By now, the routine is familiar.  Big name office holder leaves.  Big name office opens up.  A variety of characters of disparate seriousness crop up to announce they’re “thinking ” about running for the vacant spot.  The public goes back to watching “The Bachelorette.”

We saw this in action this week, when Governor Doyle announced he wouldn’t be seeking a third term.  Immediately, presumptive Democratic replacements began leaking their names to the press as possibilities to run.  Lieutenant Governor Barb Lawton.  Congressman Ron Kind.   Milwaukee Mayor (and amateur pugilist) Tom Barrett.  Even State Senator Jon Erpenbach jumped in the pool of Democratic possibilities.

Now is the time where politicians start throwing out my favorite phony campaign line – the famous “I’m running because a bunch of people are calling me to tell me to” schtick.

Take Ron Kind, who in his statement on Monday said:

Since Governor Doyle’s decision has become public, people from around the state have contacted me and urged me to run for Governor. I thank them for their support and I am considering it. In the weeks to come I will make my decision.

Erpenbach followed up by telling the Wisconsin State Journal that “he was being urged to consider a run for governor but would have to talk with his family and friends before deciding.”  Democratic Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan said he’s “heard from some people around the state,” encouraging him to consider a run.  Potential Republican hopeful Bill McCoshen said “”I’ve gotten a lot of calls in the last 24 hours, I’ll tell you that,” when commenting on his run.  GOP Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said he is being encouraged by supporters to run but, “as of today, his focus is on re-election.”

Somehow, this phony humility has crept into our politics – as if these guys are going to make their decision to run for the state’s highest office based on a couple people’s phone calls.  Why is it that candidates can’t just say “look, I think I have a lot of good ideas, and I’d like to see them affect as many people as possible?”  Do we really want someone running that plays the “I really didn’t want to run, but more than six people called me!” card?

Obviously, if you’re even thinking of running for governor, you believe you have something to offer. (Or in some cases, you are delusional.)  So why couch it in this bogus “depends on how many people call me” nonsense?  And do we really want a governor that makes big decisions based on whether a couple of sycophants that will probably benefit from his decision give him or her a call?

While nobody will ever confuse supermodels with Wisconsin candidates for governor, the same false humility applies in that profession.  Mark it down – any time someone asks a super hot model how she got into modeling, the answer is always something like “my aunt forced me to go to this magazine cover shoot tryout against my will,” or “I was always an ugly duckling, and somehow lucked into a modeling gig,” or some such nonsense.

You’ll never hear a model say “Well, one day I woke up, looked at myself in the mirror, and realized that the person staring back at me was incredibly hot, so I hired an agent, stopped eating, and hit the modeling circuit.”  While that would be honest, it violates some sort of basic level of self-effacing false humility that we require our celebrities to have.

I, for one, subscribe to the Frank Lloyd Wright school of false humility:

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.

As expected, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle officially announced yesterday that he wasn’t going to seek a third term in office.  Doyle’s NSFW poll numbers clearly hastened his departure, but in yesterday’s speech announcing his decision not to run, he offered up a new reason he was leaving:

When I first ran for governor in 2002, Jessica and I assumed that if I was fortunate enough to be elected, it would be a two-term commitment. As I have thought long and hard about this decision, I have come back to this starting point. As much as I love the job, as hard as I work at it and as much as my team and I have to contribute in a third term, I believe that a governor should limit him or herself to two terms.

This is the norm in this country. The President and most governors are limited to two terms by law. Most others have followed tradition. It has largely been Wisconsin’s practice over its history. I am already the longest serving Democratic governor and by the end of my term will be the second-longest serving governor in Wisconsin history.

So now, Doyle is apparently a proponent of term limits.  Two terms, to be exact.  This is, of course, after Doyle served three terms in a statewide capacity as Attorney General.  Clearly, term limits weren’t a consideration when he could actually continue winning.  When his term expires in 2010, Doyle will have spent a total of 20 years – nearly a third of his life – in statewide office.

So Doyle and his wife Jessica decided in 2002 that he would only serve two terms.  Maybe someone should call homemaker Joanne Schalch of Middleton, who gave Doyle $50 on June 6th of 2009, to see if Doyle let her in on the plan he hatched with his wife seven years earlier.  Maybe Rolen Womack of the Progressive Baptist Church in Brown Deer would like to know that Doyle accepted his $100 contribution on June 2nd of this year, despite having this supposed fundamental belief in only serving two terms.  In fact, one can go down the list of any of the $891,136.13 in contributions Doyle has accepted during this election period and wonder – If he was so committed to term limits, why did he raise $1 million over the last three years?  Why was he still raising money a month ago?

The answer is simple – this alleged term limit pact with Jessica is pure B.S.  In fact, Doyle’s terms were going to be limited, all right – by the voters of Wisconsin.  This miraculous death row conversion is merely an attempt to convince us that Doyle is adhering to some larger heartfelt principle, rather than what we know to be the case – that his disastrous stewardship of state policy has made him virtually unelectable.

So if we take the Governor at his word, all the regular folks who donated their money to Doyle were lied to.  Unfortunately, politicians don’t come with a money back guarantee.

If you’re a fan of movies (who isn’t?) and a follower of politics (who is?), I would strongly recommend you see “Please Vote For Me,” a documentary about a third grade class election in China.  (It is available via the online viewing option on Netflix, if you’re interested.)

Of course, you may wonder –  what’s so interesting about a 3rd grade class monitor election in China?  But like any good documentary, there are themes that are immediately recognizable to followers of politics in America.

The context is important – here is a country where communism still reigns, yet the teacher goes ahead with the class experiment in democracy.  So here you have people with no concept of how democracy works – yet as soon as the election starts, the kids immediately begin to utilize campaign tricks endemic to our electoral system.  They begin negative campaigning – pointing out each others’ faults, rather than emphasizing their own.  The candidates immediately start coordinating dirty tricks to embarrass each other.  One kid’s dad takes the whole class on a monorail ride to try to buy votes for his son.

There are a few scenes of their debates that are simply amazing.  One kid, Cheng Cheng, accuses the only girl running, Xiaofei, of being unable to lead because she eats her food too slowly.  She responds that it shows her to be deliberate.  Cheng Cheng tries to turn the class against the other candidate, Luo Lei, by asking how many kids in the class had been beaten by Luo Lei.  Half the class raises their hands.

There are a couple ways of looking at the movie.  It shows that these dirty tricks – negative campaigning, whispering campaigns, trying to buy votes, are simply an inextricable part of democracy.  This should be a wakeup call to all these “good government” groups that lose sleep over the fact that people actually have the right to speak out during campaigns.  There’s simply no way to micromanage campaign speech or contributions in a way that achieves some utopian vision of campaigning.

On the other hand, it shows that American candidates often behave like third graders.

Here’s the trailer – although it doesn’t do justice to how interesting of a movie it actually is.

For a political junkie, the last week of a campaign is like Thanksgiving dinner – all the negative ads and political maneuvering you can fill your belly with.  Of course, as is the case every election, you have the following cycle:

1.  Third party groups run negative ads.

2.  Newspapers call for elimination of third party ads.

3.  Newspapers fail to educate public as to the accuracy of these supposedly “toxic” third party ads.

As I’ve pointed out time and time again, newspapers merely cheerlead for campaign finance reform because eliminating free speech for these third party groups enhances the print media’s clout during elections.  These papers crying and whining about how “poisonous” these ads are is a farce meant to cloak their true intention – shutting down political debate outside their pages.

For example, numerous negative ads are being run in the Madison TV market by groups like WEAC, the Greater Wisconsin Committee, and the Coalition for America’s Families.   Some of them make dubious claims, which supposedly lead to this “toxic” political environment.  You would think that the Wisconsin State Journal or any of the local TV stations would expend some of their time setting the record straight when these ads – which are so dangerous for democracy – run in their area.  Yet a Lexis Nexis search shows that the State Journal hasn’t written a single, solitary word on any of the ads.  No fact finding to set the record straight, no check as to their accuracy.  So basically, newspapers argue these ads need to be regulated by the government because the papers themselves are too disinterested in actually researching the claims they make.

Well, fear not, political folks.  Wispolitics.com has posted a few of the local Assembly ads being run, and I’ll go through a couple of them to explain some of the sourcing used in the ads.  It’s the least I can do for democracy.

Also, I noticed that some of the ads on the Wispolitics site have now been replaced by cleaner versions without citations of their sources.  I’m guessing the Greater Wisconsin Committee saw the ads up there, and sent Wispolitics footnote-free versions of their ads precisely to keep people from me from doing the kind of source analysis I’m about to do.  They are apparently aware of how bogus some of their own claims are.  Fortunately, I kept the original versions with their citations.

Just for clarification before I begin: there are several themes that are going to pop up in a few of these ads.  First, there’s the concept of the “procedural” vote.  These votes generally occur during the budget, when an agreement has been made between the Assembly and Senate on a final package.  The budget goes to the floor of the respective houses for a vote, then is barraged by amendments by the minority party – all of which inevitably fail, since passing any of them would break the tenuous negotiation between the houses.  As it turns out in the Assembly, Democrats have been in the minority for 14 years – so they’ve gotten pretty good at offering amendment after amendment, solely for the purpose of aiding third party groups in writing campaign ads when Republicans inevitably have to vote them down.  (Of course, editorial boards always accuse the Legislature of “wasting time” when they pass bills with which they disagree – such as guaranteeing citizens’ constitutional rights to bear arms – but they don’t consider it to be wasting time when a minority party spends hours and hours offering up doomed amendments solely for the purpose of writing campaign ads.)

Also, many of the ads cite votes taken on the budget – as everyone knows, the budget contains thousands of provisions, some good, some bad.  But in the end, a legislator gets one final vote up or down.  So even if a budget is 98% good, some group will find the 2% bad on which to run a 30 second TV ad.  For instance, State Representative Sheldon Wasserman is running an ad against Senator Alberta Darling in which he criticizes a 1995 (!) budget vote that raised gas taxes – without mentioning the fact that the budget also cut property taxes by $1 billion by increasing state aids to school districts.  Seemed to have left that part out.

I should also note that this analysis is really meant more as an example of how facts are twisted in campaign ads.  I doubt more than 20 people know or care who “Doc” Hines is – but the ad being run against him is instructive as to how these claims are put together.

So let’s get started:

Greater Wisconsin Committee: “What’s Up Doc? Version 2” (click to view)

“Doc Hines voted against closing corporate tax loopholes”

The ad leads off with the most puzzling claim of all: it cites Hines’ vote for the budget adjustment bill on May 14th of this year as proof that he voted “against closing corporate loopholes.”  But the only vote Hines took on that day was for the bill in its final form – the same form that the Democratic senate had passed a day earlier, and virtually the same form that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle signed into law five days later.  If Doc Hines voted against closing corporate tax loopholes because of the budget adjustment bill, then so did every Democrat in the state senate (except Tim Carpenter).

What it appears they are trying to do is to point out that an earlier Senate version of the budget adjustment bill contained a provision called “combined reporting,” (p. 50) which amounts to a $130 million tax increase on companies that do business outside the state.  But since the Assembly voted on their version of the adjustment bill first, they couldn’t get a clean shot at Hines for removing the provision – so they did the best they could by fabricating a phantom vote.  But, as noted, it was the (horrible) final version of the budget on which everyone seemed to agree.

“Doc Hines voted against making big oil pay its fair share.”

During the 2007 budget, Governor Doyle introduced a budget provision to tax oil companies on their gross receipts.  As the Fiscal Bureau stated and as our WPRI report shows, this “oil tax” would have led to a five to seven cent increase in the cost of gas per gallon.  So it wouldn’t have been “big oil” paying the tax, it would have been consumers, who were already struggling with prices at the pump.  Miraculously, gas prices have now dropped without phony punitive measures against oil companies.  Thanks, big oil!

Citing this vote is also a bit of a procedural trick – the Senate passed their version of the bill that included the oil tax, and sent the bill over to the Assembly.  The Assembly then voted on their version of the bill, which didn’t include the gas tax.  So the vote Hines took wasn’t to affirmatively remove the gas tax – it was simply for their alternative plan that didn’t include it.

“Doc Hines voted for more tax breaks for the wealthy.”

For this, they cite Hines’ vote on Assembly Bill 47, which provided an income tax credit for people with health savings accounts.  The bill doesn’t say anything about income limits or who the tax is targeted to – it merely updates state law to match the federal law which already provides a tax incentive for HSAs.  To claim that a tax credit for health expenses is a “tax break for the wealthy” is well beyond a stretch.

Doc Hines voted against property tax relief.”

For this, they cite another procedural vote on Assembly Bill 452, the “Homeowners Property Tax Credit” bill, which would have exempted the first $60,000 of an individual’s home from taxation.  The vote wasn’t on the bill itself, but on whether Democrats should be allowed to pull the bill to the floor for a vote.  Several years ago, Democrats trotted this idea out as part of their “HOPE” plan.  They realized at the time that if they exempted properties from taxation, they would have to raise state taxes to pay local governments for the loss in revenue.  So as part of the original plan, they funded the credit by charging a legislative committee with picking out sales taxes to raise to fund the plan.  Realizing that idea was a dud, they came back this session and wrote a bill giving the credit without the commensurate tax increase – showing that this bill is merely a campaign talking point, not a serious attempt at keeping down property taxes.  The Fiscal Bureay has even challenged its constitutionality, pursuant to the uniformity clause.  But, it ended up in an ad, so mission accomplished.

“Doc Hines voted for raising drug costs 33% for seniors.”

This one is rich.  In 2003, the state’s Seniorcare program that provided nearly-free prescription drugs for seniors was in the red.  As part of the 2003-05 budget, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee raised the co-pay for name brand prescription drugs from $15 to $20 to keep the plan solvent.  Generics were untouched.  So this $5 increase, applied to name brand drugs for the relatively small number of the elderly in the Seniorcare program, tucked in a budget of 1,000 other items, became “raising drug costs 33% for seniors.”  Never mind that they were saving hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars by being able to enroll in this taxpayer-subsidized program.

And it gets even better.  As part of the budget he introduced, Governor Doyle increased (p. 372) the prescription drug copayment for individuals in the MA program from $1 to $3.  The final version of the budget Hines voted for went along with Doyle’s proposal – thus the claim in the ad that Hines voted for “tripling the drug costs on working families.”

Finally, it should be noted that Governor Doyle himself, in the same budget, increased the program enrollment fee from $20 to $30 – a “33% increase” for seniors.

I think you can see now why the GWC didn’t want this ad online.

Ad #2: WEAC: Hixon/Towns

“Kim Hixon fought to increase job training programs that help workers get through tough economic times.”

The ad references Assembly Amendment 1 to Assembly Substitute Amendment 1 to Senate Bill 40 on July 10th of 2007.  But Hixon voted against this amendment.  One is left to wonder how that is “fighting to increase job training programs.”  Later, Hixon voted for the final version of the budget on October 23rd.

“Debi Towns has protected big oil and corporations from paying their fair share of taxes, shifting the burden on to families and seniors.”

The citation here is difficult to read, but presumably it’s the same stuff about big oil and corporations that they tried to hit Doc Hines with.  However, they do cite a “report” by the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, which we here at WPRI exposed as completely fraudulent over a year and a half ago.  They would have been on more solid footing citing a Garfield comic.

Ad #3: WEAC: Ripp/O’Neil

This one is outstanding in that it doesn’t make a single criticism of Keith Ripp – only that he’s supported by horrible Assembly Republicans.  So, because he is also a Republican, they can then conveniently pivot and throw all the nonsensical trash at him that they want, even though he doesn’t have a single vote in the legislature to criticize.

To wit:

Assembly Republicans fought against expanding affordable health care.”

Two citations here:  One is 2005 Assembly Bill 834, which says (and I am not making this up:)

This bill states that “In the 2007-08 legislative session, the legislature shall introduce, and by January 1, 2008, shall pass, a bill that does the following:” 1)assures that at least 98 percent of Wisconsin residents have health care coverage within two years after enactment of the bill into law, and 2) reduces the costs associated with providing health care to residents of Wisconsin, excluding the costs of public assistance programs, by 15 percent within two years after enactment.

So there you have it – they just write a bill that says the Legislature has to provide universal health care in two years, and they call it a plan.  That is the “expanded” health care coverage bill opposed by Assembly Republicans.  Can they also write a bill mandating the Brewers make it back to the playoffs next year?  Thanks, Assembly Democrats.

The second citation is a little murkier.  It’s the aforementioned Assembly version of the 2007-09 budget.  And, as with the case of Doc Hines, it looks like they are hitting Assembly Republicans (and therefore Keith Ripp, who was probably out buying a vacuum cleaner while all this was going on) for not adopting the Senate version of the budget, which included… drumroll… the good ol’ Healthy Wisconsin $15.2 billion tax hike for government run health care.  Certainly something Trish O’Neil wants to be associated with, right?  (See next ad.)

Oh, and Trish O’Neil is going make sure we have good jobs and renewable energy and all that.  How do I know?  Well, they put her campaign website address on there.

Ad #4:  Coalition for America’s Families: Trish O’Neil/Illegal Alien Health Care

This ad makes three claims:

1.  Healthy Wisconsin provides health care for illegal aliens

2.  Healthy Wisconsin provides health care for people who don’t live in Wisconsin

3.  Trish O’Neil supports Healthy Wisconsin.

The response to these three points, in order are: It does, it does, and she does.  Or at least she did.

As explained by Deb Jordahl on this blog a few days ago:

Dane County candidates Trish O’Neil and John Waelti are likewise feeling the heat. O’Neil, who told Wisconsin Eye she thought Healthy Wisconsin was a good place to start is now saying claims of her support for the plan are utterly false. O’Neil is also endorsed by fellow nurse and Healthy Wisconsin champion Senator Judy Robson. Robson said, “I look forward to having her in the legislature so that together we can pass the necessary legislation to assure all people access to quality, affordable healthcare.”

In fact, several Assembly and Senate candidates are moonwalking away from Healthy Wisconsin as if it were a poisonous jellyfish in their pants.  Democrats have actually sent out their team of lawyers in an attempt to get the ads pulled from TV stations across the state.

Democrats have offered several reasons why these ads are false, yet none of them contradict the basic facts in the ad.  Perhaps it is a stretch to say Healthy Wisconsin is “Trish O’Neil’s plan.”  But she did say Healthy Wisconsin is “a good place to start.” (Geez – if a universal single-payer statewide program that doubles the state budget is “a start,” what is the next step? Universal pedicures?)

Of course it is impossible for me to stay unbiased on this issue, as we here at WPRI were the first ones to bring up the issue of health care migration, a la welfare benefits.  So consider that built-in bias in this analysis.

So there you have it – a fact-based analysis of the claims made in four ads running on TV right now.  There are certainly more than can be fact-checked, but I’m sure the local media will take my idea and run with it.

There’s no question these groups have the right to run these ads.  If the First Amendment means anything, it is to protect unpopular political speech like these campaign spots.  But it is incumbent upon media and bloggers to dig deeper to explain what’s going on in these ads.  When a local newspaper complains about ads but doesn’t rectify their effect, they are just as complicit in the “toxic” political climate which they decry.

May God bless our democracy.  (Waving flag.)

UPDATE:  Wispolitics Adwatch restored the versions of the Greater Wisconsin Committee ads that were missing the citations.

With all the talk about the criminal charges against groups like ACORN for trying to fatten Wisconsin’s voter rolls, I thought it would be helpful to stroll through the state’s statutes to give a common language explanation of what exactly it is that they’re doing wrong, and why it matters.  The easiest way to do so, I think, is to compile a simple how-to manual describing the various ways state law allows you to cast a fraudulent vote and never be caught.

Of course, the overriding theme here is names – once someone gets a false name on a voter list, it is there virtually for good.  A first name, last name and address is as good as a vote, as long as identification isn’t necessary to verify it at the polls.  If ACORN were merely adding fraudulent names to voter rolls to satisfy some kind of quota they had set for themselves, that would still be fraud, but not nearly as concerning.  But since Wisconsin doesn’t require any sort of identification verification at the polls, those names could quickly become votes – which can easily sway elections.

#1:  “Deputize”

This is the one you’ve been hearing about in the news recently.  Until the last year or so, local governments could “deputize” people to go out and collect names to be added to the voter rolls.  The names were written down on cards and mailed in.  In theory, these are supposed to be treated like mail-in registrations, which require some form of proof of residence.  But this required local governments to be vigilant in doing the legwork to verify all these new names, which may not have often occurred.

Now, the state is supposed to be handling the “deputy” registration process.  ACORN submits the names they collect to the state, which does a preliminary check, then farms the names out to the municipality to do the final check.  But what ACORN tries to do is flood the state with names, so it takes a long time for them to sort through them and redirect them to the local clerk.  Some clerks have said they are still getting registrations from the state dated as far back as August – and with just a few days left before the election, there’s just not enough time to do the requisite checks.  As a result, a lot of names could be showing up on the rolls without adequate verification.

After the election, clerks are required to send post cards to all the new registrants to verify addresses.  If a post card comes back undeliverable and the individual voted, those names are supposed to be forwarded to the district attorney in that municipality’s county.  Once the DA has those names, it is completely up to them what they do with them.  And given the time needed to track down these people, those names could sit on the shelf for a while.

But, as noted, once a vote is cast, it is cast.  As long as ACORN has a Xerox machine and copies off the cards, they know the names they put on the voter lists.  And any one of their volunteers can go from polling place to polling place, voting under any number of pseudonyms.

#2:  “The Vouch”

When someone actually registers to vote for the first time at the polls, some form of proof of residence is required.  This could be a driver’s license, bank statement, utility bill, or several other forms of identification.  If a person does not have the required identification, they can still cast a provisional ballot.  It is only after a person is registered that they are no longer forced to verify their identity.  However, there is a giant loophole – someone can register to vote without any form of identification as long as a registered voter “vouches” for them.

So on election day, you will sometimes see a situation where a bus of people pulls up, with none of the people having identification.  One person on the bus will be a registered voter in the municipality, and will then “vouch” for all the others, which will then be allowed to register on the spot without any form of ID.  These people could be from Illinois, they could be from Texas, they could be from Prague.  And the only way their residence can every be verified is months after the election, when the postcard check is completed, if it is ever completed.

#3:  “Phone a Friend”

Under state law, voter lists are public information, and for good reason.  The public should have a right to examine who is registered.  As such, sometimes you will see poll watchers at the polls, who have a copy of the same list the clerks have.  When a voter comes in and casts a ballot, the poll watcher scratches that name off the master list.

Near the end of the day, the poll worker is left with a list of all the people who haven’t voted – which, even during the busiest days, is half the list.  At around 7:00 PM, they can get on the phone and read off a list of names of people who have not yet voted, so people can come down and use those names to cast ballots.  Again, since no identification is required, there’s no way the poll workers can question whether they are the actual people they say they are.

This method has the added bonus of filling up the polling place right before they’re scheduled to close at 8:00, which leads to lawsuits being filed to keep the polling place open.  That way, if the wrong candidate wins, voter suppression can be alleged.

Of course in two of the above ways, it is impossible to go back and check whether fraud has occurred, since voting under a name on the rolls is perfectly legal without identification.  And, to the state’s credit, other openings for potential fraud have been tightened up in recent years.  Checks are being done to make sure voters aren’t registered at more than one location within the state.  At one time, a community group could request a stack of ballots, have people fill them out in their offices, and send them in absentee (this is what happened at the famous “bingo” party Governor Doyle’s volunteers held in Kenosha in 2002.)  Apparently, that no longer is legal.  It should also be noted that some of ACORN’s volunteers are being caught, which means some safeguards are working.

However, despite many of these safeguards being in place now, the toothpaste may already be out of the tube.  Who knows how many false names and addresses have been added to the voter rolls by these community groups in the past few years.  And, as noted, they are extremely difficult to check.  And new regulations do nothing to roll back the names that already exist.  ACORN knows these names, but clerks do not.

Also, there are still tactics that go on that can’t be easily fixed by state law.  Offering “smokes for votes” to homeless people is going to go on – it’s illegal, but difficult to catch.  College students are probably still going to be able to vote in their home states and in Wisconsin, until there’s a national database check – which, given Wisconsin’s difficulty in putting together a statewide list, is still a long way away.  Campaigns will still be able to shell out under the table “walking money” to volunteers to pay them to get people to the polls.

But with a simple switch to a photo ID requirement, all of ACORN’s shenanigans are undercut significantly.  It severs the tie between “vote fraud” and “vote registration fraud,” and gives our electors more insurance that their votes aren’t being cancelled out by fraud.

Yesterday, Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign wrote an editorial in the Capital Times, arguing Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen\’s lawsuit is a \”fool\’s mission.\”  Essentially, McCabe says we shouldn\’t enforce the current federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), because it might upset some people (which is kind of the purpose of a lawsuit):

No matter the outcome in court, the one thing his action surely will do is hopelessly divide voters into two camps — those (mostly Republicans) who believe he\’s protecting election integrity and those (chiefly Democrats) who think he\’s messing with the vote and trying to rig the election for his guy.

Then he starts hitting all the typical lefty talking points – that somehow Florida and Ohio were \”stolen\” by Republicans:

It is no coincidence that Ohio and Florida were the sites of ugly election controversies in the last two presidential elections that left lingering questions about whether eligible voters were improperly prevented from casting ballots and whether votes were properly counted.

In fact, the federal law Wisconsin is now thumbing its nose at was passed in response to the debacle in Florida. That fact that we remain noncompliant actually ensures that such a disaster (and it is only considered a disaster because Bush won, incidentally) will be more likely to occur. Who knows – our system could be rampant with fraud right now – but because we don\’t have a way of accurately checking who is voting, there\’s no way to know. Whatever.

Then, McCabe takes personal credit for creating the current mess we\’re in:

That\’s why it behooves us to make sure political party leaders have no place in running our elections. And it\’s why reform groups like the Democracy Campaign fought so hard to pass ethics reform legislation that created a new politically independent agency under the direction of a nonpartisan board of retired judges to administer elections as well as enforce campaign finance, ethics and lobbying laws.

Uh, yeah – that \”independent\” board he\’s talking about is the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the same board that refuses to follow the federal law.  So it makes perfect sense that he opposes Van Hollen\’s lawsuit – the AG is suing McCabe\’s personal voter fraud machine.

Yet the most interesting part of McCabe\’s message is the messenger himself.  Here\’s a guy who has an aneurysm when a single legislator fails to report the workplace of a campaign contributor on their finance reports.  He\’s made his name preying on the carcass of Scott Jensen, arguing he should get the death sentence for breaking a law that actually really doesn\’t exist.  (This isn\’t to say Jensen didn\’t do some things that were wrong, they just weren\’t technically illegal.)

So I just hope we can get some clarification from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign – just tell us which laws we should enforce with the full power of the state, and which laws we should completely ignore.  Somehow, I think they\’ll opt to ignore the law that allows the theft of thousands of votes.  Just a hunch.

Hooray, Democracy!

Today, the Democratic National Campaign Committee announced their list of speakers for Day 1 of their national convention in Denver:

Joining the program on Monday, August 25th will be Former President Jimmy Carter; Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar; Miami Mayor Manny Diaz; Illinois state leaders Alexi Giannoulis, Dan Hynes, Lisa Madigan, and Tom Balanoff from Illinois SEIU; long-time Barack Obama mentor Jerry Kellman; NEA President Reg Weaver; AFT President Randi Weingarten; and NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan.

The theme of the day with that guest list? You guessed it:

\”One Nation.\”

In their defense, perhaps they\’re referring to the People\’s Republic of Delusion.  Just further evidence they don\’t even recognize half the country they live in.

As summer rolls along, only the rabid few political junkies are paying attention to politics.  And of course, most of those hard core political followers are getting their election news from the internet source of record:  MC Hammer\’s blog.  Watch as he deftly and coherently defends Barack Obama against Republican attacks:

We heard you…this is noted….there will be hell to pay!!!

How low will you go ?

In a week where you tried to position Obama against our beloved Israel (the beautiful city of God) peace be upon it….

position him against his friends and brothers…you won\’t be able to divide us..

attacked his wife…

in your desperation you played your cards to early…. Black and Brown will come together…

The Jewish Community and the African American community are brothers and friends and we both love Israel…

Your party (has become) is dark and evil…and you will not win the office of the Presidency

You have no boundaries… win at all cost.. your party is out of touch with the people of America..

You under estimate and insult our intelligence… we don\’t respect your agenda driven journalism…

witness the power of the web..it baffles you…a real conundrum for your party…

16 years will pass before we give you back control of Our America.. we see you clearly…. Old Evil Men…(OEM) your time has passed… time for change…

I think that pretty much settles it.  Hopefully, Hammer can keep up this semi-lucid political flow before the feds come and repossess his computer.

Undoubtedly, there will be much amateurish trash floating around the internet during the presidential campaign.  However, this video is actually pretty good – and it is not only safe for work, but turning up your volume is encouraged:

To show that the Presidential election is almost in full swing in mid-June, here are a couple of notable TV ads currently running.

First, here’s a John McCain ad that emphasizes the environment and global warming:

I’m skeptical as to how effective the environment actually is as a campaign issue. Everyone considers themselves an environmentalist, but few are actually willing to vote on that basis. Furthermore, people are increasingly getting the idea that “environmentalism” equals “higher gas prices.”

But this ad is important for McCain not because he’s any kind of beaver hugger, but because the environment serves as a platform for differentiating himself from other Republicans. He’s obviously seen the polls that show the GOP doing poorly across the board, and he wants to get away from them like they’re a garage sale nose hair trimmer. (The hint here is his use of a newspaper clip image that expressly says “McCain Climate Views Clash With GOP.” You need a graduate degree in political science for this kind of insightful commentary, folks – don’t try this at home.)

Next up is a MoveOn.org anti-McCain ad:

The central talking point of this ad is almost too stupid to address, and since you’re obviously smart enough to be reading a public policy blog, you know why it’s bogus. When McCain said we were going to be in Iraq for 100 years, all he meant was that we would have a presence there. Hopefully a peaceful one. We’ve been in Germany since the end of World War II, but nobody suggests we’re at war with them. (I actually had a sister born there as a result of my father’s military duty in Germany. My mom wasn’t exactly dodging grenades during childbirth.)

In closing, a couple amusing graphics:

Today, long time State Senator Roger Breske announced he was retiring from the State Legislature to take over as Wisconsin Commissioner of Railroads. Breske, who had served in the Legislature for 18 years, was a quintessential Northern Wisconsin Democrat. While he was a consistent vote for Democratic efforts to raise taxes, he was fiercely protective of his constitutents\’ rights to property and gun ownership. He has been praised on this very blog for his plain-spoken opposition to a statewide smoking ban. He was also pro-life and conservative on a variety other social issues.

Yet despite his steadfast adherance to personal conviction, Breske\’s legacy will be tainted by a single vote, taken on March 4th of 2003.

If there\’s any group that Breske calls his own, it is tavern owners. The Senator is a legend in the taverns of the 12th Senate District – it\’s the one place where everyone knows his name, and he claims to have grown up in a bar. It is this support for bar owners that forged his virulent opposition to the smoking ban.

One thing that threatens small family-owned bars in Northern Wisconsin is the competition wrought by Indian casinos. When casinos grow in the north woods, it drains money out of taverns, as people often choose to spend their money gambling.

In 2003, Governor Jim Doyle unilaterally negotiated several gaming compacts that allowed greatly expanded gambling in perpetuity. The compacts could never be revisited, unless the Indian tribes agreed to do so. In exchange, the state treasury got a slightly higher cut of the casino revenues.

Naturally, such an arrangement would be a blow to northern tavern owners. When the Legislature considered a bill to add legislative oversight to approval of gaming compacts (a concept Doyle supported as Attorney General), Breske voted for it. After Doyle vetoed the bill, it headed back to the State Senate, where it appeared the votes were there to override Doyle\’s veto.

Quickly, it became apparent that Breske might be the deciding vote on whether to override the governor\’s veto. He anguished over his decision for days, hiding from his Senate colleagues. When he left his office, he was hounded by reporters wondering whether he was going to side with his most beloved constituent group – the tavern owners – or if he was going to switch his vote and side with Doyle.

When Breske finally announced he was inserting a knife into the back of his district tavern owners and siding with the Governor, rumors abound that he had struck some kind of deal with Doyle. Breske is, after all, 70 years old, and seemed to welcome the idea of a less stressful job within the Doyle administration. After his vote on the gaming compacts, some speculated it was only a matter of time that he would take advantage of his deal with Doyle. And now that day may have arrived.

The 12th Senate District is a Republican district that Democrats were able to hold because of Breske\’s personal popularity. With Roger gone, it could be a GOP pickup in the fall. Unfortunately, despite his hard work on behalf of his constituents, it will always appear that he was willing to sell them out for political gain.

UPDATE:  Here\’s a March 4, 2003 account of Breske\’s travails, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (sorry, no link:)

Senate Republicans were counting on Sen. Roger Breske (D-Eland), in particular, to join them in voting to override the veto. Breske, former president of the Wisconsin Tavern League, had said earlier Monday that he would vote to override Doyle and seek legislation to legalize video poker in taverns.

[…]

But when Breske changed his mind late in the day, the Senate abruptly adjourned on a party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer (R-West Bend) explained the delay by saying GOP senators had concerns they wanted Doyle to address before they voted. But Senate Minority Leader Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said it was clear that Republicans called off the vote because they lacked the necessary two-thirds majority to override.

[…]

Breske had told a number of tribal members early Monday that he would vote to override the veto. When asked later why he changed his mind, Breske said he tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a deal between Doyle and the Tavern League that would avoid giving Doyle the political embarrassment of a veto override. Although the league ultimately rejected the agreement, the fact that Doyle was willing to compromise on some issues prompted Breske to reverse his position.

Breske said Doyle had agreed not to object to having tougher drunken driving language removed from his budget bill. To avoid losing federal aid, Doyle proposed that the state lower the blood-alcohol level from 0.10 to 0.08 for evi-dence of drunken driving.

\”We worked all day, trying to cut a deal,\” Breske said. \”I thought it was workable, and they (the Tavern League) should have accepted it, but they didn\’t.\”

It goes without saying that today\’s conversations are often constrained by the evolving feelings of the aggrieved. What someone could get away with saying in the 1950\’s often won\’t fly in 2008 – primarily, because people aren\’t used to being talked to bluntly and directly.

Given today\’s debate about the integrity of the voting process in Wisconsin, this article from the 1958 Wisconsin Blue Book seems shocking in its bluntness. The Blue Book, the state\’s almanac of government and politics, is known for its impartial description of legislative issues in the time it is released. Normally, the Blue Book is considered an effective cure for insomnia. Yet, clearly, an impartial article about voting in 1958 seems downright inflammatory in 2008. See the first page below:

Basically, the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau had no problem essentially calling people dopes if they either made an ill-informed vote, or threw their vote away as a \”protest.\”
Supporters of a law requiring photo ID at polling places often point out that one needs an ID to rent a movie, go to a bar, or cash a check. They argue that if people are expected to use identification for those relatively insignificant actions, they certainly should be asked to verify who they are before voting.

Those who are anti-photo ID (Governor Jim Doyle, for instance), counter that voting is a \”right,\” and therefore different than those other actions which require identification. Yet, clearly, the idea that voting is a \”right\” is a new concept. As stated clearly above, voting was traditionally considered a privilege, exercised by those who display a modicum of civic responsibility and knowledge.

Perhaps most amazingly, the Blue Book offers up this strong quote, which – despite its common sense meaning – would today seem to be partisan fighting words:

For many centuries, and even today, in parts of our world people have struggled and died for the privilege of voting, and it therefore behooves those of us to whom the privilege has come so easily by reason of birth in this state that we treat this privilege with the dignity to which it is entitled.

Clearly, what was once common sense has now been twisted to the advantage of certain people looking to influence elections. People in 1958 were proud of the integrity of their elections, and recognized the civic responsibility inherent in the privilege of voting. Today, voting is less an act of civic responsibility and more an act of gaming the system for partisan advantage.

Read the whole 1958 article here.