The Cheddarsphere’s Blogfather obtained a copy of an e-mail exchange between Paul Olsen (yes, the brother of Sen. Luther Olsen, both of the Olsen family distillery infamy) and Luther’s chief of staff Heather Smith over Luther’s decision to once again recuse himself from the corn-a-hole debate after initially being a cosponsor, partly because it went onto the state’s e-mail system and thus is a public record, but mostly because it went out to upwards of 40 people legitimately. What is quite telling is a portion of Smith’s response…
…There are a huge number of people in southeast Wisconsin – not just talk radio, but certainly including them, who are looking for a reason to take out Luther, and make him the next Mary Panzer. Bob can tell you this easily – there are a ton of the “true conservatives” (who also are the ethanol-haters) from down there who have pledged to defeat any republican who would dare to vote for this….
So they start by ginning up support in the moneyed Milwaukee market which HATES ethanol. Whatever. If it’s only Milwaukee people, you can probably withstand the storm, because you can assume your constituents are OK. But, and clearly you don’t realize this, Luther’s constituents heard this, and reacted. And not 3-4-5-10 people. We got dozens of
calls and emails just yesterday alone. From constituents. Not from just people who hate ethanol, although there were a few of those. But from people who think that Luther is dirty. That he’s deceitful. That you are. That he’s pulling a fast one on everyone, so that you and he benefit. These are the people Luther asks permission from every few years to keep his job.There were not a hundred calls, or ten, or EVEN ONE CALL from a constituent who wanted to tell Luther, “Heck yeah, vote for this, it’s great!” We got a memo from a “special interest group” and the DNR, and heaven knows the DNR should always be listened to.
As a Milwaukee-area ethanol-hater (no need for the scare quotes when it’s burned; put it into a glass and I rather like ethanol), I will work to oust those that want to burn our food. ‘Tis good to hear the folks of Olsen’s district have risen up, and also good that he has listened to them.
As an aside, I don’t exactly buy Smith’s contention that it’s dead. The last time we whacked this, it started in the Assembly, and she’s using the Assembly’s lack of a companion bill as “proof” that it’s well and truly dead. My outside-the-Beltway view is that the corn-a-hole folks thought that they’d try where they failed last time (namely, the Senate), and take for granted they still had the support of the Assembly and Jim Doyle. Given the last attempt went through the Assembly with more than half the ‘Rats (20 of 39) then supporting it, and the leadership in the Assembly now supported it then, it cannot be assumed that the Assembly won’t touch it.
