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Recall

Are Kathleen Falk’s union backers the best thing that ever happened to rival Tom Barrett?

In the Wisconsin recall battle, could Tom Barrett have any better asset than the unions who favor Kathleen Falk over him? Nietzsche would say no: Any union criticism of theirs that doesn’t kill him actually makes him stronger. Falk trails the late-entering Barrett for the race to challenge Scott Walker, and she’s desperately willing to…

Republican Betting on Walker’s Recall Opponent

The Republican Governors Association expects Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to be a candidate in the recall race against Gov. Walker (Barrett’s promised to announce his intentions between 3.30 and 4.3). Most people expect him to be a candidate. (I’d guess that, should he run, he’d beat candidates Kathleen Falk and Kathleen Vinehout in recall primary).…

Recall Organizer Lori Compas’s Declaration Speech

Embedded below is a video of recall-organizer-turned-candidate Lori Compas declaring against Sen. Majority Leader Fitzgerald in Wisconsin’s 13th District. Despite Sen. Fitzgerald’s numerous challenges to petition signatures, I’d guess a recall election in his district will happen. (It’s a partisan video, from SSWIDTMS. Compas’s remarks are my only interest; the origin of the video isn’t…

Assessing Walker and Barrett as Debaters

Among the Democrats who might challenge Gov. Walker is one who challenged him in 2010. Milwaukee’s Mayor Tom Barrett ran and lost in a 1,128,941 to 1,004,303 tally. Barrett may run against Walker in a recall, so here’s an assessment of Barrett and Walker as debaters in the 2010 campaign. There’s more to write, another…

Lori Compas Declares Recall Candidacy Against Sen. Majority Leader Fitzgerald

Compas led a recall petition drive against Sen. Fitzgerald, and she’s now declared her candidacy for the13th Sen. District. I’ve no idea how the race will go, but it will be worth following. (I’ve written a bit about Compas & Fitzgerald previously. See, Sen. Majority Leader Fitzgerald’s 12.19.11 Open Office.) The always-solid Mary Spicuzza reports…

Assessing the (Current) Recall Challengers’ Public Speaking

As I write, there are three declared challengers to Gov. Walker, should there be (as there will be, really) a gubernatorial recall race. More will enter, but for now it’s Kathleen Falk, Hari Trevedi, and Kathleen Vinehout. I’ll consider their presentations at the challenger-friendly Fourth Annual Grassroots Fest Candidate Forum held February 18, 2012 in…

Marquette Political Poll: Walker, Obama up slightly in Wisconsin

The first of Charles Franklin’s polls while visiting at Marquette is now available online : Walker and Obama have single digit leads in Marquette Law School Poll. I’ll review the poll tonight, and post more tomorrow. The results are — at first glance — more disparate (and almost conflicting) than one might have expected, but…

Interview with recall challenger Kathleen Falk

There’s an interview on Wisconsin Public Television that news anchor Frederica Freyberg conducts with Kathleen Falk, a declared challenger to Scott Walker in a recall campaign. It’s well-worth watching, and I have embedded the program below. I’ve reviewed Falk’s video announcement, and this interview reveals some of the same problems of delivery and presentation that…

Reviewing Kathleen Falk’s Recall Campaign Announcement

Kathleen Falk, former Dane County Executive, declared her candidacy yesterday for governor. Below I have embedded her video declaration, a screenshot of her website, and a chart from the Journal Sentinel of Democrats who may run against Walker. These are first impressions of Falk’s campaign announcement. They address only the politics, and not the merits,…

Lavish, but defensive, spending on Gov. Walker’s behalf

Lisa Mux, writing at Blogging Blue, describes a well-attended Americans for Prosperity event that touted the Walker Administration’s record: The entire event was carefully orchestrated and the true reality of what Walker has done to the middle-class in Wisconsin was scrubbed, sanitized, and handed back to the audience in an easily digestible format. From the…