“Chicago Stands with Falk” - too much out-of-state money?
I'm beginning to believe that Falk's campaign is an accident waiting to happen. The unfortunate early endorsement and backing by the unions was just the beginning.
I realize there isn't much support for Doug La Follette around here, but I believe he is the best statewide candidate after Feingold. Of course he could use a few bucks to get the ball rolling...
La Follette says the introduction of special-interest money on behalf of a Democratic candidate is “not the result that thousands of my fellow Wisconsinites stood in the cold and stood in the rain to collect. . . . I am very saddened that this magnificent effort, this historic effort, this real people’s democracy was hijacked by the same-old, same-old big money politics that we thought we had rejected,” La Follette says. . . .
. . . . Progressives United, an organization started by former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold after he lost his re-election bid in 2010, posted a statement Monday, saying that “regrettably, as well intentioned as Wisconsin for Falk no doubt is, the impact it will have on the recall election will almost certainly be to undermine, not bolster, the chances of successfully replacing Scott Walker as governor.” Feingold, an outspoken critic of the influence of special-interest money on elections, remains the top Democratic choice among many voters to take on Walker. He has repeatedly stated he will not run for governor.
“By funneling out-of-state special-interest money to support Kathleen Falk’s campaign, Wisconsin for Falk muddies what had been absolutely crystal-clear waters in the recall effort,” reads Feingold's statement. “Up until now, the only beneficiary of ominous super PAC support was Gov. Scott Walker.”
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/capitol-report/capitol-report-la-follette-blasts-falk-for-connection-to-special/article_e4449baa-7916-11e1-83ab-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=story
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A huge vulnerability of Walker's has been that he doesn't represent Wisconsin's interests, but that vulnerability has been more or less neutralized. Now, the Walker campaign has been given a gift. The idea that "both sides do it" (take big money from out of state) will just turn off potential voters and hurt our chances in the election.
I hope we have a vigorous, intelligent, and smart (not eating our own) Democratic primary. Maybe that will get voters fired up again!
(And I think Doug La Follette would make Walker look like a total punk in a debate.)
The folks running Wisconsin for Falk will no doubt argue they were only reacting to the sums being raised from wealthy individual and corporate interests whose agenda Governor Walker so myopically advanced. But of course, it is the whole corrupt system of unlimited fundraising, too often from secret sources, as well as the destructive policies they produce, that is being so clearly rejected by working families across our state. This type of unlimited, undisclosed spending doesn’t just corrupt the process – it oftentimes corrupts the policy results. Because of that, Wisconsin for Falk has done a great disservice to candidate Falk, with her consent or not. . . .
. . . Democrats and progressive candidates do themselves no favors by adopting the preferred tactic of the Koch brothers. By doing so, they throw away a tremendous advantage they have with voters, and instead walk a path that has only led to policies at odds with the fundamental principles of our state.
http://www.progressivesunited.org/blog/wisconsin-for-falk-undermines-recall-effort
