Ninety-eighth Wisconsin assembly district special election web sites

Here are the people running for the 98th assembly district seat with their web sites:

First the Democrat Eric Prudent:  Eric Prudent for District 98.

Then the Republicans:

Ed Baumann

Todd Greenwald For Wisconsin State Assembly

Matt Morzy for State Assembly

Adam Neylon

Taxpayers For Tarantino

Patch has done a short story focusing on Baumann and a look at the rest of the candidates and Blogging Blue has written supporting Prudent.

Here’s a map of the district (PDF file). I’m close to being in it but I’m just outside still in the 97th. And here’s where you can find out if you live in the district.

The primary is February 19 and the election coincides with the Spring Elections on April 2.

It’s a highly Republican district that the Republican nominee should win.

Related articles

• Gov. Walker calls special election to fill vacancy (fox6now.com)

Representative Sandy Pasch and Citizen Action of Wisconsin

UPDATE 2: Via Blogging Blue. The campaign treasurer for Sandy Pasch campaign is also treasurer for Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

UPDATE: GOP files complaint into Pasch-Citizen Action tie

Via a couple of tweets from Charlie Sykes:

Sandy Pasch is on brd of directors of group spending big $ backing her campaign. Coordination between candidate and indy groups illegal

And

Dem Sandy Pasch is listed as a member of the Board of Directors of Citizen Action: the group that organized this protest http://t.co/UdStJ9H

That Sandy Pasch is on the board can be seen here. All the way near the bottom of the page is:

Sandy Pasch
State Representative

Sandy Pasch is a concerned citizen, right? Great.

Well, except for Wisconsin statute 11.06 (7)(a):

Every committee, other than a personal campaign committee, which and every individual, other than a candidate who desires to make disbursements during any calendar year, which are to be used to advocate the election or defeat of any clearly identified candidate or candidates in any election shall before making any disbursement, except within the amount authorized under s. 11.05 (1) or(2), file with the registration statement under s. 11.05 a statement under oath affirming that the committee or individual does not act in cooperation or consultation with any candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate who is supported, that the committee or individual does not act in concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, any candidate or any agent or authorized committee of a candidate who is supported, that the committee or individual does not act in cooperation or consultation with any candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate who benefits from a disbursement made in opposition to a candidate, and that the committee or individual does not act in concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, any candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate who benefits from a disbursement made in opposition to a candidate. A committee which or individual who acts independently of one or more candidates or agents or authorized committees of candidates and also in cooperation or upon consultation with, in concert with, or at the request or suggestion of one or more candidates or agents or authorized committees of candidates shall indicate in the oath the names of the candidate or candidates to which it applies.

A lot of legalese to say that an organization who makes an oath of independent disbursements is not acting in cooperation or consultation with the candidate or committees connected with the candidate.

See, Citizen Action of Wisconsin has made such an oath. For Sandy Pasch. And Sandy Pasch is on the board. And they stage demonstrations like this.

Independent? Hmmmm…

I’ll let the legal eagles take over from here, cuz I’m not a lawyer, or anything…

Recall elections begin.

Well, the next six weeks will be exciting. Or maybe not.

The first round of recall election process begin Tuesday. Here’s the schedule from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Tuesday [July 12] is election day for Democratic primaries in six Republican-held Senate districts.

July 19 is the general election in the district of Sen. Dave Hansen D-Green Bay, and Republican primary day in two other Democrat-held districts.

Aug. 9 is the general election in the Republican districts.

Aug. 16 is the general election in the two Democratic districts.

In this round, the fake Democrats (Everyone knows they’re fake now right? We don’t have to hide any longer? And we do know the Democrats have done something very similar in the past, don’t we?) will be in a primary with the real Democrats (just to keep it simple for everyone, especially me).

Oh, speak of keeping it simple here’s a nice little graphic (PDF file):

Now if it was my preference, the fake Democrats (far right column in above graphic) would win the primary and then the general election. But my preferences rarely come to pass.

Now one more thing, which everyone knows, is that there is going to be a boatload of money spent by both sides, a lot of coming from outside the state.

I actually think this is good because I believe people should be able to spend their money the way they want to. Democrats will spend just as much as Republicans even though they pretend to not want to do it. They just have to protect us from evil Republicans.

I used to agree with what the Editorial Board said about recall elections:

But that doesn’t mean these elections are a good idea. In fact, they are a very bad idea – an extreme overreaction born from a long season of overreaction.

[snip]

Recalls should be used to punish gross malfeasance or corruption – something that cannot wait for the normal election cycle – not to overturn the results of an election or to dispute policy differences.

But this money helps the economy maybe even creating some jobs, which is good for the state. Maybe other states will put recall elections in place in other states to boost their employment rates. #sarcasm

Because Wisconsin’s job market, though not as robust as we would like, and slipping a bit last month (PDF file), is still the envy of many states and certainly the federal government.

This is the price of apathy?

I usually don’t take on Community Columnists at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I was one once. But the one in Thursday’s paper is useful for a point, because it reflects what I see in liberal thought toward conservatives.

The 2010 election saw a full 50% of the electorate sit on their hands and do nothing. Among those who did vote, one has to wonder just how much effort was put into understanding the issues, the proposed solutions and the historical performance of the candidates.

via This is the price of apathy – JSOnline.

I’ve written about apathy before, even as a member of the Community Columnists. However, Mr. Bell is not really writing about apathy.

The Republicans got elected promising jobs and have pulled a fast one on all of us. Behind the foible of “budget,” they used the issue to drive home every bit of longed for right-wing goodies – and now, some who voted for them feel duped.

Yes, this is another screed about those no good Republicans.

What was that whole brown bag lunch that the liberals liked to ridicule so much, all about anyway?

That’s right. The budget.

How soon they forget.

But that seems to be the liberal tactic, that somehow the Republicans pulled a bait and switch on the people of Wisconsin.

“Jobs was what the Republicans promised.”

Well, yeah and the brown bag lunch. Living within your means.

Hmmm, I wonder if Mr. Bell was truly “duped?” Because the article sure didn’t give the feel of one who had been duped.

So who’s doing the duping?

As usual, what it comes down to is that the GOP lied and stupid people voted for them.

Same ol’ same ol’.

Enlightenment from Bruce Murphy

You have to go all the way down to the “Buzz” section, but there it is

-Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima’s proposal to have a referendum to approve or reject the idea of buying water from Lake Michigan probably puts him on the side of average folks in the city and in opposition to nearly the entire leadership community of Waukesha. This is turning into a bizarre soap opera that could continue right through his four-year term.

via Inside Milwaukee – Dine, Shop, Entertainment and more.

If so, should we expect to see an increase in folks running against sitting council members who are roughly 12-3 against the mayor?

Claiming persistent bias, Democratic Party to stop taking PolitiFact’s calls.

Accusing the Journal Sentinel’s continuing feature PolitiFact of persistent bias, leaders of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin say they will no longer respond to inquiries from the fact-checking operation’s reporters.

The party leadership acted after a series of PolitiFact stories they considered unfair, as well as an overall assessment that in its judgments about what to cover as well as its assessments of truth and falsity, “it just seems consistently weighted to one side,” [DPW communications director Graeme] Zielinski says.

via Inside Milwaukee – Dine, Shop, Entertainment and more.

I’m well-acquainted with the Right’s suspicion of PolitiFact, having originated with the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald, both well-known left-leaning newspapers in Florida. The Right is also suspicious of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of it’s left-leaning tendencies.

I’m also aware of the left side of the Cheddarsphere’s frustration with the Journal Sentinel which they lump together in one big lump with WTMJ 620 and WTMJ 4 under the Journal Communications, Inc. parent company. They believe the organization is right-leaning based on the WTMJ 620 talkers, Patrick McIlheran and others. I believe they also uncovered one of the Board of Directors contributing to a Republican candidate, bu I can’t put my hand on the link right now.

PolitiFact responded.

In a statement today, the Journal Sentinel editor in charge of PolitiFact, Greg Borowski, stood by the impartiality of the feature.

“At PolitiFact Wisconsin, our mission is to serve our readers by examining political statements to determine their accuracy — but also to identify where those statements are inflated, misleading or simply wrong. We do this by turning to outside sources to provide context to the issue, as well as by clearly stating how we came to the conclusion we did and what sources and reasoning we used to get there,” Borowski said.

Both left and right have had their problems with PolitiFact. One source of contention is the “Truth-o-meter” which does often seem pretty subjective. Other popular fact-checkers don’t have anything comparable, to my knowledge. As the author of the article writes,

Even so, PolitiFact’s critics have a point, but it’s a bit more complicated than partisan bias. The larger problem remains in its simplistic rating system and especially the incendiary “Pants on Fire” category, which doesn’t appear to be consistently applied.

He also notes,

Here [in wisconsin] the criticism has been most vocal among political activists on the left.

I not sure why that is. I sure my friends on the right think they’re biased, too; they just don’t seem to write about it.If they are some links to right-leaning posts, I would be glad to share them here.

By contrast, the national PolitiFact operation appears to get more criticism from conservatives.

Zielinski, who once worked for the Journal Sentinel, went on to say,

“We will deal with the Journal Sentinel. We have to,” he says. “It’s the largest newspaper in the state. We have good relationships with many of their reporters.”

But PolitiFact, he says, “is an instrument that we don’t think profits us anything, because we believe we’ve worked in good faith with them and not seen fair results.”

The writer of the article then states,

On the one hand, a casual examination of how party affiliation lines up with ratings from True to Pants-on-Fire makes doesn’t make an obvious case of bias for or against either side of the political spectrum. (You can see for yourself; if you disagree, feel free to comment below.)  Did you know, for instance, that 17 of Gov. Scott Walker’s 27 statements to be rated so far have been labeled as “Barely True,” “False,” or (in one instance) “Pants on Fire”? That seems difficult to square with a claim of consistent bias against Democrats.

No doubt the comment section will fill fast.

He sums up,

Perhaps the single biggest improvement in PolitiFact would be if there was just a little less of it, with topics more carefully chosen.

That might be something to shoot for. We don’t need a daily truth detector; and we don’t expect it to be perfect.

And, please, get rid of the “truth-o-meter.”