Desperate Kelda Helen Roys Goes Even-More-Negative

Kelda Roys - Man, you stink. Wrong party, Kelda!

Update II: Cap Times: A negative ad backfires. "Roys ad was so absurd -- suggesting that Pocan, the Legislature's most consistent critic of corporate abuses, had somehow turned into a corporate stooge -- that it provoked an immediate response from one of her most prominent supporters."

Update: State Rep rescinds endorsement of Roys over her  negative and false ad.

"What do we really know about politician Mark Pocan? ... He could have stood up to Walker. But instead Mark Pocan caved in," warns the dire voice in Roys' new spot. 

Ms. Roys, this is not the Republican primary.

Look, I think Pocan is going win this primary anyway. But this type of Rovian politics, 'what do we really know about whomever,' should be knocked down and thrown back in the cess pool.

Does it matter to you, honestly Mr. Roys, that your ad is complete hog wash, with no respect to pigs intended?

Mark Pocan, not the Madison progressive we thought, but rather a "failed" democrat allied with perhaps the most despised Republican officeholder in the country.

C'mon. Pocan's "Scott Walker’s Top Ten Lies," is my personal favorite among many hits and his constant battle against Walker. And Roys' "what do we really know about Mark Pocan" is pure bull shit.

Pocan is endorsed by virtually every progressive activist and officeholder, endorsing in this race.

You lie, defame, smear and cheat when you run for office on the Republican ticket, Ms. Roys. It will win you points there for innovation.

Not in the Democratic primary.

Roys is now intoning on Facebook [apprentally deleted now] and her campaign site about her intention to run her "hard-hitting" ad "that talks about Rep. Mark Pocan's votes in favor of Gov. Scott Walker's corporate tax giveaways."

Continues Roys:
My pledge to you has always been honesty, fairness, and a campaign focused on issues. I will never hide behind sleazy surrogates to smear my opponents - when I want to draw a contrast, I will do it myself.

Right. I would like to hear your own voice reading the script of your latest ad.

No one is really buying Roys' effort to paint Scott Walker's most effective and certainly polar-opposite ideological opponent as a corporate lackey.

Roys has served two terms in the assembly and wants that second congressional seat. So, truth and Pocan's commitment to progressive and grassroots politics mean little.

Roys will not let Pocan's lifetime of progressive political action get in her way.

So, we watch the political suicide of a young attorney whose election to the state assembly in 2008 went to her head.

And Roys does not exactly have clean hands in her two assembly terms. She voted with only three democrats for a tax break that benefited prominent Republican developer, Terrence Wall.

Here's the real poop on Mark Pocan standing up to Walker

As the budget chair, Pocan

• Closed the Las Vegas loophole so Wisconsin companies pay taxes in Wisconsin.
• Raised capital gains taxes and taxes on the 1%.
• Passed the American Jobs Act so that State tax dollars don’t go to companies that ship jobs overseas.
• And is lead author of The Democratic bill to restore collective bargaining because, as a small union print shop owner, Pocan says he's "not done fighting that fight"

Background on this Roys attack

2011 January Special Session AB 4: Expanded Business Development in Wisconsin Tax Credit - Expanded a tax credit program that gives tax credits to companies that can retain or add jobs that must be above minimum wage (150 percent of minimum wage). This expansion was valued at $25 million.

Some facts

• In 2009 this program was created with a total value of $103.2 million
• It was a Democratic initiative, it was voted for by 48-2 among the Democrats
• Kelda Roys voted to create the tax credit program
• According to Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation it added 6,000 jobs and helped over 70 businesses by the time of the 2011 vote to expand it, which Mark voted for and Kelda voted against
• The vote to expand the program was widely bipartisan, it was voted for 82-11 in the assembly, 25-13 among Democrats

Here's the ad, running here at Mal Contends because it reflects on Roys' Rovian approach to politics and her craven pursuit of office.

Truth about Pocan-Roys Race for Congress

Update: John Nichols: If Kelda Roys' campaign were a vehicle after an accident, it would be considered “totaled” (AUDIO).

"Roys ad was so absurd -- suggesting that Pocan, the Legislature's most consistent critic of corporate abuses, had somehow turned into a corporate stooge -- that it provoked an immediate response from one of her most prominent supporters." (Capital Times editorial. July 26, 2012)

State Rep rescinds endorsement of Kelda Roys over her negative and false ad. (Captial Times column. July 25, 2012)
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A brief preface: Doing a short state assembly race profile can be a tough proposition for a writer in a daily newspaper. Did such a piece for the Cap Times (Nov. 1, 1990) (Dave Travis-Donald E. Damon) and crafting a balanced summary in this perceived blow-out (which ended up being a close race that the GOP could have won) was much more difficult, no matter the piece in question is decidedly mediocre.
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Wisconsin's congressional districts

Mention the work involved because a good journalist, Clay Barbour, wrote a front-page, Wisconsin State Journal piece yesterday profiling the Mark Pocan-Kelda Roys democratic primary for the second congressional district (forgot the other two minor candidates) in his 1,100-word treatment.

I have a quarrel with Barbour's profile, and the copy editor's hard copy headline reading "Candidates differ in approach, experience," and the Net's head reading, "Dem primary to replace Rep. Baldwin gets nasty."

Roys' Attacks

The race has been relentlessly negative because it has been waged so by Roys; and no global-level, neutral-to-facts view of the race accurately describes the getting-nasty nature or any other major aspects of the race.

Roys has been and is on the attack against Pocan.

As an analogy, one does not describe a violent assault by one person against another as a "nasty" situation. No, it is truthfully and accurately described as an attack.

But in the conventions of journalism, truth loses out to the strange, almost nihilistic manner of reporting phenomena—the subject(s), topic of a story.

Roys' continuous attacks should be the story line repeated in accurate, thorough coverage of this race.

And her star is not "rising" as the front page picture's cut line asserts. Democratic politicos to whom I have spoken most often describe Roys as "strange," and if a trajectory can be discerned, Roys' star is falling.

That's the story of the horse race, but Barbour buried this in the last three paragraphs and even this text is vague.

Writes Barbour, "But some party advocates say (Roys) must tread lightly. It's one thing to fight hard during a campaign. The problem comes when the jabs cross the line."

Some party advocates? Roys is roundly condemned in the colorful lexicon of
politics.

Barbour's attempt at balance conflicts with offering readers a truthful and accurate report of what is happening in this race.

Party advocates, speaking off the record, see a candidate in Roys who foolishly just blew a political career by an ego-driven spasm of self reverence.

Roys' TV Spots

Roys's first-person TV spots border on the incoherent and bizarre. That's another story of this race. Who writes these scripts?

Almost messianic in tone, take a listen: "Leader ... who helped build a movement."

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"This is my fight, too," intones Roys in another spot.

Yes, I don't believe the viewer requires being disabused of the notion that Roys is above being hurt by the governor. Even you, Ms. Roys.

I think Roys misses the lesson of 2011: The people led, and the elected servants followed.

Kelda Helen Roys' Approach to Campaigning: Lie and Mislead Rovian Style

Kelda Helen Rove - Disgrace

Update: Roys tried to present her self as a woman with a "partner: as she trolls for votes among our state's LGBT community and allies, among other cynical machinations. (Schneider. MJS; July 14, 2012) Roys' pursuit of office has taken on a weird cast already, but her recent attacks are ego-driven and desperate.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), candidate for the second congressional district seat, is arguably the most effective and progressive democrat in the Wisconsin legislature.

A lifelong champion of civil rights, workers' rights, and working families, Pocan not surprisingly emerged as a recognizable foe against Scott Walker, ALEC, and the Koch brothers' attempted take-over of Wisconsin after 2010, coining the apt "FitzWalkerStan" last year.

For 13 years, Pocan has represented assembly district 78 in Madison that is without a doubt the most progressive district in Wisconsin, which includes most of the Isthmus wards where Pocan served as Dane County supervisor preceding his election to the assembly.

The second congressional democratic primary includes four candidates, and one of these candidates is smearing (let's call the attacks what they are: LYING) Mark Pocan—yes, Mark Pocan—as a Scott Walker supporter and to listen to one Kelda Helen Roys ... some sort of corporate lackey.

Kelda Helen Roys has decided that the only way she can win the Democratic primary is to attack her leading opponent's strength—his unassailable progressive record, hence yet another negative attack on Pocan, an attack with no basis in fact as Roys well knows.

Roys does not have the decency to say, 'this what I stand for' and let voters decide in this primary election on August 14.

No, Roys' only shot, in her mind, is to go negative in a primary that should be focused on the nightmare of what the GOP has in mind after 2012.

This sucks.

Personally, I have no use for democrats who feel they can only win by adapting the defamations of Karl Rove, Club for Growth and the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity.

Lies, smears and the rapacious pursuit of political power are as much on political trial in 2012 as is the complete take-over of Washington by rightwing Tea Partiers. The stakes are as high as ever.

But who would have guessed lies and smears would play so prominent a role in the democratic primary from the likes of Roys who should know better, and in any case has despoiled her name in her pursuit of political power.

Kelda Helen Roys Breaks Promise Early in 2nd Dist Cong Race

Here you go, Kelda Helen Roys
- Don't worry, it's clean :)

Kelda Helen Roys is making a mockery of her pledge to avoid corporate money

Typically, it takes a politician some time in D.C. or in the Republican Party before she learns to obfuscate and mislead—what most of us call lying.

But Kelda Helen Roys, candidate for the second congressional district of Wisconsin, is evidently a quick study.

Roys said she has a unique approach to politics and campaigns, toting a pledge not to take corporate money.

"I made the commitment that I am not going to take any corporate money in this race," said Roys in a December 2011 interview with WISN, a promise repeated often by Roys.

But a review of Roys' contributors reveals some $9,700 in corporate money received in late 2011- early 2012, money from corporate CEOs, presidents, and board chairs with the means and history of contributing repeatedly - with an individual limit of $2,500 for 2011-12.

Nothing wrong with running a corporation in itself.

Money for nothing, assures candidate,
Kelda Helen Roys

But rank hypocrisy has a particular odor coming from democrats like Roys.

Roys is making a mockery of her pledge to avoid corporate money because of her concern that she run a "clean campaign" vis a vis her opponents. Right.

Yesterday, Roys—who was against corporate money before she was for it—put up a new piece on her website, Clean Campaigns Mean No Corporate PAC Money. Translated, this means corporate money from corporate CEOs, presidents, and Board chairs, and lobbyists are just fine with Kelda Helen Roys, just not corporate PACs.

Exactly, how insulated does Roys believe corporate CEOs and board chairs are from their PACs?

Partial Listing of Corporate Money to Kelda Helen Roys

LIEGEL, GEORGE WAUKAKEE WI 53597 9/26/2011 $250
PEPSI BOTTLING DISTRIBUTOR/CEO

DEGAND, MICHAEL GREEN BAY, WI 54311 9/30/2011 $500
HARBOR CREDIT UNION/PRESIDENT

GREEN, JOSH NEW YORK, NY 10011 11/2/2011 $500
PANJIVA, INC/CEO

BAXT, LEONARD WASHINGTON 9/30/2011 $1,000
DOW LOHNES/CHAIRMAN DC
20016

BRAIN, CHARLES M. MC LEAN 9/29/2011 $1,000
CAPITOL HILL STRATEGIES/LOBBYIST
VA 22101

JOFFE, RICHARD THOMAS NEW YORK 9/19/2011 $200
LABATON SUCHAROW LLP/ATTORNEY
NY 10280

RASIN, RUDOLPH CHICAGO 9/29/2011 $1,000
THE RASIN CORPORATION/PRESIDENT
IL 60611

WEISS, MICHAEL MCCALL 9/19/2011 $500
GENERAL CAPITAL GROUP/PRESIDENT
ID 83638

RASIN, RUDOLPH CHICAGO IL 60611 12/24/2011 $1,000
ALLIANCE BRANDS, LLC/BUSINESS EXEC

GREEN, JOSH NEW YORK, NY 10011 12/31/2011 $ 500
PANJIVA, INC/CEO

DOVERE, RICHARD NEW YORK, NY 10021 3/6/2012 $1,000
ADAMAS ENERGY INVESTMENTS/MANAGING PARTNER

RASIN, RUDOLPH CHICAGO, IL 60611 3/5/2012 $500
ALLIANCE BRANDS, LLC/BUSINESS EXECUTIVE

SALZWEDEL, JACK MIDDLETON, WI 53562 2/22/2012 $500
AMERICAN FAMILY INSURANCE/CEO

WEISS, MICHAEL McCALL, ID 83638 1/23/2012 $ 200
GENERAL CAPITAL GROUP/PRESIDENT

WEISS, MICHAEL McCALL, ID 83638 3/16/2012 $300
GENERAL CAPITAL GROUP/PRESIDENT

INGOLDSBY, TOM Mc LEAN, VA 22101 3/3/2012 $2,000
CORPORATE D.C. ATTORNEY SPECIALIZING IN ENERGY PROJECTS

Corporate Money from late 2011-2012:  $9,700