UPDATE: MacMac rides the Moonbeam Express.

Disclosure: My daughter is running Chisholm's campaign, but I would think MacMac has a loose wire in any case.

Catching up with the news

This front page story in Saturday's Journal Sentinel had a familiar ring to it:

Researcher, grants leaving UW for lack of partner benefits

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is facing a hit to its pocketbook and brainpower after a researcher announced that he is leaving because of the state's refusal to provide domestic partner benefits.

Robert Carpick, an associate engineering physics professor and nanotechnology researcher who has generated $3.4 million in external grants since joining UW-Madison in 2000, informed his boss and colleagues of his decision earlier this summer. He told them the absence of the benefits and the Legislature's push to ban gay marriage were behind his decision to take a job at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn offers same-sex benefits, as do all of the Big 10 universities except Wisconsin.

It seemed like just a week ago that I read about another researcher leaving UW for the same reason.

Turns out it was a week ago, reported on Aug. 25 in The Xoff Files, and on Aug. 24 by the Associated Press

:UW researcher leaves over partner benefits

BY RYAN J. FOLEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MADISON - A promising University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who has won millions of dollars in grants says he is leaving the school, citing its lack of health insurance benefits for his domestic partner.

Rob Carpick, associate professor of engineering, said he will depart for the University of Pennsylvania, which offers domestic partner benefits, at the end of the year. He's taking with him a research portfolio that has won $3.4 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, branches of the U.S. military and private companies since 2000.

Hey, what a coincidence. The guy even has the same name.

The Journal Sentinel, of course, is a member of AP and gets its wire stories. Why wait a week to report it yourself?

-- Jeff Parker, Florida Today, via Cagle.

David Clarke busted

The cover of the current Shepherd Express reprints an order firing David Clarke from the Milwaukee police force in 1983.

That must have been before Clarke, now the righteous, God-fearing Milwaukee County sheriff, got religion. The charges say he was drunk and insubordinate -- something he'd certainly never stand for from one of his deputies. He tries to fire them if their shoes aren't shiny enough (not really, but practically.)

Clarke appealed and kept his job, although he was punished. And the taxpayers probably paid his salary while he appealed.

This would be more clear-cut if Harold Breier hadn't been the police chief, and if Clarke wasn't African-American, at a time when black officers were still being badly treated by the department. But if Clarke thought they were out to get him, he should have been smart enough and disciplined enough not to give them the opportunity. No one claims the charges were trumped-up; he just got the penalty reduced.

It's a front page story in the Shepherd. Will any other news outlet touch it?

So who's rewriting history?

This Elections Board stuff can be confusing.

Congressman Mark Green's campaign, incensed that the board told him this week to follow state law, keeps complaining that then-Congressman Tom Barrett was allowed to transfer his federal money, and Democrats thought that was fine, the Greenies say.

Actually, a check of the record shows:

(1) that George Dunst, the board attorney Green's people now cite as the authoritative source (because he seems to agree with them), said in 2000 exactly what the Elections Board said to Green this week:

You can transfer the money, but it has to comply with state law, and that means the PACs have to be registered in Wisconsin.

(2) that the Doyle campaign, including yours truly, took the same position about Barrett's money as it has taken about Green's money.

Here's the Journal Sentinel report from Nov. 30, 2000. I'll note the pertinent parts for you.

U.S. campaign fund use allowed in state races
Elections Board ruling could be a boost for Barrett

Madison - Politicians may use their federal campaign war chests to run for state office, the state Elections Board ruled Wednesday.

But George Dunst, board legal counsel, warned that he believed candidates using the money would have to follow state law in moving the funds from federal to state campaigns.

The ruling reiterated a 1977 opinion that approved converting federal campaign funds for use in a state campaign.

Two Democrats - Attorney General James Doyle and U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett - wrestled over the issue in advance of the 2002 gubernatorial campaign. Doyle has announced that he will run for governor, and Barrett is considering it.

Doyle's forces questioned whether federal funds should be used for a state campaign, in part hoping to blunt Barrett's ability to use more than $691,000 that was in his federal account as of mid-October.

Bill Christofferson, a Doyle strategist, opposed the wholesale movement of campaign funds, questioning whether the money could be raised under federal law and spent under state law.

Susan Goodwin, another Doyle adviser, told the board that allowing unrestricted movement of the funds would be a "gigantic loophole around state election laws."

She said it runs contrary to state election laws that require full disclosure of contributions from political action committees, some of which might be registered on the federal level but not with the state.

"It allows special-interest money raised in Washington to be transferred to a state race," said Goodwin, whose candidate had $471,892 in the bank on the last reporting date in late July.

But Dunst said the movement of PAC money from federal to state campaign coffers, in his opinion, would require the PACs to be registered in Wisconsin.

Goodwin said the board at least clarified how the funds may be used.

"They seem to be clear that federal money can be transferred in, and any money that is transferred must conform to state law," Goodwin said. "We think the state has good laws that should be applied to state races."

Gregory Everts, an attorney for Barrett, said he was pleased with the ruling.

"We got what we wanted, an affirmation of existing law that's been in effect for 23 years," Everts said.

But Christofferson said that Barrett's ability to convert his federal funds for use in a state campaign could be hampered, if PACs that donated to Barrett choose not to register and report their contributors in Wisconsin.

"I don't believe these PACs are going to want to do that. They'll have to file reports under Wisconsin law, and I'm not sure they'll want to do that so Tom Barrett can convert some money," Christofferson said.

Everts minimized the effect of PAC registration.

"The main finding is that conversion is allowed," Everts said. "I'm not going to worry about minor details."

The decision could affect other federal officeholders of either major party who aim for state office. Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.), for example, has been mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate.

Board member Don Millis tried to put in writing limits on campaign fund transfers, but a majority of the board decided to let the 1977 ruling stand and decide challenges and related issues as they arise.

It appears that no one worried about what Barrett's lawyer called "minor details," and followed up to require that the PACs either were registered in Wisconsin or the money was returned. It appears that Barrett transferred the money anyway, with no enforcement action against him.

That does not change the law.

What has changed is the membership on the Elections Board, which has taken a tougher posture.

Green screams politics, but it's not unusual at all for a public body to change its stance over a five-year period.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court has been known to reverse itself on occasion.

And George Dunst certainly has. Basing their refusal to comply with the law and the board's order on an advisory memo from Dunst means the Greenies are clutching at a very frail reed.

A question she wishes were left unasked

Lawyers always say you should never ask a question of a witness unless you know what the answer is going to be.

Larraine McNamara-McGraw forgot that basic precept Thursday in a debate with her opponent in the Milwaukee district attorney's race, John Chisholm, before the Milwaukee Bar Assn.

WisPolitics reported in its Milwaukee Notes:

In his opening remarks, Chisholm, who's worked as a prosecutor in the Milwaukee County DA's office since 1994, said "real leadership" is needed in the DA's office. "In my case it's been real prosecutors in real units doing real jobs and making a real difference in the community," Chisholm said. "It's not make-believe leadership, I've done it for real."

Chisholm continued, saying he's been committed to prosecuting criminals seven days a week and said "my opponent hasn't done it for one minute of her life,"...

Later, McNamara-McGraw said she has had trial experience as a "vigorous" public defender and tried a case before a jury in 2005. "I would ask Mr. Chisholm, since he has so many opinions about my qualifications, when he tried his last case," McGraw said. As she continued, Chisholm interrupted saying that he tried a murder case one month ago, drawing cackling from the crowd. He interrupted again shortly after to say, "I got a guilty verdict, by the way."

Points to ponder

Cleaning out the pending folder in preparation for a long holiday weekend.

Do you think Jim Doyle has screwed things up so badly that he's gotten wages to drop nationwide since taking office in 2003? Jay Bullock doesn't think so.

We're a long way from California and its system where anybody can get an initiative on the ballot and make it into law, and I hope we stay some distance away. But, in addition to the death penalty and gay marriage referenda, scheduled by Republicans in hopes of pulling out conservative voters, there's a healthy grassroots movement to get citizen participation on other issues, like health care, and at least eight more communities will vote on withdrawing troops from Iraq. Last April, 24 of 32 communities voting favored withdrawal, and support for the war has lessened since then.

One Wisconsin Now, the new progressive communications hub, has added an array of bells and whistles to its website. You can sign up to network with people interested in the same issues, start your own blog, and use organizing tools to createpetition drives, letter to the editor campaigns, make announcements, and plug into the progressive mocement. Check out the Institute website and "Voices for the Common Good," where experts will post commentary on a wide variety of issues. You can access all three sites by simply going to One Wisconsin Now.

Brew City Brawler says Patrick McIlheran lives in a dream world about the Iraq war, and relies on sources who have been proven wrong time and again. Surprised?

Just wondering: If you were named a community columnist in the state's biggest newspaper and could write about any topic you wanted, why would you choose dog shit?