Outside of comments, it's been almost a month since I wrote about what's going on in FitzWalkerLand so I thought I'd check in with with an apology for being absent from Diary Land here. No, I don't have a note, but I do have an excuse:
I've been kind of busy.
Fuller explanation below the DK squiggle.
You see, it all started in January right after Inaguration Day. Our brand new Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and his brand new Republican majorities in the State Assembly and State Senate decided that large corporations were so needy that they had to immediately give them $140 million dollars in tax breaks. In a surprising (only to the gullible) event a few weeks later, he discovered a $130 million dollar budget deficit that could only be plugged by stripping public employees of their unions among other terrible things!
Yeah, you know the story.... Massive protests, recall petition drives, a State Supreme Court election to rid our state of one it's most extremist RW jurists, a state-wide recount due to a Waukesha Miracle that gave David (the Strangler) Prosser another 10 year term, recall petition challenges, recruitment of fake Democrats to run against real Democrats who are challening Republican State Senators, Prossers Wis State Supremem Court vote with the majority making public employee union stripping legal here (he said early during his campaign he would be a "complement" to Scott Walker and he has indeed kept his promise) ....
Which brings us to today. And my excuse for Diary Absence. I've been working to get real Democrat Sandy Pasch into the recall election against Republican Alberta Darling, who has raised a boatload of campaign payola (nearly half a million dollars so far). Sandy faces a "primary" with fake opponents. They're real people, just not interested in public office. Their real interest is in gumming up the works, forcing a primary election, forcing the real Democrat to spend their meager campaign money in a primary, and delay the recall of the Republican State Senator. This is why the Repulican party recruited the fake democrats in the first place.
Next Tuesday will be Recall Primary Day for the Republican State Senators Districts we are targeting and I among, many, many others have been working our collective butts off to insure that the real Democrats defeat the Fake democrats to get a clear shot at their real targets: Republican State Senators who have rubber stamped every lunatic, RW thing that Walker and the Fitzgerald Brothers (each one in the Majority Leader of each of our legislative houses) put before them.
The Fake Democrats are truly fake. They have raised very little money, but they don't need funds because their purpose isn't to run or win, but to delay the actual recall election and confuse voters.
Fake Democratic candidates running in recall elections in order to give Republican incumbents more time to campaign have raised almost no money for the effort, reports filed with the state showed Wednesday.
The candidates, prompted by the state Republican Party, ran simply to force a primary and thereby delay the general election by a month in hopes of benefiting GOP incumbents more time to campaign.
Six Democratic primary elections are scheduled for Tuesday, with the winners facing the targeted Republican incumbents Aug. 9.
Five of the six fake Democrats whose reports were available Wednesday raised just $4,200 — with nearly all the money coming from the Republican Party to help pay for copies and postage related to them filing as candidates.
As a result, there are 4 important election dates coming up within the next month or so.
July 12: Primary Recall Election Day for Republican State Senators (fake Democrats inserted to make this a primary vote rather than an election). I will not bother to list the fake Democrats, only the real ones:
Alberta Darlings (R) district - real Democrat Sandy Pasch
Robert Cowles (R) district - real Democrat Nancy Nusbaum
Randy Hoppers (R) district - real Democrat Jessica King
Dan Kapankes (R) district - real Democrat Jennifer Schilling
Sheila Harsdorfs (R) district - real Democrat Shelly Moore
Luther Olsons (R) district - real Democrat Fred Clark
Information on these real Democrats here.
July 19: Recall Election Day for Democratic State Senator Dave Hansen (a proud member of the Wisconsin 14). Pssst: His Republican opponent has some past legal issues, too.
August 9: Recall Election Day for Republican State Senators. We are working hard here to ensure that our real Democrats, as listed under July 12, are the ones on the ballot to drive Republicans from office.
August 16: Recall Election Day for Democratic State Senators (the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is calling these the Wisconsin 14 Elections).
Bottom Line: We need to keep our Democratic State Senators in office, prevent the fake Democrats from winning primaries (yes, we have open primaries in Wisconsin so the Republican Party is actively encouraging their base to vote for the fake Democrat), then win at least 3 of the recall elections in the State Senate to turn it to a Democratic majority.
More good information is always available at We are Wisconsin.
It really shouldn't be this hard. Republican opportunism and obstructionism is seen everywhere both locally and nationally. They detest clean fights, fair fights, or even fights on issues. They pull out every dirty trick in the book and point the blame elsewhere while polishing their crap-infested halos hoping that pretending to be on the side of the angels replaces actually being on the side of the angels.
OK, so I'm whining and I should STFU. But, seriously, we've been at this since February and I'm running on anger and adrenalin now (bolstered by coffee and cigarettes). But I'm not stopping until we get our state back, our rights back, our unions back, and Democrats in control of the State Senate. Then I'll rest a bit until it's time to recall Governor Scott Walker and replace him with a better person who will serve the people of the state and not the monied elite.
Thanks for all your suppport.
PS: If this diary looks a bit disjointed, it's because I wrote it about 1 AM after a long day. I plan on publishing it just before I head out for phone banks or canvassing or whatever else needs to be done Saturday.
Update: I'm back. When I went to publish this diary I discovered a kewl Daily Kos feature - scheduled publication! Wow, I was able to schedule publication later in the day. So kewl. Now I'm off to enjoy your comments.