How to lose elections without really trying
What's the matter with Wisconsin?
An ineffectual, listless Democratic Party of Wisconsin resembling more a frat house clique than a political Party.
Next month's Democratic Party of Wisconsin Convention on June 5,6 will either spell a rebound for the once-proud Dems or a continuation of Mike Tate's reward-incompetence clique.
The Convention will elect a new Chair with his or her six-figure salary.
Dom Noth has a piece on the let's-keep-Mike Tate crowd and Mike Tate's heir apparent in failure—Jason Rae.
One hopes Dems have enough sense to realize the true dangers of Scott Walker and the imperative to elect a Dem as Chair who knows how to win—Joe Wineke (and a few others who are not Jason Rae).
Rae's clique has for months engaged in sleazy whisper campaigns against Rae's opponents for Chair worthy of Karl Rove.
Writes Noth: "On the negative side, [Rae's] supporters have gone on the attack against opponents in personal and disturbing terms on social media, where the party needs to go to attract new blood to its operations."
It's even worse than Noth might know.
If Wisconsin Democrats elect Jason Rae, progressives in Wisconsin should be ready to bash these idiots on all fronts.
Showing posts with label Mike Tate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Tate. Show all posts
Nov 17, 2014
Scott Walker: Time to Hit These Idiots (Citizens) with Taxes and Fees
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| Maybe Scott Walker can get the old gang back together |
Update: See also DOT: New fees, tax hikes totaling $750 million needed for roads (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). Scott Walker did not issue a statement reading, 'the road builders gave me a lot of money, boyo; but he should have.'
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Election Day is plus-13 days and Wisconsin is mired in a funk as Winter approaches.
Scott Walker says what better time to stick it to Wisconsin with new taxes and fees.
The list is as long as a Wisconsin winter in Ashland County.
Even as the brain drain accelerates in Wisconsin, Walker pretends to presidential aspirations for his personal financial gain, and criminal investigators in a cowardly maneuver want to torpedo their own investigation into Walker's criminal enterprise during the Recall elections in 2011-12.
Meanwhile, the Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin calls Scott Walker "bold" and the object of "affection." That would be Mike Tate, apparently the secret weapon of Scott Walker and the shittiest political operative in the United States.
Jun 25, 2014
Wisconsin Democrats, Don't Let This One Slip Away
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| Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate, Scott Walker's Most Important Ally Besides the Koch Brothers. Image: Wisconsin Public Television |
If Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair, Mike Tate, Were Coach of the Packers, He Would Find a Way to Screw-up a Game against a Junior-High School Team That Doesn't Have the Plays Down Yet. He Should Resign and Here's Why
What's the Matter with Kansas? (Thomas Frank, Holt Paperbacks, 2005), Thomas Frank famously asked, eyeing the authoritarian and statist political leanings of working-class Kansans who vote with elitist, big-moneyed interests and religious extremists.
Prairie populism is gone from Kansas, and 700 miles to the northeast in Wisconsin, the Badger state is headed the same way under the direction of the bureaucratic groupthink and grab-a-paycheck electoral strategy encouraged by Mike Tate, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, supposed opposition party to Scott Walker, the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Koch brothers.
Facing Scott Walker and an enemy so rich in political targets, a given opposition political party could metaphorically grab a pistol, close its eyes, fire and hit dead-center, Tate and the Dems keep missing the mark.
Mike Tate and the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, Mary Burke, have made a strategic calculation to ignore the dirtiest and most spectacular political scandal in state history: John Doe II, right as the story was beginning to penetrate the casual voter in central and northern Wisconsin.
It would distract from jobs and the economy, Mike Tate explains.
"We had volunteers that knocked on over 3,000 doors this past weekend to talk about Mary Burke and Democratic candidates," said Tate. "What we heard at the doors wasn't whether the governor was at the center of criminal scheme. What we heard was that they wanted Wisconsin to get back to work" (Halstad, WPR).
No shit, you better focus on jobs and corruption and the environment and public schools.
Tate and the Democratic Party communications team are as effective as a 1970s television receiving signals through its rabbit-ear antennae.
This does contrast with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's web site of course where a fund-raising page presently reads, "Wisconsinites are tired of Scott Walker’s legal troubles, controversial proposals and absence from the Governor’s office as he ramps up his Presidential run," but put that aside.
This is the massive Republican implosion, with more to come, that Wisconsin's non-Scott Walker candidate needs.
Tate decided to do "a conference call with reporters" this week and let it be known that the most effective way to hype Walker's terrible record on jobs is to minimize Scott Walker's criminal corruption (Stein, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).
Where does the Democratic Party of Wisconsin draw up this strategy?
John Doe coverage is filtered through the Gannett Co. and local broadcast media; most people don't read the news often anyway, but Scott Walker being at the center of a nationwide criminal scandal is a sexy story with legs that reinforces what most people already believe about Scott Walker: He's a crook.
Watergate was awful, but it was also a spectacular news story that took down a president, and brought in a new age of crusading journalism. [If anyone wants a quick history, I recommend Jimmy Breslin's How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer.]
A candidate today has to sell the story (one would hope with the help of a political party), expand the narrative of criminal corruption to jobs, water, erosion of public education and giving away and destroying what took generations of Wisconsin families to build.
A couple of questions for Mike Tate?
Do you think Scott Walker's corruption and extremism have caused a net loss of jobs? (Hint, think rejection of $800,000,000 (that's $800 million, lots of zeroes) in federal funds to build labor-intensive railroad infrastructure.)
Do you think the message that 'Scott Walker is not for you, Walker sold out family-supporting jobs to special interests and out-of-state billionaires' has political appeal? (Hint, think single-mother families, rejection of $4.4 billion in federal Medicaid money through 2020 (Bauer, AP), and the underemployed.)
In the 2011-12 recall elections, Scott Walker benefited from the air-dominance of TV spots resulting from the temporary no-contribution-limit-for-recalled-candidates election rule allowing no caps on individual donations, resulting in Scott Walker receiving numerous six-figure individual contributions mostly from out-of-state interests.
Scot Ross, Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now, said in August 2012, "Scott Walker bought the (June 2012 Recall) election with a waterfall of money no other candidate could legally raise."
Turns out Walker did not legally raise the money; he purposely and with malice of forethought broke Wisconsin election laws to win and screw the people of Wisconsin.
"Walker and his allies were able to stay on television non-stop across Wisconsin from late October 2011 until Election Day in June (2012) nearly 225 straight days," notes Ross.
To no one's surprise it turns out the numerous "issue advocacy" groups working for the election of Scott Walker were coordinating with Scott Walker, in apparent violation of Wisconsin campaign finance law, explaining why Walker and other big-moneyed interests do not want law enforcement looking anywhere near Walker's communications to Karl Rove and other Republican operators and big-money donors.
So, John Doe investigators have come upon a nationwide criminal scheme of corruption and a network of dark money centering on Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
The new and innovative response of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its chair, Mike Tate: Look away, nothing to see here.
Several excellent candidates and officeholders have won here in Wisconsin, mostly by ignoring Mike Tate and running progressive campaigns accurately painting a compelling picture of out-of-touch Republicans selling out the Wisconsin people.
As for Mike Tate, I do have constructive suggestions: How about you take your undisclosed salary and contribute it to the political citizens groups, Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors, Green Bay Progressive and Citizens Concerned about the Proposed Penokee Hills Mine. (Facebook, open site)
Then resign gracefully.
Dec 15, 2011
507,000-plus Recall Sigs Gathered, 93 percent in only 31 days
With the announcement by United Wisconsin - Recall Walker the Recall Scott Walker movement has nearly surpassed the required 540,208 signatures, 31 days into the 60-day Recall period: The next step is clear.
Pour it on, One-million-plus signatures.
Ruth Conniff in The Progressive this week applauds grassroots activists and the Wisconsin Wave over the Dim Party apparatchiks like Mike Tate and Graeme Zielinski who still will not condemn the harassment and assaults against Recall volunteers.
They think it's bad PR.
No worries, it's no secret Tate and Zielinski are a bit into themselves, but volunteers blow it off and fight for the Movement, for democracy. That's what matters.
Good topical piece by Jeffrey Winter referenced today in the Teamsters blog, quoting Winter: "America’s ultra-rich all together could barely fill a large sports stadium. They never assemble for rallies or marches, sign petitions ... ."
The well-paid Tate and Zielinski ought to grab clip boards, sign the bottom of petitions as Recall circulators [after] and gather more signatures, just like the 1,000s of volunteers across Wisconsin will keep doing.
Me. I'll be at a sidewalk on Friday afternoon getting sigs; and at Club Five Friday night getting sigs with my United Fitchburg brothers and sisters who are constantly using every innovative approach we can conceive to gather as many signatures as possible.
A few weeks ago, I worked with Bill Horns and about 10 others getting signatures on a cold-rainy-windy Saturday in a public land outside Star Cinema. The weather was miserable. The experience and work were great.
We won't stop.
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