Posted on 04/16/2014 8:00:32 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Literally minutes after Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch officially announced their re-election campaign Tuesday, a Hillary Clinton front group rolled out its attack machine against the Republican governor and potential 2016 presidential hopeful.
American Bridge, backed by big-money liberal donor George Soros, “welcomed” Walker and his “failed job creation promise to the Wisconsin governor’s race.”
The liberal “research and communications organization committed to holding Republicans accountable for their words” by employing liberal spin, made its first sortie an all-out assault on Walker’s jobs record, criticizing the governor’s failure to date to hit his ambitious pledge that the state would create 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term.
Walker’s official campaign launch made one thing very clear: The political war is back on in Wisconsin.
And liberals again are ready to pump in big money and national resources to take down the man who reformed Wisconsin’s public-sector collective bargaining system, among one of the most active public policy reform agendas since the progressives “Fighting” Bob LaFollette.
Walker is fighting back, answering the question Ronald Reagan asked an economically fatigued nation in 1980.
“We’re better off than we were four years ago, but there is more work to be done,” the governor said in his announcement. The tax-cutting governor chose Tax Day to officially jump into the race.
“In the past, April 15 was a day we didn’t have much to look forward to in Wisconsin. But this year, we have hope for the future. This is a new beginning for our state. Wisconsin is back on, and our best days are ahead of us,” Walker said.
In three-plus years, the iconoclastic governor has not presided over a state economy that has created 250,000 jobs. He has, to date, missed his mark.
But the incumbent brings to his re-election bid an impressive resume of accomplishments, including an economy that has added more than 100,000 jobs after the worst recession to Wisconsin and the nation in a generation. With that, Walker can — and does — point to the addition of thousands of new businesses starting up on his watch.
The reason for that business boom, conservatives assert, is Walker and the Republican majority pushing for regulatory and tax reforms that have changed the attitude of business, long burdened with some of the highest tax rates and regulations in the country.
While his opponents have protested his state budget reforms, Walker can lay claim to filling a massive $3.6-billion budget hole that he and his fellow Republicans inherited from the man he replaced, Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle and the ruling Democrats in the state Legislature. Wisconsin lost more than 130,000 jobs in the Great Recession, on Doyle’s watch, and thousands of businesses shut down.
Walker and his supporters have said Wisconsin wasn’t going to dig itself out of the deep economic hole overnight, just as President Obama and his backers have said of the slowly recovering U.S. economy. But to Walker’s vitriol-spewing opponents, there’s a difference between Wisconsin’s plodding recovery and the nation’s oft-anemic growth.
Look for that double-standard to be richly applied by the left in the months ahead.
But it is hard to dispute the roaring return of strong state revenue at the state level. Walker and the Republicans have presided over a budget running $900 million ahead of expectation, and he has signed GOP-led legislation amounting to some $2 billion in tax relief, including $750 million in income tax cuts and $500 million in property tax reductions.
“Since taking office, we made the tough decisions past leaders chose to ignore, and they are paying off for the people of Wisconsin,” Walker said in his campaign announcement.
But the left, which paints Walker’s signature Act 10 as gutting Wisconsin’s government collective-bargaining system, plans to put a lot of skin in this game.
Michael Podhorzer, political director of the AFL-CIO, in February said the nation’s labor unions look to spend at least $300 million going after Republicans in this fall’s elections.
Much of that spending is expected to be dropped on four industrial battlegrounds — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, traditional union strongholds. Big labor also wants Florida.
Of greater interest, perhaps, are states such as Wisconsin, which features a very viable and, to the left, threatening presidential candidate in Walker.
“It’s about survival,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and chairman of the AFL-CIO’s political committee, told the New York Times.
“What’s happened didn’t just hurt public-sector unions, it hurt the entire labor movement,” Saunders said of Walker’s law that rolled back the power of public-sector unions in Wisconsin.
But Walker and his lieutenant governor are battle-tested. They survived a furious recall challenge in 2012, led by big labor and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, with a lot of national money in the mix.
Walker’s main challenger is Madison millionaire liberal Mary Burke, basically anointed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Burke, a former Trek Bicycle executive, secretary of commerce under Doyle and a member of the ultra-liberal Madison Metropolitan School Board, has plenty of campaign vulnerabilities. Her biggest problem now is that relatively few voters know who she is.
Wisconsin is well-acquainted with Walker. Voters, for the most part, either love him or hate him.
The latest Marquette University Law School poll showed Walker’s favorability rating remained at 49 percent, and he was seen as unfavorable by 47 percent of respondents.
Not so much for Burke, who was viewed favorably by 19 percent and unfavorably by 22 percent of the poll’s respondents. The majority of those polled have little or no idea who the Democrat candidate is.
Burke was running 7 percentage points behind Walker in the Marquette poll, conducted in March. The poll of 801 Wisconsin registered voters was conducted by cell phone and landline March 20-23, and it had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
Burke lags farther behind in a recent St. Norbert College poll, which found Walker up 55 percent to Burke’s 40 percent. The poll, of 400 Wisconsin residents, had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.
John McAdams, political science professor at Marquette University, said Burke needs to get known fast or she could face an exodus of money.
“That was the complaint from Barrett’s people, that the national people weren’t backing him,” McAdams said of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who ran unsuccessfully against Walker in the recall campaign. “What they were doing was looking at their internal polls and the public polls and saying, ‘This is not a good use of our money.’”
You can count on Walker’s backers introducing Burke and her political record to Wisconsin voters in the coming months, and she will be connected to Doyle’s troubles.
“Four years ago, the debate in Madison revolved around the size of tax increases, but now we’re discussing tax cuts and government reform,” said Brad Courtney, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, in a statement Tuesday. “We’ve come a long way, but we still have so much more to do.”
Please see my post #19.
Walker, like Jeb, has a Hispanic wife, and he not only wants to give citizenship to illegals already here, he wants to make it legal for anyone who wants to come here to do so.
Walker at a 49% favorable rating. Does that mean in an
honest, objective media atmosphere he would be at
65%?
I’ve posted a link at #19, but here he is clarifying his position, where he a) wants to let anyone who wants to come here legally, and b) as part of the ultimate solution legalize and give citizenship to those who are already here:
You’re way out of touch if you think that most Americans believe ““If you’re somebody, whether you’re from Mexico or Germany or Ireland, and you want to come to this country legally, we should find a way to make it happen,” Walker said.”
Walker would get rid of illegal immigration by simply letting everyone come here legally and, as he has explicitly said, legalizing and making citizens of those who are already here illegally.
No pol claims to be for amnesty, but listen carefully and most actually are.
Senior officials with American Bridge 21st Century – the group’s full legal name — told POLITICO that the oppo-slinging outfit’s staff will grow to about 90 people, including 50 trackers deployed to monitor GOP candidates throughout the country. That’s more than double the number of camera-wielding operatives it employed last year.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/psst-gop-american-bridge-is-watching-94831.html#ixzz2z42QprCN
American Bridge 21st Century is a liberal super PAC that conducts opposition research to aid Democratic candidates and organizations.
The group was founded in November 2010 by David Brock
In 2004, Brock founded Media Matters, a liberal website that monitors the media for “conservative misinformation.”
Rodell Mollineau, a former Sen. Harry Reid staffer, is the group’s president. Its chairwoman is Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and the eldest child of Robert F. Kennedy.
As a super PAC, American Bridge can accept unlimited donations and is largely funded by major Democratic donors and labor unions. Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros, a well-known supporter of liberal causes, is the group’s largest donor. Soros has contributed $1 million to the group as of June 30. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees has contributed a total of $575,000.
Other leading contributors include Rob McKay, heir to the Taco Bell fortune and chairman of the liberal Democracy Alliance, and Anne Earhart, heiress to Getty Oil fortune. Earhart has donated $600,000, and McKay has contributed $100,000.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/american-bridge-21st-century/
American Bridge also has posted multiple opposition research memos on its website that target Republican candidates. A recent entry is a 290-page opposition research report on Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate.
Maybe if I can read it in their printed newspaper I might agree. Or are they just on the internet?? Like I said, if what they published is so, it should not be hard to find a real source.
Circular firing squad.
Ronald Reagan himself wouldn't survive the litmus test many of us are applying in order to find the "pristine" conservative.
As for immigration, throw open the doors. Empty the nation of Mexico out and then we can march in there and turn it into a vacation resort, maybe open some ranches and raise cattle, or grow things.
The solution to the immigration problem is simple. End the welfare system. End the food stamps. End any government aid to anybody not born in this country (and even then, use it sparingly). If they come here to commit crimes, lock them up and throw away the key. They aren't citizens, treat them as war criminals. That will ensure that people only come here to work and contribute. Give them green cards and have them pay taxes. Once somebody comes here and pays taxes for ten years, then we can consider granting them citizenship. Until then, they are on probation.
Doesn’t pouring millions of dollars into Wisconsin by the left actually create more jobs and help Walker?
Are you just a Walker shill or can you really not reason for yourself? No pol claims to be “for amnesty”, but as Walker has repeatedly said—and I’ve even posted multiple sources on this thread—he’s for a) letting anyone, “whether they’re from Mexico or Germany” come here, and b) legalizing with full citizenship those who are already here illegally.
Big whoop. He says he’s for more border protection—he wants anyone to be able to just walk in legally instead.
What you’re proposing will never happen—especially after we add another 20 million voters with South American politics.
Illegal immigration is the issue that will end all fight for conservatism and smaller government, because it’ll simply bring in hoards of government-dependent Democrat voters.
Have you bothered to read the multiple sources I’ve posted here—or do you just like to call those who post the facts ‘nuts’?
BTW, The Hill is a very credible newspaper expressly covering Capitol Hill:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hill_(newspaper)
I see you’re from Wisconsin and so I shouldn’t be surprised that Walker would have hacks here trying to push lies to Freepers that he isn’t massively pro-amnesty when I’ve got multiple sources posted here proving he is—with nothing from the Washington Post, btw.
Who cares if if we protect the borders if we, as Walker does advocate, a) let anyone in from Mexico who wants to come here anyway, and b) give citizenship to all the illegals who are already here?
“Sure,” Walker responded. “I mean I think it makes sense.”
"Penalties and waiting periods," and other "requirements" hardly add up to amnesty. Given these provisos, indeed it would have been unrealistic and stupid to have answered any other way.
its still amnesty because a judge WILL toss all those conditions
Anyone who comes and/or stays here illegally has won the jackpot every day that he or she is here, and a bit of a wait or a bit of a fee is nothing for the reward of US citizenship.
Walker, btw, didn’t even state those requirements, they were tossed out to him, like in the Bannon interview, by those trying to give him political cover.
But we know where he stands—he’d let anyone in the world who wants to immigrate here come here—an open front doors policy, if you will, so any side door sneaking over the border would be unnecessary.
And, if he wants to give citizenship to those who’ve been illegal here already for years, he’ll certainly want to give citizenship to those who come through those front doors.
He’s basically a wide-open borders guy.
Any politician who promises to create jobs is a pimp and a liar.
You are simply full of it. Doing the Washington crowd a service by attacking Walker as “massively pro-Amnesty” based on something in the Hill that took from the same well as the WaPo hit piece. Nice. Oh, I’m a citizen of Wisconsin BTW.
If I understand correctly, those remarks came from a Politico Webcast, so they’re there in full record and we shouldn’t expect that he’s been misquoted.
However, since you just happen to be from WI, how about his ‘clarifying remarks’ to the MSJ, which I”ve linked to above?
He wants to allow anyone in the world who wants to come here do so legally, so there’s no need to worry about closing the border (which he says he favors) anyway. And he does expect that he’d give those illegals who are already here citizenship.
However many times you and his toadies can try to obscure the facts and mislead Freepers on this thread, there are multiple sources linked here that lay it out very clearly.
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